The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (39 page)

I reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee was voting, either as we spoke or that afternoon, on whether I should be asked to testify, and based on my information, I had no doubt that they would send me a letter inviting me, but not a subpoena. I told the president that, given the issues which had arisen, I would have no problem answering any point Gray had raised. “Would you respond under oath?” the president asked. “Heck, I would be willing to, yes,” I assured him.

The president liked my response, explaining that he was preparing for his press conference, where he planned to make a comment to that effect. As the conversation proceeded, I answered Nixon’s questions about the Senate’s holding up Gray for my testimony being a purely political matter and Eastland claiming that, in fact, he had the votes to get Gray’s nomination out of the Judiciary Committee to the Senate floor. But because Senator Byrd was opposing Gray, it was not clear if he could win confirmation. To my surprise Nixon said, “Gray, in my opinion, should not be the head of the FBI. Not because of any character or other flaws, or thoughtless flaws, but because he is going to be much like Kleindienst. After going through the hell of the hearings, he will not be a good director.”

“What happened to this Texas guy that took his money back?” the president asked. The Mexican money had once again caught Nixon’s attention via an Associated Press story that had appeared on the front page of
The Washington Post
on Saturday, March 10, while he was at Camp David. The story recounted how Robert H. Allen, a Texas oilman who had given $89,000 that was later traced to the bank account of Bernard Barker, had requested and received back the entire $100,000 contribution he had given to the reelection committee.
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The Justice Department was investigating the legality of the contribution, which had come to the Nixon committee in the form of four checks from a Mexico City lawyer.

I shared what I had learned from the reelection committee lawyers: “All hell broke loose for Allen for this reason: His money apparently originally came out of a subsidiary of one of Allen’s corporations down in Mexico. It went to a lawyer in Mexico, who put it down as a fee billed to the subsidiary. Then the Mexican lawyer sent it back into the States, and it came back up
here. But the weakness of it is the Mexican lawyer: One, didn’t have a legitimate fee; and two, it could be a corporate contribution. Allen had personally put a note up with the corporation to cover it. But Allen is meanwhile having problems with his wife, and a divorce is pending, and tax problems. So he requested the refund.”

The president said he thought the problem with the money was that “it was being used for Watergate.” I clarified this, explaining, “It wasn’t used for the Watergate. That’s the interesting thing. What happened is, these Mexican checks came in. They were given to Gordon Liddy,
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who said, ‘What do we do, why don’t you get these cashed?’ Gordon Liddy, in turn, took them down to this fellow Barker in Florida, and said, ‘Would you cash these Mexican checks?’ So that’s how they went through Barker’s bank account [and came] back here. They could have been just as easily cashed at the Riggs Bank. There was nothing wrong with the checks. Why all that rigmarole? It’s just like a lot of other things that happened over there. God knows why it was all done. It was totally unnecessary, and it was money that was not directly involved in the Watergate. It wasn’t a wash operation to get money back in to Liddy, and the like.”

The president wanted to discuss who would be good and poor witnesses before the Ervin committee. We both thought Sloan would not be effective but that Kalmbach would be a solid witness. The president was not happy that Kalmbach was referred to as his lawyer. “Well, what I meant is this. I don’t care about that, it’s just the fact that it’s played that way, as if he’s in and that he’s talking to me all the time. I don’t talk to him about anything. I don’t know, I see Herb once a year when he brings the income tax returns. I’m sure that he handles that San Clemente property and all the rest, but he isn’t a lawyer in the sense that most people have a lawyer.”

After we speculated on the skills of those likely to be called by the Senate regarding Watergate, the president asked when Judge Sirica was going to sentence. I said we thought it was going to happen the previous Friday, March 9. Liddy was already serving his sentence at Danbury, Connecticut, because he wanted to get it over with and gain good time, and Hunt was out on bail. Liddy and McCord were appealing, but I noted that, given Sirica’s “zeal to be a special prosecutor,” Liddy and McCord might have a case for a new trial.

“Well, some of those statements from the bench,” the president found “incredible.” He asked about the Cubans, and I said I had no idea. When I added, “Sirica’s known as a hanging judge,” Nixon remarked, “That’s the kind that I want,” which struck me as so strange a comment that I laughed, but he was serious. He asked about the Senate’s Watergate investigation, and I reported that Kleindienst had finally scheduled a meeting with Ervin. I told the president the hearings would start in early May, and we speculated about how long they might last and what kind of public attention they might attract. Nixon was sure new information would emerge from the hearings: “Oh, yes, there’ll be the revelations in Watergate.” He said the Senate wanted to find out who was involved: “Is there a higher up? They’re really, let’s face it, after Haldeman.” “Haldeman and Mitchell,” I added. “Mitchell, I mean,” the president corrected himself. “Colson is not a big enough name for them. He really isn’t.” I added, “Or I bet they’d take Ehrlichman if they could drag him in, but they’ve been unable to drag him in, in any way.” I was not sure if the president understood that the effort driving the cover-up included Ehrlichman. He did not respond.

“Ultimately, Haldeman’s problem is Chapin, isn’t it? Bob’s problem is circumstantial,” I said, unaware that Ehrlichman had similarly described Haldeman’s situation to the president. “Bob didn’t know any of those people, like the Hunts and all that bunch,” Nixon explained. “Colson did. But Bob, Bob did know Chapin. Now, however the hell much Chapin knew, I’ll be God damned, I don’t know.” “Well, Chapin didn’t know anything about the Watergate,” I assured him, “and—” The president cut me off. “You don’t think so?” “No,” I replied, “absolutely not.”

“Did Strachan?” the president asked. “Yes,” I responded. “He knew?” Nixon was surprised. “Yes,” I repeated. “About the Watergate?” he asked for clarification. “Yes,” I answered, referring to the fact that Liddy had broken into and bugged the DNC’s Watergate offices. It was not clear to me then, nor is it clear today, the precise details of Strachan’s knowledge. I do not believe he had advance knowledge of the Watergate bugging and break-in. Strachan later testified that he was not given nor did he review information obtained by the bug in the DNC, but he was aware of Liddy’s “electronic surveillance plans” being approved by Mitchell.
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Liddy later claimed he specifically told Strachan he was going to reenter the Watergate offices of the DNC to repair the defective bugging equipment, but Liddy’s account may be confused.
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“Well, then, Bob knew. He probably told Bob, then. He may not have. He may not have,” the president speculated aloud. I reported that Strachan was judicious in what he relayed, and that he was as tough as nails. “What’ll he
say? Just go in and say he didn’t know?” Nixon asked. I speculated, “He’ll go in and stonewall it and say, ‘I don’t know anything about what you are talking about.’ He has already done it twice, as you know, in interviews.” I did not consider Strachan to be a natural liar but rather, by personality and disposition he said what needed to be said, nothing more, and he did not trust his own memory. When the president probed, I also added that Strachan was personally loyal to Haldeman.

“But he knew? He knew about Watergate? Strachan did?” I gave a loose affirmative, “uh huh,” and the president responded, “I’ll be damned. Well, that’s the problem in Bob’s case, isn’t it? It’s not Chapin then, but Strachan. Because Strachan worked for him.” I agreed, but noted, “They would have one hell of a time proving that Strachan had knowledge of it, though.”

“Who knew better? Magruder?” the president asked.“Well, Magruder and Liddy,” I answered. “Ah, I see. The other weak link for Bob is Magruder, too. He having hired him and so forth,” the president observed. “That applies to Mitchell, too,” I added, since the president seemed both interested in and surprisingly unaware of the facts. “Now, where do you see Colson coming into it? Do you think he knew quite a bit, I can’t, I can’t—” the president caught his own thought with another about Colson. “Yet he could know a great deal about a lot of other things and not a hell of a lot about this, but I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ve never—” as the president cut me off I was about to say that I had never pressed anyone about any of this information; rather, I only knew what had been volunteered to me. Nixon continued, “He sure as hell knows Hunt. That we know. And was very close to him.” “Chuck has told me that he had no knowledge, specific knowledge, of the Watergate incident before it occurred,” I said. “There have been tidbits that I have raised with Chuck. I have not played any games with him, I said, ‘Chuck, I have indications—’”

“Don’t play games,” the president advised. “I don’t,” I assured him. “You’ve got to be the lawyer [who] has got to know everything,” he insisted. I agreed, and continued with my explanation. “And I said, ‘Chuck, people have said that you were involved in this, involved in that.’ And he said, ‘That’s not true,’ and so on and so forth. I don’t—” I had misspoken, so I started again, “I think that Chuck had knowledge that something was going on over there. A lot of people around here had knowledge that something was going on over there. They didn’t have any knowledge of the details, of the specifics of the whole thing.”

The president addressed my information. “You know, that must be an indication, though, of the fact that they had God damn poor pickings.
Because naturally, anybody, either Chuck or Bob, was always reporting to me about what was going on. If they ever got any information, they would certainly have told me that we got some information, but they never had a God damn thing to report.” Nixon said this with a chuckle signaling irony. “What was the matter? Did they never get anything out of the damn thing?”

“No. I don’t think they ever got anything,” I answered. “It was a dry hole, huh?” he asked. “That’s right,” I answered. “Jesus Christ,” Nixon said with disgust. “Well, they were just really getting started,” I noted. “Yeah. Yeah,” the president said, gathering his thoughts, and then explaining, “But Bob one time said something about the fact we got some information about this or that or the other, but I think it was about the convention, what they were planning,
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I said they’re [
unclear
]. So I assume that must have been MacGregor, I mean, not MacGregor, but Segretti—”

“No,” I corrected the president, and he finished his thought, “Bob must have known about Segretti.” This was a very different matter, I reported, still unclear of what he did and did not know. “Well, Segretti really wasn’t involved in the intelligence gathering to speak of at all,” I explained. Before I could continue, the president asked, “Who the hell was gathering intelligence?” As is clear now, the president was portraying himself as being almost totally uninformed, when in fact he knew the answers to the questions he was raising, probably either as a way of testing my knowledge or of protecting himself, if not both. But I answered his queries.

“That was Liddy and his outfit,” I reported. “I see. Apart from Watergate?” Nixon asked.

“That’s, well, that’s right,” I answered. “That was part of their whole—” I began, then cut to the point, “Watergate was part of intelligence gathering, and this—”

“Well, that’s a perfectly legitimate thing,” the president interrupted. “I guess that’s what it was.”

“What happened is they—” I started again to explain, but he again cut me off. “What a stupid thing. Pointless. That was the stupid thing.” When I agreed, the president continued, “To think that Mitchell and Bob would have allowed this kind of operation to be in the committee.” I defended Haldeman, saying, “I don’t think he knew it was there.” But the president misunderstood, “Are you kidding? You don’t think Mitchell knew about this thing?”

“Oh, no, no, no. Don’t misunderstand.” I realized the president and I were
talking about different matters, so I rephrased: “I think he knew that Liddy was out intelligence gathering. I don’t think he knew that Liddy would use a fellow like McCord, for God’s sake, who worked for the committee. I can’t believe that.” The president had more questions, for we never had discussed the details of Watergate before. Nixon asked, “Hunt? Did Mitchell know Hunt?” I did not think Mitchell knew Hunt. “So Mitchell’s thing is [then to say], ‘Gee, and I hired this fellow and I told him to gather intelligence for the committee [
unclear
].’” I agreed. “Magruder could say the same thing,” the president noted. I said, “Magruder says that, as he did in the trial, he said, it was—” I stopped, because I was not sure if we were talking about what had actually occurred or the cover-up line, not to mention the fact that my name had now been reported in connection with Liddy. I continued, “Well, of course, my name has been dragged in as the guy who sent Liddy over there, which is an interesting thing,” and which I proceeded to explain. “What happened is, Magruder asked for a lawyer [at the reelection committee, and] he wanted to hire my deputy over there for general counsel, and I said, ‘No way. I can’t give him up.’” Nixon asked, “Was Liddy your deputy?”

“No, Liddy never worked for me. A fellow named Fred Fielding, who works for me. And I said, I can’t give him up. Magruder said, ‘Will you find me a lawyer?’ I said, ‘I will be happy to look around.’ I checked around the White House, and [Bud] Krogh said, ‘Liddy might be the man to do it, to go over there. He would be a hell of a good lawyer. He has written some wonderful legal opinions over here for me, and I think he is a good lawyer.’ So I relayed that to Magruder.”