The Wars of Watergate (64 page)

But would the President have the credibility and the public support that Buchanan claimed for him? In early May, conservative political strategist Kevin Phillips wrote in the newsletter he published that the “wheels of government [had] ground to a substantial halt.” Washington, he said, now confronted the central questions: “1. Is the scandal going to get worse? and 2. Is
Richard Nixon
himself going to be involved? More and more people believe that the answer to both is ‘yes.’ ” President Richard Nixon had moved into uncharted, dangerous territory.
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The President was demoralized, confused, and increasingly reclusive. A year later, he recalled April 1973 as “about as rugged a period as anybody could be through.” At a Cabinet meeting on May 2, Nixon upbraided outgoing Attorney General Kleindienst because the FBI had sealed the office files of Haldeman and Ehrlichman. Nixon had apparently forgotten that he had directed that action. Frustrated and angry himself, Kleindienst defended the move and left the meeting. Meanwhile, Seymour Hersh of the
New York Times
reported that six leading White House and CREEP officials—Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Dean, Magruder, and LaRue—would be indicted.

Ron Ziegler offered an olive branch to the press. He contritely apologized to the
Washington Post
and its reporters, who had pursued the Watergate story most diligently. “In thinking of it all at this point in time, yes, I would apologize to the
Post
, and I would apologize to [reporters] Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein.” Ziegler pleaded that he had been “overenthusiastic” in his earlier remarks.
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Haldeman, however, had some good news. The dismissed aide continued to work in the White House, using his files (by then unsealed) to prepare for his defense. Haldeman also listened to some Oval Office tapes and prepared summaries for Nixon. In early June, he informed the President that Dean had left no written records of the fateful March 21 meeting. Ziegler told Nixon on June 4 that Haldeman’s summaries did not indicate any presidential
cover-up. Nixon himself had signed out twenty-six tapes that day and then listened to them on earphones for ten to twelve hours some days. Somewhat reassured, the President returned to familiar topics: the failures and culpability of John Mitchell; and leaks, including those by “our Jewish friends—even on our White House staff.” Meanwhile, Nixon widened the circle of those with knowledge of the secret tapes, apprising his new Chief of Staff, General Alexander Haig (who informed Kissinger), his recently appointed Counsel, J. Fred Buzhardt, and Stephen Bull, a young aide who had assumed many of Alexander Butterfield’s duties.
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On May 4, Nixon announced that General Haig would assume Haldeman’s duties on an “interim” basis. Haig already had moved into the post before the announcement. The “interim” designation served only to mark time before Haig could “retire” from the Army and assume his civilian position. Some congressmen futilely challenged the legality of the appointment, since Haig would serve the President while on active military duty. John Connally was brought to the White House as an unpaid adviser, but his duties were ill-defined, and he left soon thereafter. Buzhardt, General Counsel at the Department of Defense, came to the White House on a “temporary” basis as special counsel for Watergate affairs, supposedly with direct access to the President. Buzhardt and Haig had been together at West Point and were good friends. Buzhardt remained at the White House for the next fifteen months, and he served as Haig’s closest confidant.

Circumstances gave Haig more influence with the President and far more authority of his own than Haldeman had enjoyed, though Haig seems to have performed less efficiently. Haldeman had rarely imposed his personal beliefs on his job or acted on his own authority, but the times—and the President’s preoccupation with his own problems—had changed conditions, and Haig did not hesitate to do so. Haig probably reduced the President’s affinity for compartmentalization of his affairs, more as a result of circumstances than of design. When Haig moved into his post, most of his potential rivals had departed. After May 1, no Haldemans, Ehrlichmans, or Colsons remained to serve the President in their special, independent ways. When such rivals did emerge, as for example, the parade of various lawyers who conducted the President’s defense—Leonard Garment, J. Fred Buzhardt, Charles Alan Wright, and finally, James St. Clair—they operated under the shadow of Alexander Haig. St. Clair served the President during the darkest hours of the impeachment crisis, yet he rarely saw Nixon alone. “It was my responsibility,” St. Clair recalled, “to keep General Haig fully informed. To keep him fully informed was thus keeping the President fully informed.… [O]n occasion I reported directly to the President. Almost in every case, General Haig was there.”
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Vice President Spiro Agnew considered Haig “the de facto President” after he became White House Chief of Staff. Haig had cultivated extensive connections within the CIA, the FBI, and numerous other agencies throughout the government, Agnew wrote. More tellingly, he described Haig as “self-centered, ambitious, and ruthless”—in no other way could a man so quickly move from lieutenant colonel to four-star general and become the President’s most important aide. Perhaps Nixon believed that Haig would serve in gratitude for his rapid promotion. Haig was a man who knew how to ingratiate himself for his own gain, however petty. In a lengthy “personal and confidential” memo to Haldeman in April 1971, Haig, then Kissinger’s deputy on the National Security Council, pleaded for a place on the “A List” for the White House Motor Pool. Marshaling his arguments as if contending for a significant policy shift, Haig cited his long hours, his need to be on call “to put out one fire or another,” his surrender of Army privileges (living quarters, car, personal aide, and a servant), and his family’s need for a car (“so that family management can progress alongside White House management”)—all this, Haig said, “would more than justif[y]” an automobile privilege.
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Haig’s rise had been meteoric and had not been achieved without doubt and distaste on the part of his fellow military officers. He had graduated 214th in a class of 310 at West Point in 1947. He served on General Douglas MacArthur’s staff for two years and subsequently experienced combat in Korea and Vietnam. The Army initially nominated several more-experienced colonels when Kissinger requested a deputy for himself as National Security Council adviser, but Kissinger insisted on Haig as a result of a recommendation by one of his own patrons. By the end of 1972, Haig had his four stars as a general “without the benefit of a single day in a military job since his command of a battalion … in 1967,” as General Bruce Palmer wrote, and he had been jumped over 240 senior officers. In January 1973, Nixon nominated Haig to be the Army’s Vice Chief of Staff to replace Palmer, although Haig’s selection went against the recommendations of both outgoing Chief of Staff William Westmoreland and his successor, Creighton Abrams. After Haig moved to the Pentagon, the President provided him with a secure phone link to the White House, and Haig remained “deeply involved” in Administration affairs. Haig’s connection only fueled resentment in the Pentagon.
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Until the Watergate crisis, Haig was a shadowy figure, yet one Nixon trusted in a special way. In the wake of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s spying on Kissinger and the National Security Council in 1971, the President directed that nothing be done to harm Haig. Haig was then Kissinger’s deputy, although many suspected that he kept both White House and Pentagon officials apprised of Kissinger’s activities. By early 1973, Nixon and his aides used
Haig as a counterweight to Kissinger. When General Brent Scowcroft moved into the National Security Council on January 1973, Haldeman told Haig to brief his fellow general and “totally level with him on the Kissinger problem,” meaning the difficulty of working with Kissinger.
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White House staffers knew that Haldeman was the President’s alter ego, but so was Haig in his way. Agnew found him “servile to those in the President’s favor, overbearing to those outside the loop.” He usefully served Nixon, a man who liked to “achieve results through indirection,” Agnew added.

Yet Haig always seemed uncertain of his authority. According to Stephen Bull, Haig often would say, “I am the Chief of Staff” whenever challenged, “and I make all the decisions in the White House,” repeating himself five or six times in the same situation. Bull, who served under both Haldeman and Haig, deeply believed that Haig served himself rather than the President. When, as Secretary of State in 1981, Haig appeared at the White House following the attempted assassination of President Reagan and proclaimed, “I am in charge here,” many observers found him displaying a familiar pattern of behavior—characterized by Bull as a “very serious personality disorder.” Haldeman, Bull recalled, never had to remind others of his authority, and Haig often expressed insecurity about himself vis-à-vis Haldeman. But then, one often was uncertain as to which Haig he encountered. The General was, recalled one official, “an
improvisateur
of a persona.”

South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu remembered his meetings with Haig similarly: “When he is a general, Haig thinks like me,” said Thieu. “When he is a special envoy of President Nixon, he does the job of a special envoy.” Haig had a way of making himself indispensable, like Thomas Cromwell, who in a famous play described his role for Henry VIII: “I do things.” Kissinger praised his deputy as a man who “disciplined my anarchic tendencies and established coherence and prudence” in the staff of “talented prima donnas.” But Kissinger also recognized that Haig was ruthless; Haig, he remembered, “was implacable in squeezing to the sidelines potential competitors for my attention.” Altogether, Kissinger concluded, a “formidable” man.
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Repairing staff damage, of course, had a high priority for the President. It was imperative that he appoint a new Attorney General who could command respect across the political spectrum. William Rogers pressed for Elliot Richardson, a man with proven skills and versatility with experience in both the Nixon and Eisenhower administrations. The President had anticipated Rogers’s suggestion nearly a year earlier. One day before the Watergate break-in, Nixon told Ehrlichman to inform Richardson, then Secretary of Health,
Education and Welfare, that he would be one of the few Cabinet officials retained; in fact, the President told Ehrlichman, he might name Richardson as Attorney General.
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A Harvard Law School graduate, a former law clerk to Judge Learned Hand and Justice Felix Frankfurter, and a quintessential Boston Brahmin in appearance, manner, and commitment, Richardson epitomized all that the President despised, distrusted—and envied. But that same background, coupled with a respect for his integrity, now offered an irresistible appeal to the beleaguered President. Richardson had assumed the leadership of the Defense Department just three months earlier, after his stint directing HEW. He had no desire to leave the Pentagon, for he regarded his Cabinet job as equal in importance to that of Secretary of State. The President, Richardson claimed uneasily, had promised him that he would be a “counterweight” to Kissinger in mapping the Administration’s geopolitical strategy. Furthermore, the prospect of an ongoing Watergate investigation promised much unpleasantness. But Elliot Richardson was widely regarded as a “good soldier,” and the request to head the Department of Justice gave him an opportunity to add to his already substantial reputation as cooperative and reliable. When Richardson took the Pentagon post, for example, he literally begged the President to allow him to retain his longtime personal aide, conceding, however, that he would respect the President’s wishes. Meanwhile, concerning the Watergate scandals, Nixon assured Richardson on April 29: “You’ve got to believe I didn’t know anything.”
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Perhaps because he sacrificed much in accepting the new post, Richardson took the opportunity to provide the President with some useful counsel. Watergate, he said, had created a crisis of confidence, but Richardson thought it might offer an opportunity to display the President’s openness and magnanimous spirit. Richardson sensed that Nixon must curb his well-known proclivity for nursing grievances; above all, he believed, the President must realize that he had “arrived,” that he had stature in the eyes of the people. “[Y]ou have
won
—not only won, but been reelected by a tremendous margin. You are the President of
all
the people of the United States. There is no ‘they’ out there—nobody trying to destroy you.” But he remembered that the President sat mute, offering no expression of either agreement or disagreement.
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Richardson’s truth, as he saw it, simply did not fit Richard Nixon’s perception of reality or his favorite guise of outsider. It was not a promising beginning. As it turned out, Richardson’s five-month tenure in the Justice Department was framed by two weekends, on one of which the President proved to be a good butcher, and on the other, a bad one.

The President told Richardson at Camp David on April 29 that the Attorney General had “specific responsibility” to get “to the bottom of this.” All guilty parties were to be prosecuted, “no matter who it hurts.” He
promised Richardson full access—“there will be nobody between you and me.” But Richardson soon learned—much to his frustration—that the Haldeman and Ehrlichman “Berlin Wall” did not disappear with their departure. That wall had been erected and maintained by the President of the United States; his new staff members quickly adapted to a similar structure—and so did Richardson, who had almost no personal dealings with the President for the next five months. The President also instructed Richardson to “stand firm” on two points: first, presidential conversations must remain privileged; and second, there could be no intrusions “into [the] national security area.” Otherwise, the President said, “I don’t give a Goddamn what it is—Mitchell, Stans—anybody.”
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