The Wars of Watergate (57 page)

Mitchell also thought that the Ervin investigation could be contained, if the White House preempted the field with its own account of events, based on FBI documentation. Dean conceded the necessity of a report but warned it would be difficult; no report from him could be “complete.” Ehrlichman observed, “it’s a negative setting for us.” The President nevertheless decided to dispatch Dean for a weekend at Camp David to write a report and “carefully put down that this individual, that individual … were not involved.” Dean and Mitchell feared such a report would compromise the rights of the Watergate defendants; Ehrlichman and Haldeman thought not, because it would deal only with White House involvement. Dean urged that the report be submitted to Ervin but not be made public—as if in that time of wholesale leaks, such a report would have remained confidential for long. Losing touch with reality became contagious. If any “new development” occurred, Ehrlichman thought the report would enable the President to say later that he did not know, and he could “fire A, B, C, and D.”

Who would testify before the Ervin Committee? Haldeman knew the committee wanted “big fish,” meaning that he and Ehrlichman could not avoid an appearance. He seemed confident they could handle things. Clearly, everyone appeared anxious to keep Dean away from the committee: his vulnerability was the vulnerability of all. There was talk of the lawyer-client relationship to give him further protection.

The idea of a Dean Report took on a magical promise, for it would be
the way in which the White House would say that John Dean had revealed everything. Nixon in particular envisioned the report as the ultimate defense barrier. His immediate aides concurred, perhaps more in wish than in thought. But Dean knew better:

The President thought the Dean Report indispensable, and “if it opens doors, it opens up doors, you know.” When Ehrlichman sarcastically said that Mitchell was “sorry” he had sent the burglars in, the President joined in the little joke, and Mitchell responded, “[Y]ou are very welcome, sir.” The resultant laughter sounded nervous, even hollow.

Deferentially, almost, the President thanked Mitchell and Dean for carrying a heavy load. Dean was singled out for a special presidential commendation. After all, he “put the fires out” and “almost got the damn thing nailed down” till past the election. Nixon wavered between confidence and cheerleading. More would come out, but “we will survive it,” he assured everyone. “That’s the way you’ve got to look at it.” But he quickly added, “get the God damn thing over with.” He reviewed the “game plan”: hold the line on executive privilege, and make the Dean Report the framework for any outside investigations.

The President concluded the session by drawing his own historical lessons from the Sherman Adams episode in the Eisenhower Administration and from the Alger Hiss affair. Adams, who had been Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff, had improperly accepted a gift from a friend and subsequently intervened in his behalf with a federal agency. Eisenhower commissioned Nixon to fire Adams, a chore Nixon later described with distaste, contending that Adams had not done anything to merit dismissal. (In truth, Nixon had urged Eisenhower to act decisively and dismiss Adams.)

The Adams and Hiss affairs ran like threads throughout the President’s
conversations in his moments of greatest adversity. But he skewed facts, and the lessons gleaned always seemed curious, even twisted. Nixon talked forcefully of the need that a president loyally support subordinates who make honest mistakes, strongly implying that he would stand by his men. As for Hiss, Nixon repeatedly argued that if he only had admitted his association with Whittaker Chambers and had not covered it up, thereby perjuring himself, and if Truman had cooperated and not stonewalled congressional investigators, nothing would have happened. Thus Richard Nixon interpreting history and applying its lessons: “I don’t give a shit what happens,” he defiantly told his men. “I want you all to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover-up or anything else, if it’ll save the plan. That’s the whole point.”

Did Nixon then suddenly remember that Oval Office conversations were taped? Perhaps, for he quickly shifted gears. He preferred, he said, to “do it the other way.” Tell it all now—before leaks, charges, and innuendoes made things worse. The guilty must step forward. But he was not yet prepared to push “the other way.” Indeed, in the next breath, the President reverted to his conspiratorial ways. Work on Howard Baker, he urged. Mitchell complained that it was difficult to establish a liaison with Baker, for the Senator believed that his phone was tapped. Nixon was incredulous. Who would tap Baker? he asked, apparently secure in the belief that he had not done the like himself. He immediately answered his own question: Ervin. Perhaps Nixon believed that, but the talk really was trivial. The President’s final order could not be clearer: “Again,” he said, “you really have to protect the Presidency, too.”
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Not for the last time did Nixon bind the interest of the “Presidency” to that of the “President.”

Three days after Judge Sirica read McCord’s confessional letter in open court, the
New York Times
revealed that the former CIA agent had implicated White House and CREEP officials in the Watergate break-in and that there were hints and promises of further disclosures that would expand the stories of official wrongdoing. McCord had spoken to Sirica, to the federal prosecutors, and to Sam Dash, the recently appointed Counsel to the Ervin Committee. “Scot free—a hero,” the President remarked bitterly. Bob Woodward, a
Washington Post
reporter, visited the President’s Assistant Press Secretary on March 27, charging that Watergate involved a wider conspiracy than hitherto believed. He asked for an interview with the President to discuss the facts.
²⁶

That day, nearly a week after Dean’s lengthy session with the President, the inner defense circle had been altered. Now, as Nixon considered his most crucial decisions, his Counsel was no longer present. Dean had been sent to Camp David to compose a report, but he knew that such a document
would implicate everyone, from the President down. No Dean Report was written.
²⁷
In Dean’s absence, the President, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Ziegler decided that John Mitchell would serve the presidency and the President as he had never imagined.

Richard Nixon later mourned that he was not a “good butcher” (William Gladstone’s first requirement for a Prime Minister); but, in retrospect, his work indeed resembled the deft cuttings of a skilled surgeon; Nixon knew precisely whom to cut and how. At the outset, he told his aides he did not want the staff dividing and accusing one another. “The point is [,] what’s done is done. We do the very best we can, and cut our losses,” he stated. Haldeman reported that Magruder was claiming that the entire intelligence operation had originated in the White House with Haldeman and Dean. Both Haldeman and Ehrlichman emphasized to the President that Dean had no such involvement and that Haldeman had pressed only for better intelligence, without providing specific instructions. Magruder already had lied to the grand jury and now seemed very eager to clear himself. But everyone knew that Magruder inexorably led to Mitchell.

Mitchell could solve everything. Haldeman reported a CREEP lawyer as saying that “Mitchell could cut this whole thing off, if he would just step forward and cut it off.” For the moment, the President let the remark pass, but he knew that it was the only solution, and that securing Mitchell’s cooperation would be difficult. He was sure Mitchell would never admit perjury or his role in the origins of the break-in and the cover-up, even if the prosecutors gave him immunity. Haldeman thought that Mitchell would be offered immunity only if the prosecutors believed he could lead them to the President. Mitchell was higher than anyone else the prosecutors had pursued. Indeed, he was “the big Enchilada,” as Ehrlichman added.

The President suggested inviting Mitchell and Magruder for a talk. Perhaps Magruder could be persuaded to take sole responsibility. Nixon again resorted to his Hiss-Chambers touchstone experience. Hiss had been destroyed because he had lied; but Chambers, too, Nixon said, was destroyed because he had been an informer. What did that have to do with anything? It certainly did not offer Magruder any promising options; either way, if Nixon’s history lesson was relevant, he would be destroyed. Still, they devised a script for Magruder to follow, whereby he would appear before the grand jury, gain immunity, and admit he had lied earlier of his own volition. John Dean, in fact, had coached Magruder in preparation for his perjured testimony.

But Nixon, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman realized the importance of protecting the President’s Counsel. Magruder was only a “little fish” in the public eye; the President’s inner circle knew they had to serve up a “big
fish.” They believed that the U.S. Attorney would grant Magruder immunity in order to get to Mitchell. Haldeman sounded gleeful: “The interesting thing … would be to watch Mitchell’s face at the time I, I recommend to Magruder that he go down and ask for immunity and confess.” Haldeman displayed boldness and confidence, and why not: Mitchell was the expendable, vulnerable one, not himself. Ehrlichman, perhaps a bit shrewder than Haldeman (and also more vulnerable and expendable), was not so certain that “the thing will hold together.” That was after he made sure that the President was protecting
him
on the Ellsberg matter with a “national security tent over the whole operation.” “I sure will,” the President promised.
²⁸

Haldeman summoned John Dean from Camp David the next day. Dean had no report. Haldeman later said that this was because the document would have made “a tighter and tighter noose around John’s neck”—a rather disingenuous remark for one who controlled Dean with a short leash. Dean sensed some important changes in his master. Haldeman wanted him to see Mitchell and Magruder to coordinate his story with theirs. Dean claimed that both men still wanted him to protect their stories, even after Mitchell admitted his complicity in the formulation of the break-in plans. Dean remained a useful go-between for the Oval Office and those outside. The day after the key March 22 meeting, Nixon told Ehrlichman that Dean had “done [a] superb job,” given his heavy load.
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Whatever his motivation—to save his skin, to save the President, to acknowledge the futility of more lying—John Dean knew that he could no longer contain the scandal. His circle had closed and he needed his own wagons. Dean hired a criminal lawyer.

Richard Nixon himself was running perilously close to the time when he must talk—or it might be too late. Barry Goldwater pleaded with the President—“a valued friend and leader”—to be forthcoming. It was time, he told Nixon on March 29, “probably past time, that you either make public disclosures yourself relative to the Watergate or allow some of your men to make statements themselves to clear up what I know to be lies and misstatements.” Goldwater warned Nixon that prominent Republicans throughout the nation were uneasy and restless.
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If Goldwater believed that the President and his men had lied, then indeed the President was in trouble. But Nixon preferred his own options: stonewalling, modified limited hang outs, sacrificial lambs. He remained confident that he could get his house in order as April approached. But truly, for him it became the “cruelest month.”

April found the embattled President and his staff confronted with mounting criticism and ever-more-formidable inquiries. On April 1, Senator Lowell Weicker of the Select Committee demanded that Haldeman explain his ties to the President’s re-election committee. Three days later, Weicker admitted that he had no evidence of criminal involvement on Haldeman’s part, but the implication had been planted.
Der treue
Gordon Liddy received an additional jail term for contempt of court because he refused to answer the Ervin Committee’s questions, but news leaked that James McCord had had a great deal to say to Senate investigators, including particulars about the roles of John Mitchell, John Dean, Jeb Magruder, and Charles Colson in the Watergate incident. Weicker warned reporters that they had uncovered only a small fraction of what McCord had revealed and that they would miss significant stories if they focused exclusively on the Watergate break-in. Sam Ervin, meanwhile, made it clear that he would challenge the President’s extravagant claims of executive privilege in order to gain the testimony of key White House aides. The trickle of Watergate news in March swelled into a rampaging stream.

Richard Nixon and his advisers faced inward. Critics—from both parties—dominated congressional commentary; the Senate investigation widened in scope; a Republican judge, noted for his admiration of Nixon, charged that the White House had covered up criminal activities; the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s office carefully cultivated distance from the President; and that ever-familiar “enemy,” the media, seemed determined to
make prophecy out of Spiro Agnew’s well-remembered criticism. Nixon’s patterns of compartmentalization no longer were adequate; instead, he had to turn exclusively to his most intimate and loyal retainers—and decide how to use them in his own struggle for survival.