The Wars of Watergate (20 page)

Public revelation of the failed Huston Plan in May 1973 contributed to the President’s deteriorating public standing, and Senator Sam Ervin used it with great effect to describe the “Gestapo mentality” of the White House. Several months earlier, in February 1973, the President nostalgically yearned for the helping hand of J. Edgar Hoover. Nixon told John Dean that he was certain Hoover would have protected him. “He would have fought. That was the point. He would have defied a few people. He would have scared them to death. He had a file on everybody,” the President remarked, rather wistfully.
⁴⁷

As 1970 drew to a close, Richard Nixon, as was his custom, prepared a list of goals for the future and made random notes that left tracings of his moods. His writing offered an idealized version of himself and his Administration, a view he ardently sought to impose on the nation, his entourage, and history.

Nixon wrote about his programs to end the Vietnam war, to attain arms control or to increase the defense budget, to restore law and order, to implement a scheme for revenue-sharing, and to “restore pride in America.” His agenda, he believed, could be fulfilled only if his staff presented the “facts” about him, such as:

A week later, sitting in the Lincoln Room at night, Nixon wrote about his need for a “definite image.” His introspection led him to prepare a catalogue of traits and self-descriptions, one which he undoubtedly wanted
projected on his behalf: “compassionate, humane, fatherly, warmth, confidence in future, optimistic, upbeat, candor, honesty, openness, trustworthy, boldness, fights for what he believes, vitality, youth, enjoyment, zest, vision, dignity, respect, a man people can be proud of, hard work, dedication, openmindedness, listens to opposing views, unifier, fairness to opponents, end bombast, hatred, division, moral leader, nation’s conscience, intelligent, reasonable, serenity, calm, brevity, avoid familiarity, excitement, novelty, glamour, strength, spiritual, concern for the problems of the poor, youth, minorities, and average persons.” All this seemed to represent the image for a “visible presidential leadership.” His prefatory theme was “don’t let them dominate the dialogue.”
¹

For much of Nixon’s first term, he and his aides labored to portray him as the President he believed himself, or desired, to be. And to a great extent, that was the President that the media reported and projected. Richard Nixon had his detractors and perennial critics, but neither they nor the American public had any sense or proof of a darker side to him or to the acts of his Administration. That “underside,” as J. Anthony Lukas aptly described it, operated silently, and unmistakably pointed toward the disintegration of the Nixon presidency.

The Huston Plan involved structural arrangements that would impose the President’s personal direction on fragmented bureaucracies. There was more to the plan than power for power’s sake, however. The plan and its formulators, encouraged by the President, reflected a concern for neutralizing, and in a few cases destroying, political opposition. The White House view of its “enemies” eventually lengthened to include not only antiwar activists but also those who operated within the traditional framework of political conflict. The Huston Plan was only one corner of a more general design for dealing with political enemies of all kinds. Enemies would be fought by intervening directly in the government’s bureaucratic machinery and using it—or, as often was the case, the fight would bypass the usual channels to implement illegal operations.

Less than three months into the first term, John Ehrlichman had hired John Caulfield, a former New York City policeman, to establish a White House “investigations unit.” Caulfield had been a Nixon bodyguard in 1968, and Haldeman assigned him to Ehrlichman after the election. Caulfield’s ostensible job was to serve as liaison with the Secret Service and local police units, but he eagerly plunged into the task of investigating Senator Edward Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick accident of 1969, in which Kennedy drove a car into the water, drowning a female companion. Caulfield’s first recommendation about the case was to exploit Kennedy’s delay in reporting the accident as precluding the prompt administering of last rites, thus damaging
Kennedy among Catholics. Ehrlichman had earlier prodded Harry Dent to have reporters friendly to Nixon question Kennedy for his views on busing, compulsory integration, amnesty for war resisters, and student revolts. Given Nixon’s obsession with the Kennedys, the President was eager to learn more about the Chappaquiddick incident. In August 1969, Nixon told Ehrlichman that Kissinger had some “fascinating” information on the subject, and the President told his aide to have the story checked out and “properly exploited.”
²
The concern with Kennedy was only the most obvious White House pursuit of its “enemies.”

In August 1971, White House Counsel John Dean prepared a rationale for developing and maintaining what came to be known as the “enemies list.” The memo, Dean later claimed, was prepared at the request of Haldeman and Ehrlichman. This may well have been true, but Dean was not without his own enthusiasm for the task. The idea of the enemies list was, as Dean put it, to “maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be more active in their opposition to our Administration.” More bluntly, this involved the use of “the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” No “elaborate mechanism” or “game plan” was needed, Dean said. Key staff members (Colson, Dent, Buchanan) could provide names. Then the “project coordinator” would determine how the White House “can best screw them.” He would, of course, have “access to and the full support” of top officials throughout the Administration. Dean thought that Lyn Nofziger (another White House aide) would “enjoy” being project coordinator, but he warned that there must be “support at the top.”

Within a month, Charles Colson provided a modest list of twenty names. Senator Edmund Muskie’s chief fundraiser and the AFL-CIO’s political director headed the list. Colson also included a top aide to New York Mayor John Lindsay—“a first class S.O.B.”; black Congressman John Conyers—who had a “known weakness for white females”; Daniel Schorr of CBS—“a real media enemy”; actor Paul Newman—who was involved in “Radic-Lib causes”; and Maxwell Dane, who headed an advertising firm that “destroyed Goldwater in ’64.”

While Dean thought it worthwhile to add a few names every so often, he urged that the enemies list be kept “within reasonable bounds.” But the number quickly grew to over two hundred as others in the Administration chimed in with their favorite enemies, now taking in institutions as well as individuals. Included were not only obvious political opponents, such as Kennedy, Muskie, and Senator Walter Mondale, but also the presidents of leading universities and foundations, the National Education Association, and, for some reason never determined, the National Cleaning Contractors. Movie stars, newspaper columnists, television newsmen, and even football quarterback Joe Namath made the list that would in time be considered an honor roll. Dean later told Senate investigators that the enemies list was
merely “an exercise” which he had no intention of acting on, although he contended that Haldeman and Colson used it. Some time later, Alexander Butterfield complained to Dean that several people had come to a White House function despite being on the “Do Not Admit Under Any Circumstances” list—suggesting that Dean had a role as enforcer of the list.
³

Colson later insisted that he had no knowledge of an “enemies list,” only a roster his office compiled in order to keep undesirables away from White House functions. That comment was at odds with Dean’s original memo, however, as well as with subsequent events. It also was at odds with a larger folder among Colson’s papers, entitled “Blacklist.” The file revealed that Colson had his own “enemies list” well underway before Dean launched his. Colson included businessmen, entertainment personalities, labor leaders, political figures, academics, and organizations. He had a record of people who had attended a certain Democratic fundraiser. A Colson aide prepared her own “Bad Guys List” but later eliminated some names as “not that bad.” Tom Huston offered his own roll, headed by “Think Tanks.” Colson ordered his staff to garner the names of those who signed ads against the Vietnam war, and he added to the enemies lists one of his antagonists in the Teamsters Union, a group for which he ardently lobbied.
⁴

Haldeman selected a number of people on the various lists for IRS audits and other forms of harassment.
Washington Post
lawyer Edward Bennett Williams was targeted. Williams at first regarded the attention as a “badge of honor”; on more sober reflection, he realized how dangerous it was to have the “President of the United States obsessed with the idea of wreaking some kind of revenge against me.” The IRS audited him for three consecutive years.

Nixon later candidly acknowledged his own involvement in such harassment. He “hit the ceiling,” he recalled, when he learned that the IRS had audited John Wayne and Billy Graham. He told his aides: “Get the word out, down to the IRS, that I want them to conduct field audits of those who are our opponents, if they’re going to do in our friends.” He immediately suggested Democratic National Chairman Larry O’Brien as a target.
⁵

The White House staff followed the President’s command with a vengeance. On July 1, 1969, a call from Huston to the IRS Commissioner’s assistant resulted in the creation of the Special Services Staff (SSS) at the IRS, a group that would, as Huston suggested, investigate dissident, leftist political organizations. Patrick Buchanan thought that the IRS should investigate the liberal political activities of such bodies as the Ford Foundation and the Brookings Institution. In a memo to Nixon on March 3, 1970, Buchanan argued that the foundations’ tax exemptions created an “institutionalized power of the left” to “succor the Democratic party.”

By September 1970, the SSS had compiled information on more than 1,000 institutions and 4,000 individuals. Other staffers, however, remained
dissatisfied and urged the IRS to widen its net. Intelligence organizations within the Justice Department, the Secret Service, and the military added another 2,000 groups and 4,000 individuals for the IRS to study. The White House strongly believed that IRS commissioners could not be trusted to carry out its will and assigned John Caulfield to work with Vernon Acree, the IRS Assistant Commissioner for Inspection, to stimulate activity. Dean at one point passed on instructions that Caulfield should secure an audit of a newspaper reporter who had written a series of stories on the activities of presidential crony Bebe Rebozo. But Dean failed to persuade the IRS to investigate presidential candidate George McGovern’s staff and contributors.

At Colson’s suggestion, Dean also directed Caulfield to investigate the tax-exemption status of a number of liberal lobbying groups. Colson thought it wrong to grant exemption to those who “lobby against the Government.” In fact, Colson meant the Administration; he had no intention of invoking similar measures against foundations or corporations that criticized general government policies. White House pressure probably resulted in the denial of tax-exempt status for the Center for Corporate Responsibility in May 1973. Caulfield surreptitiously gained access to IRS internal reports and passed word to Dean that there had been no purposeful harassment of John Wayne or Billy Graham, whose audits had prompted a special presidential complaint. Meanwhile, the President was particularly interested in expediting the IRS’s investigation of the tax returns of Alabama Governor George Wallace’s brother.
⁶

The White House worked hard on IRS Commissioner Johnnie Walters, diligently seeking to make him subservient to its political needs. Haldeman told Dean in 1971 that he should discuss IRS investigative matters with Walters and Treasury Secretary John Connally. Dean later prepared a memorandum for Haldeman, based on information provided by Caulfield, outlining the Administration’s criticisms of and expectations for Walters and the IRS. Caulfield complained that IRS was “a monstrous bureaucracy … dominated and controlled” by Democrats. The Service had been too “unresponsive and insensitive” to the White House. Commissioner Walters, Caulfield noted, appeared “oversensitive” in his concern that IRS actions might be labeled political. That had to change, Dean said. Specifically, Dean told Haldeman that Walters “must be made to know that discreet political actions and investigations on behalf of the administration are a firm requirement and responsibility on his part. We should have direct access to Walters for action in the sensitive areas and should not have to clear them with Treasury.” Finally, the inevitable rationale: the Democrats “used [IRS] most effectively. We have been unable.” Caulfield had also urged that Dean be given “access and assurances” that Walters would accomplish what was expected.
⁷

As his first term ended, the President continued to complain about the unresponsiveness of the IRS. He believed that the IRS had leaked his own returns in 1952, and he remembered his own tax audits in 1961 and 1962—harassment, he called them. He told Ehrlichman in August 1972 that he had not pursued his opponents with tax audits because he had “no mandate.” But for the next term, things would be different, he promised. He wanted, he said, full control of subcabinet officials in the IRS and the FBI, as well as the Treasury and Justice departments. He instructed Ehrlichman to remove all IRS appointees after the election. A month after his re-election, the President harped on the same themes and suggested that John Dean work directly on some sensitive tax cases, ones that Treasury Secretary George Shultz was reluctant to pursue.
⁸