The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (31 page)

“Mitchell would take care of them?” Nixon asked, a bit incredulous. “How could he?” Colson did not have an answer but changed the subject. He instead explained that Hunt’s lawyer had told him that Hunt had objected to the Watergate operation because of the way Liddy was handling it; Hunt had recognized the problems and risks. “I think where there’s a question of clemency, Hunt is a simple case,” Nixon said. “I mean, after all, the man’s wife is dead, was killed; he’s got one child that has—”

“—brain damage from an automobile accident,” Colson finished.

“That’s right,” the president said, and he was soon envisioning how they would manage it: “We’ll build that son of a bitch up like nobody’s business. We’ll have [conservative columnist William F.] Buckley write a column and say, you know, that he should have clemency, if you’ve given eighteen years of service,” referring to Hunt’s CIA tenure. “That’s what we’ll do. That’s it, it’s on the merits.”

But noting that Hunt had not been involved in Watergate alone, Nixon added, “I would have difficulty with some of the others.”

“Oh, yeah,” Colson agreed, “the vulnerabilities are different with the others also.” Nixon wanted to know why he thought that was the case. “Well, because Hunt and Liddy did the work,” Colson began. “The others didn’t know anything direct, that is, they didn’t have to do it.” Colson might have stated the matter more directly—namely, that Hunt and Liddy could cause Colson and the White House problems—but Nixon understood his point, and replied, “Well, I agree with you.” Colson added, “I don’t give a damn if [the others] spend five years in jail in the interim,” which led Nixon to protest, “[That’s not] a good attitude.”

“But that means they can’t hurt us,” Colson countered. “Hunt and Liddy were direct guardians of the meetings, and all those discussions are very incriminating for us,” which prompted Nixon to again seek assurance
that Liddy was tough. “Yeah, he is, apparently one of these guys who’s a masochist, he enjoys punishing himself,” Colson explained. “That’s okay, as long as he remains stable. I think he’s tough. He’s an ideologue.” Nixon liked this, and the conversation moved to other matters, including the fact that Mike Mansfield had gotten Teddy Kennedy off the hook on Watergate by passing it on to Senator Sam Ervin.

“There’s lots at stake,” the president observed, “and, incidentally, we’ll survive it.” Nixon said Watergate was like ITT: People would eventually tire of it unless the investigators got “a big name,” the most likely candidate being John Mitchell. But he noted: So far Mitchell’s involvement was only hearsay; at least Mitchell himself was smart; and “he was close to it but not in it directly.” Colson begged to differ and suggested that Mitchell may have committed perjury. “Perjury, that’s a damn hard rap to prove,” Nixon reminded him, and said that, while Alger Hiss had been found guilty of perjury, “they haven’t got that kind of evidence on Mitchell. Or anybody else, have they?” Colson did not think they did, but he was concerned about a congressional inquiry. He mentioned that if Hunt was forced to plead to all the counts of his indictment, he could also be forced to testify before Congress, and there he could not take the Fifth Amendment.

After the conversation moved on to other matters, the president returned to congressional investigations and said that if “the Watergate thing goes too far,” he was ready to counter with the fact that he had been bugged by the FBI at President Johnson’s request for the final two weeks of his 1968 campaign. He knew this because the person who had done it for Johnson was Deke DeLoach, who had told Mitchell, and J. Edgar Hoover had also told Nixon. The president thought this information could be a powerful way to turn off the Watergate investigation, because it could involve former vice president Hubert Humphrey as well. “Yeah, we’ve got a few cards to put out,” Nixon boasted, to which Colson agreed, “Let’s do it.”
¹⁸

The president headed for Key Biscayne for six days to relax and work on his inaugural address. Hunt pled guilty on January 11, and Barker, Martinez, Gonzales and Sturgis would follow suit on January 15. It was during this period that Seymour Hersh of the
New York Times
began writing some of the most troubling stories that would be reported about Watergate.
Woodward and Bernstein had been focused on who was responsible for the break-in and on portraying it as part of a larger espionage and sabotage effort. If that operation existed in any organized form, I did not (and do not) know who was behind it, and even four decades later I have never found evidence for its existence; it seems, instead, to have been a fantasy scenario apparently advanced by their Deep Throat source, Mark Felt. Hersh, in contrast, suspected that a cover-up was in progress, and it was there that he focused his considerable energies and ability.

On Saturday, January 12, I called Haldeman, who was in Florida with the president, to warn him about a troubling Hersh
Times
story, as well as on an ongoing problem with McCord. As Haldeman later noted in his diary: “I had a report this afternoon from Dean on the Watergate. Apparently there is going to be a Hersh story in
The New York Times
saying that the Cubans told them [referring to the
Times
] that they’re all on salary, that there’s a $900,000 fund at the Reelection Committee for them, and that they dropped bugs all over town. The chain of command went from Barker to Hunt to Liddy to Colson to Mitchell.” Haldeman also noted that CRP spokesperson DeVan Shumway, as well as Colson and Mitchell, had all given flat denials on this. Additionally, the Cubans had sent a letter to the judge saying they wanted to dismiss Rothblatt, because they wanted to plead guilty. He included that I had also reported, “McCord is off the reservation now,” but that I thought the CRP lawyers could get him back, because McCord had “a plan regarding calls he made in September and October [to foreign embassies]. He thinks he can get a tainted evidence thing on it, because the calls were bugged by the government. He’s playing a blackmail game where if I (McCord) fall, all fall, but he has no hard evidence. That won’t be settled for a while, but Dean thinks he can settle it. Apparently McCord was distressed at the judge’s severity. The Cubans plead on Monday [January 15].”
¹⁹

Other than an occasional back channel report from the CRP attorneys, who were talking with the lawyers representing the Watergate defendants, the Nixon White House largely followed the Watergate trial from the front-page coverage in
The Washington Post
, which often featured two stories about the proceedings. Nixon could follow the trial by merely scanning the headlines
of the
Post
on his breakfast table each morning, since he had largely stopped reading the full stories.
²⁰
On January 30 McCord and Liddy were found guilty on all counts of burglary and bugging, after the jury deliberated for ninety minutes. If Nixon did read any of the paper’s accounts of the trial, he asked no questions during recorded conversations. The trial seemed to have only two impacts on him: He increased the pressure on his staff for information about the 1968 bugging of his campaign plane; and he complained—since everyone in Washington, including Judge Sirica, openly suspected there was a cover-up under way—about being accused of a cover-up. The fact that five defendants had pled guilty and two had been convicted by a jury certainly suggested one.

D
uring the bail hearing for the seven convicted Watergate defendants, newspapers and wire services reported Judge Sirica’s comment that he wanted the government to continue investigating Watergate. He said he did not believe the testimony given by the government’s key witnesses during the trial, and he hoped that the Senate investigation would “get to the bottom” of what had occurred.
¹

When Nixon met with Colson in the Oval Office that morning, a clearly annoyed president said, “You know, here’s the judge saying I did this. His God damn conduct is shocking as a judge. He’s not being a judge for me. Is he young enough to look for an appointment with the Democrats in four years after me?”
²

“No, no, no, no, no,” Colson began. “Sirica is a tough, hard-boiled, law-and-order judge. He’s a Republican. I know him pretty well. I’ve been with him at various social events. Very decent guy. And dedicated to you, and to Eisenhower. I can’t understand what John’s doing. He’s been ill. The only thing I can figure is that he didn’t need this. This case just got under his craw for some reason, and he’s a hot-headed Italian, and he blew on it. You know, he’s handled himself terribly. Awful. Refusing to accept the Hunt plea [which the government had agreed to accept, but Sirica had made Hunt plead to all charges]. And of course, the odd thing about it, Mr. President, is that the [assistant] U.S. attorney who has been prosecuting this case is not our guy. I mean, I would imagine he’s a Democrat. He’s been there since 1964 at the
U.S. Attorney’s Office.
*
But I think Sirica figures that what he’s doing has been totally in the right.”

Nixon found no comfort in Colson’s analysis. “Yeah, I mean, my point is that now what’s happened is that he’s trying to prod the Senate into conducting a big investigation,” the president complained. He was convinced that Ervin’s Watergate inquiry would be partisan. He started looking for a counteroffensive and asked, “Well, what, if anything, have we heard is being done or can be done on the counterattacks, et cetera? Are any of the charges against our Democrat friends being investigated? Have they been? And will they be? Or you just don’t know?”

When Colson reported that they did not have anything to balance against Watergate, and no one was on the attack, the president replied, “Well, let me suggest one other thing. This Brewster thing, according to Bobby Baker, runs a hell of a lot deeper, and runs to a number of Democratic senators.
*
Now what are we doing about having an investigation, calling in Spiegel, putting him under oath at FBI, and [asking] what other senators [are involved], go right down the list. What are we doing about that?” Colson loved the idea, and after a lengthy discussion about it, Nixon wondered how this could actually be used as leverage against Ervin, to force him to back off Watergate. “But my point is, how do we get after his colleagues so that they’ll tell Ervin to lay off? That’s my point. And when are we going to do it? Christ, I don’t understand what the Christ is the matter around here, Chuck, that this has got to really be pushed. I don’t want you to be in a position where you’re just the bad guy pushing it, but Haldeman, I think, is too busy on some of this stuff, and somebody has got to get at it. Ehrlichman’s busy. Dean is a gunfighter.” “Dean is good,” Colson reassured the president, but he then clarified
the line of authority relating to Watergate: “Ehrlichman has been sort of in charge of this, but maybe get John Dean more deeply into it.” Again trying to reassure Nixon, Colson said, “John is good.”

Returning to Watergate, Nixon yet again returned to his frustration at not knowing precisely the extent of his staff’s participation in the affair, and he began gently probing Colson for the truth. “I assume that it must lead to Mitchell. That’s what bothers Haldeman. Do you?” When Colson said he knew that it led to Mitchell, the president asked, “Are you sure?” Colson said he was, and Nixon noted this was a problem.
³
He insisted, “We can’t let Mitchell get involved. It just can’t be done. We need to protect him, and, of course, we’ve also got to be sure that Haldeman’s not involved. We’ve got to be sure that they don’t piss around on you. You know what I mean? Or Ehrlichman, anybody. But the point is that, sure, this kind of thing happens.”

Colson agreed, “I mean, the Watergate issue has never been a public issue. It is a Washington issue. It is a way to get at us. It’s a way the Democrats think they can use to embarrass us and keep us on the defensive and keep us worried, and keep us from doing other things. And that’s why they’ve kept it alive. I don’t think it’s worth a damn in the country, Mr. President.”

“Well, my whole point here is this, and don’t take this now as a directive to go out and raise hell with Ehrlichman and Dean,” Nixon instructed Colson, who assured the president this matter would remain between them. Colson again spoke of my “great capacity for work” and noted that I had been “consumed in the delicacies of this case,” which the president, in turn, stated a bit more bluntly: “He’s keeping it from blowing.” Colson added, “Which, by the way, he’s done a spectacularly good job on.” Just as Colson started to alert the president to my potential problems, Nixon interrupted to ask when Sirica was going to sentence the Watergate defendants. Colson did not know but mistakenly suggested that he might not sentence Liddy and McCord while they appealed their convictions. Colson also mistakenly (but not without good reason) thought Sirica might be reversed for his conduct during the trial. The discussion turned to keeping members of the presidential staff from testifying before the Senate, based on the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers, under which presidents had refused to allow Congress to intrude into executive operations—long called “executive privilege.” Colson reminded the president that all the Watergate defendants were going to be summoned as witnesses before the grand jury, where none of them had the protection of the Fifth Amendment.

In a morning meeting that included Haldeman, Ehrlichman brought the president up to date on the efforts to weaken the Senate’s investigation of Watergate.
⁴
Ehrlichman reported that he was going to have “a meeting with Mitchell and all the shakers and movers” that morning
*
to figure out how “to throw sand in their eyes to frustrate the damn thing,” by getting the authorizing resolution for a Watergate investigation amended to apply to other political campaigns, such as John Kennedy’s of 1960. But Ehrlichman was skeptical about such efforts. When Haldeman returned to the Oval Office in the early afternoon the president said he wanted John Mitchell involved in dealing with the Senate’s Watergate inquiry, because “it’s going to be right on his back.”
⁵
Haldeman assured him that Mitchell was involved and had attended the meeting earlier that day.

The president asked who would appoint the Republicans to the Senate Watergate committee, and when Haldeman said it was the minority leader, Hugh Scott, Nixon said he wanted to have “a couple sons of bitches on our side.” After further discussion of the committee, Nixon asked, “Has anybody followed up on my suggestion that the FBI immediately [investigate], because of what Senator Brewster said, Bob?” He repeated what Brewster had said after his sentencing: “‘There might be [other] members of the Senate involved in this, you know; I just got caught.’” Nixon explained that Colson said he had information about others, and complained, “God damn it, the FBI should investigate on that. What is the present thinking, Bob, with regard to the FBI? Do we go with Gray?” Haldeman said they were running name checks on another suggestion from Ehrlichman, and they were still considering EPA director William Ruckelshaus.

While Haldeman and Ehrlichman were meeting with the president that morning in the Oval Office, The U.S. Senate debated the Watergate investigation.
⁶
None of the actions taken by the Senate surprised the White House.
⁷
Based on reports from its congressional relations staff, Haldeman informed
the president, all the proposed Republican amendments to include Democratic presidential campaigns in the inquiry, or to give Republicans equal power on the committee, would fail. The president asked Ehrlichman, “What is your opinion, John, about now proceeding with the leakage on the [National Security Council] staff?” David Young, the last member of the plumbers unit, had been gathering information on national security information leaks of varying degrees of seriousness throughout the government.

“Oh, I’d like to wait until after the Pentagon Papers trial before we move on any of this stuff,” Ehrlichman responded. “We have a five-year statute of limitations on all that kind of stuff. We have the other one hanging on, which is Neil Sheehan at the
Times
,
and I’ve got both of them on a tickler system to come out regularly.”
*
When the president asked about the trial of Daniel Ellsberg and his accomplice, Anthony Russo, in Los Angeles federal court for the theft of the Pentagon Papers, Ehrlichman said, “Well, the Pentagon Papers trial will be over, I would guess, in another ten days, two weeks, something of that kind. It may go longer than that, but I don’t think much longer.”

“They’re not going to convict anybody?” the president asked. “I doubt it. I would be very surprised,” Ehrlichman admitted. “You never thought they would,” Haldeman noted, directing his comment to Ehrlichman. “I never thought they would. No,” Ehrlichman agreed. Referring to the motion to stay the proceedings approved by Justice William O. Douglas, Ehrlichman again told the president that this had been a happy turn of events, because Ellsberg had been unable to use his trial as a platform before the election. Ehrlichman reminded him that they were not finished prosecuting those involved in publishing leaked national security information, for he had not only Sheehan but also Jack Anderson in his sights.

Ziegler arrived toward the end of this meeting, seeking guidance on how to handle the Senate’s actions regarding Watergate. The president said he should say nothing other than that the White House would cooperate with any investigation. After a lengthy discussion, the only real guidance Ziegler received was that the president would soon issue a statement of executive privilege regarding whether or not his aides would testify, and that that would be handled on an individual basis.
⁸

After Ziegler had departed, the president said, “Incidentally, I read this
remarkable piece [in] the
New York Times
by that left-wing son of a bitch Seymour Hersh. It said that Strachan called Liddy about Segretti. I thought that was out about eight months ago, or three or four months.” Haldeman clarified, “It was four months ago, five months.” Nixon was annoyed that the
Times
was recycling old news as new revelations, which he thought made clear why Ziegler should ignore the Senate’s proceedings.

On the afternoon of February 8 the president headed for San Clemente, and I was summoned there at the president’s request on Friday, February 9, with Dick Moore, for two days of discussions regarding how the White House should deal with the Senate’s Watergate hearings.
⁹
Moore and I stayed at the La Costa Resort & Spa hotel, where we met for extended sessions with Haldeman and Ehrlichman in a large suite on both Saturday and Sunday. The president did not participate in our meetings. Haldeman’s notes (recorded in his diary) reflect what he undoubtedly told the president, which boiled down to keeping an outward appearance of cooperation while doing everything possible to obstruct the Senate’s proceedings.
¹⁰
Haldeman did not record that John Ehrlichman suggested that Dick Moore, when he reported on this meeting to John Mitchell, should get Mitchell to raise more money for the Watergate defendants—and Moore did so.

When the president returned to the Oval Office on Tuesday morning, he met with Colson, who was about to leave on his junket to Russia and Romania.
¹¹
The president still needed to select a new FBI director, and he asked, “Would you keep Gray?” Colson thought Gray would be fine if he had a strong deputy, such as former assistant FBI director Bill Sullivan, who had been helpful to the Nixon White House by spiriting wiretaps records out of the bureau so Hoover could not use them as leverage against the president. These wiretaps had been placed on White House aides working for the National Security Council and reporters to try to identify leakers; the names of the targets had been transmitted to Sullivan at the FBI by Haig. Colson continued, “Al Haig called me yesterday and said, Jesus, get Sullivan back in there. Haig is very high on Sullivan. I don’t know Sullivan, but I know of so many people who
do think highly of him.” Assured by Colson that Gray was loyal to him, Nixon remarked, “Totally. Oh, God, I wish we had more Pat Grays.”

When Nixon expressed concern that Watergate was threatening to become an even worse nuisance than ITT, Colson said the only way to prevent that was to be “very, very hard-nosed with that committee. And if they want Haldeman, Ehrlichman, me, [and] I’m sure they will, [they had] to limit the areas that they’re going to go into.” While the president was not concerned about lower-level people, he was troubled about anyone with whom he spoke appearing before the Senate: “I’m afraid that that gives an appearance of a total cover-up, which would bother me a bit, you know.”

Colson, however, had been thinking about a larger problem, one that he wanted to discuss before he departed on his trip: “If whoever did order Watergate was going to come out in the hearings, for God sakes, let it out now. At least get rid of it now. Take our losses.” Nixon agreed and asked, “Well, who the hell do you think did this? Mitchell? He can’t do it, he’ll perjure himself, so he won’t admit that. Now that’s the problem. Magruder?” “I know Magruder knows,” Colson reported. Nixon, who knew more than he told Colson, said flatly: “Well, then he’s perjured himself, hasn’t he?” Colson answered, “Probably.” Nixon then said, “Alright, what would you say then? Let’s take our losses. Who the hell’s going to step forward and say it? See my point? Liddy, of course, he directed Watergate. But who do you have in mind? I mean, I’m afraid I can’t risk it, Chuck, unless you have somebody in mind.” When Colson did not, the president continued, “My point is, would you suggest that Mitchell go in and say, this must’ve occurred? I did not realize it at the time, but Mitchell seems to have stonewalled it up to this point.”