The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (57 page)

Strachan and Chapin’s grand jury testimony was still on the president’s mind when Haldeman arrived later in the morning at the Oval Office.
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Haldeman had talked with Strachan, who said that Watergate prosecutor Earl Silbert had spoken with him after his appearance; he “sounded apologetic” and told him that “there’s clearly no criminal problem” with Segretti, and “there’s nothing for us to go after.” Haldeman added, “Strachan says it’s incredible; you walk into the grand jury room, and there’s twenty people in there, of whom three are white; all the rest are black, several of whom are asleep.” “Jeezzz,” Nixon replied, and Haldeman went on to explain that federal prosecutor Seymour Glanzer played the bad cop, with Silbert playing the good one. The president and Haldeman ultimately found nothing of concern in the Chapin and Strachan appearances other than the need for Haldeman to release a statement before his role could be leaked from the grand jury.

Following a brief photo opportunity on his schedule, the president asked Ziegler to remain in the Oval Office to discuss the White House staff’s
providing affidavits or statements regarding their roles—or lack thereof—in various Watergate-related activities.
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Ziegler did not like the idea unless such documents went considerably further than the denials he had heard. Ziegler had been collecting his thoughts in a series of notes he now produced. He wanted to draw a protective circle around the White House, which he had discussed with Ehrlichman. He was not opposed to a Haldeman statement, but like affidavits, it, too, had a risk. Ziegler knew the players, and was trying to protect everyone without telling the president he thought some might lie, which would hurt both them and the president. So he cast the problem as later-developing information that would make earlier statements appear incorrect, or worse, part of a cover-up. Ziegler felt there was a Washington fixation with Watergate but that outside of Washington it still was not a big story.

“You don’t want Haldeman to make a statement. You don’t want sworn statements to be put out. You know, that’s right,” the president said, for then there would only be calls for more information, claiming what had been offered was incomplete. “Then don’t do anything,” the president advised. He did, however, want Ziegler’s media-sensitive reaction to the outstanding problems, based on Ziegler’s incomplete knowledge. “You don’t think Dean can be saved, do you?” the president asked, and Ziegler said he did not, based on what he knew. “Do you think Haldeman can be saved?” the president asked of the man who had recruited Ziegler. Ziegler did not think he could be saved either, and even offered, “I’d say it is a 60 percent chance that he cannot be saved.”

Ziegler suggested options, including issuing a preemptive complete and truthful statement, one that would not crumble under the weight of testimony. He conceded that this would be very difficult to do, but a recognition by the White House that there had been “bad judgment, or a better word—” Nixon interrupted, “Admit it?” Ziegler continued, “—and possible wrongdoing, without saying it was wrongdoing, and let the chips fall. In other words, draw a circle around the White House. That puts the president in the position of saying, I have found out—which is true—in recent weeks, on my own, moving quietly, not making a big public thing about it, that indeed there was more to be told, and I have instructed the men to tell it, making the point in the complete statement [regarding] the Segretti activity on the part of Haldeman, and the other activity is separate and not illegal, and he stays. In other words, nothing that he has done, despite what the scope of
the impression. Dean, I would think, and this is not final, would not be canned, but could resign. Now, he could be transferred to somewhere else. I don’t know.”

“No, no,” the president replied. “He should, he could resign on the basis that, because of the charges that have been made and so forth. He’s innocent of the charges, but he’s seriously jeopardized his ability to carry on these functions that he’s assigned, and therefore, he resigns.” The president liked this option, of a complete statement, and felt they should test the water on that, and they tried to flesh it out a bit as the conversation continued: “Rather than just let the son of a bitch be dragged out. The problem that I’m concerned with is Bob,” the president said. He told Ziegler he believed they were going to get Mitchell, and asked Ziegler if he thought a complete statement might save Haldeman. Ziegler, who at that time was unaware of Haldeman’s Watergate-related activities, felt a complete statement regarding his Segretti connection would be the best chance of saving him. When the president pushed on Mitchell, Ziegler described Mitchell, from his limited information, as having no knowledge whatsoever of illegal activity, and that a complete statement would not affect Mitchell any differently than any other option.

After speculating on testimony, Nixon said, “I think the complete statement thing appeals to me, from the standpoint that the president has, we’ve conducted an investigation, and here’s a complete statement for those that have been named, since we know that the committee is going to delay it, and it’s time for the air to be cleared now.” Then the president came back to the recurring problem: “The trouble, the problem there, we’ve talked about complete statements before, Ron. Every time anybody tries to write one, they can’t write it.” Since Ziegler had not been privy to these discussions, they soon inevitably concluded it was difficult to do so, and Ziegler was coming to the conclusion that any statement less than “complete”—that is, as honest and as accurate as possible—would simply not work.

Ehrlichman reported back to the EOB Office that afternoon.
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“We seem to have a lot of business these days, don’t we?” the president asked, as Ehrlichman seated himself. After Nixon highlighted his earlier discussion with Ziegler, he added, “I think Ron’s views are pretty much worth considering.” Ehrlichman agreed, and then asked, “Remember we were worried about [Liddy’s secretary] Sally, what’s her name, was going to testify—?” Nixon provided the name, “Harmony,” revealing his retention of details. Ehrlichman reported that, in fact, there were no such memos sent to the White
House. “They came to Strachan.”
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Ehrlichman explained, “They were not in the form of dialogue, or taps,” but rather like FBI reports from surveillance based on “‘a usually reliable source,’ or ‘a source beyond impeachment,’ that sort of thing.” Ehrlichman paused, then added, “They were very unspectacular.” Strachan reported that there had been three of them. “They don’t have them now, though,” the president rhetorically offered, but Ehrlichman continued without responding. “On one occasion [Strachan] sent Bob one of them, with a cover memo, which referred to this, among many other items, there were probably eight or ten tabs, and said, politically sophisticated sources report, so and so, see tab L or H or [whatever]. Now that’s very tough, to my way of thinking. I think that’s very, very [hard to take],” Ehrlichman said, obviously concerned about this bit of evidence that tied the White House to the first Watergate break-in.

The president asked anxiously, “Has he testified to that?” Ehrlichman assured him that he had not but explained that Strachan had another problem arising out of his grand jury appearance the day before. It was, Ehrlichman said, a ludicrous situation: Strachan realized he had mistakenly testified before the grand jury about returning the $350,000 to the reelection committee when the amount actually had been $328,000. He reported that he had spent two hours sorting it all out and advised Strachan to inform the prosecutors and correct his testimony.
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After taking the president through this Strachan “emergency,” Ehrlichman continued with his report about the White House receipt of the fruits of the Watergate bugging. “So anyway, I said, ‘Gordon, while you’re here, just answer a question for me, will you? To your knowledge, did they prepare White House [copies]?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Where’d they go?’ ‘Well, I got some.’ I said, ‘How many were involved?’ He said, ‘Three.’ And that would have been between May and June, obviously, at the time that it happened. I said, ‘Did Colson know about it?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Did you ever give Colson copies?’ ‘No, if Colson got copies it wasn’t from me.’” Ehrlichman noted that, therefore, if Colson had received copies, they had to have come from the reelection committee, adding, “So, if the testimony is that only one copy came to the White House, we know that it came to Strachan. Colson’s alright. So there’s that.”

This was still bad news, so the president asked for more specifics. He said, “Well, now let’s go on to Haldeman, [and] this business of the use of the term, John, ‘politically sophisticated’ stuff, good God, ah—”

“Oh, I can put a good face on this,” Ehrlichman reassured the president, as could Nixon: “Bob has just got to say that he got all sorts of information, never had anything that, that—” he began to suggest, but then realized, “—but he’s got to admit it.” Ehrlichman offered his own approach: “But you got to think about the bad things that are going to be put on this. Styles Bridges, at this point.” (Ehrlichman was alluding to the fact that when Bridges, one of the putatively poorest members of the U.S. Senate, died in 1961, shortly after being reelected, his widow discovered he had left her an enormous amount of cash, by various accounts not less than $120,000 nor more than $2 million. Ehrlichman’s point was that there were no good explanations for the money.)

“If they have a copy?” the president pressed. “If they have a copy of the thing from Strachan?” Ehrlichman said they did not. Strachan had no doubt told Ehrlichman what he had told me: Namely, he had destroyed all such incriminating documents in his files at Haldeman’s request.
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“I know,” the president said. “Strachan doesn’t have any of his stuff, which is just as good then.” They speculated about whether anyone would have known that Haldeman had received the bugging summaries,
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and why this had not arisen earlier; Ehrlichman suggested blaming me. “But Dean did not know there were two copies handed over,” Nixon reminded him. “I think we’d better not say that Dean didn’t tell us.” Ehrlichman still liked the idea of claiming “the Dean report was inadequate.” But at this point the president was not yet prepared to throw me under the bus, and thinking of our March 21, 1973, conversation, he told Ehrlichman, “Dean made a perfectly conscientious report.”

When the conversation again turned to casting blame, the president said, “Let’s talk about Dean for a moment. Dean’s probably thought about this. He’s a God damn decent guy, you know. Remember, whether he served us well,” Ehrlichman began to interrupt, but Nixon continued talking, “it is not a moral question; he was doing what he was supposed to do.” Ehrlichman conceded, “I’ve already said I think he did serve you well, for a fact. And he did. He did a Herculean job, under tremendous pressure.” Ehrlichman did not, however, volunteer in this conversation that I was in fact implementing his policy, often at his direct instructions. The president continued, “He did it all by himself, didn’t have any help, Mitchell wasn’t helping him as much
as he should, Mitchell was then out, of course. God damn, Mitchell was the guy that really let us down in that period, John. It couldn’t be done by MacGregor. It couldn’t be done by the committee. But Jesus Christ, blaming poor John Dean, that’s the reasoning the committee doesn’t have a [
unclear
],” the president said.

“Now what I was trying to spin out on Dean, here, was Ziegler’s hypothetical to me,” Ehrlichman said, backpedaling. “He says, it now appears inevitable that Dean’s going to be badly bruised, if not totally destroyed by this, inevitably in the long haul, that even if you interpose and exert your executive privilege on behalf of Dean, surrounding him, the damage will be severe.” The president and Ehrlichman worried that the same problems would arise for Colson and Haldeman, and then discussed my taking a leave of absence, as well as the once-forbidden topic of Haldeman’s taking a leave of absence.

The president lamented this problem. “Just at a time when we got Bob out of scheduling, and we got him out of all the East Wing crap,
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and we got him out of the line of fire there, and we’ve got him so that he can concentrate basically on the big plays, the things that I say he ought to do, now we’ve got this thing. But let’s face it. The amount of time that he’s having to spend on this at the present time is tearing him up, and it will tear me up. There’s your problem, John.” Ehrlichman raised the obvious question of also letting Haldeman go: “Well, what do you think about that?” Nixon acknowledged, “We’ve got to think the unthinkable sometimes.” Ehrlichman replied, with perhaps a bit too much encouragement in his voice, “Yeah, yeah. Well, I just, I don’t find that unthinkable. I see a lot of advantages to it,” but then more evenly remarked, “I’ve got to think about that. That’s a pretty big medicine. But as I say, I certainly don’t reject it out of hand.”

Nixon turned to “the effectiveness of the presidency” and suggested that all the “things coming up with the economy and the summit with the Russians, and there are some pretty God damn big plays, [could] lower the decibels” of Watergate, and might enable the president “to screw that [Ervin] committee.” He noted that as long as they had a target in the White House they would pursue it. “Just trying to think it through,” Nixon mused, “I don’t know of anything that we could do that would be more disappointing to
Ervin than to have Haldeman take a leave.” Ehrlichman agreed, and Nixon continued, “You know, Ervin would like to bring the president to his knees and have him forced to fire [Haldeman] as a result,” the president began, and imitating Ervin’s Southern accent, said, “As a result of my committee’s investigation, it is clear that Mr. Haldeman has to go.” Ehrlichman joined in with his own Ervin impersonation: “I don’t want to inflict any hardship on the president.”

This conversation ended with the president’s observing that they had to consider Haldeman’s leaving, and Nixon instructed Ehrlichman not to discuss this matter with others.
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But because actions in the tight-knit White House always spoke louder than words, the mere fact of Haldeman’s diminishing time with the president and Ehrlichman’s increased presence spread quickly through the grapevine. It was during this period that I began to hear talk of Ehrlichman’s becoming chief of staff, not to mention rumors that he was slowly turning the knife not merely in Haldeman’s back but in Mitchell’s, Colson’s and mine as well—even though those rumors were more damning of Ehrlichman than the actual conversations behind closed doors would justify.