The Wars of Watergate

by Stanley I. Kutler

  The discussion of White House maneuvers to discredit the Senate hearings also unmasked the Administration’s hostility toward Lowell Weicker. The Connecticut Senator deftly used the moment to equate the attempts to smear him with the heavy-handedness of the “enemies list.” He had a transcript of an Ehrlichman-Kleindienst March 28 conversation discussing the Senator’s attacks on the White House. Weicker delivered what amounted to a stump speech, defending his credentials as a Republican and contending that Republicans did not commit illegal acts, did not view fellow citizens as enemies, and did not cover up crimes. It was stirring television, whether live or on the evening news. And again, it did not exactly make a profitable moment for the Administration.22

  By Friday, June 29, John Dean had completed a remarkable week of testimony. The senators and the staff counsels had followed his prepared testimony with a variety of cross-examination, some friendly, some hostile, and some skeptical. Rumors abounded about Dean’s sexual escapades, his misappropriation of funds, and his fears of homosexual attacks if he went to prison. Dean stood up to the challenges. “Truth,” he confidently asserted, was his “one ally.” At one point in his testimony, he confused the name of a hotel with a coffee shop, but when his critics tried to use this to derogate his truthfulness, they succeeded only in humanizing him. Throughout, Dean maintained his composure, his appearance of restraint, and above all, his consistency. He had painted a pattern that shaped the rest of the hearings—and the emergence of the case against the President. Few would dispute Dean’s conclusion: “there was a terrible cloud over this Government.”23

  The committee adjourned for eleven days over the Fourth of July holiday period. Perhaps to regain the initiative, or to win sympathy, the White House chose to reveal at this time that the President had considered resignation. Julie Nixon told reporters on July 3 that her father had raised the subject as “devil’s advocate,” suggesting that his resignation might be best for the country. His family dutifully objected, contending that it would be “an admission of wrongdoing.” Nixon thus projected both a grievance and a sense of hurt; more, there was the inevitable comparison to worse villains. His daughter attacked the media for portraying Daniel Ellsberg as a “hero,” even though he “stole” documents and “broke the law” involving national-security matters.

  This was not the first discussion of resignation to emerge from high-level circles. The day after the Senate hearings began, John Mitchell’s wife told reporters that the White House was to blame for the scandal. Her husband, she contended, had only been protecting “Mr. President.” She predicted that Nixon would resign or be impeached. “I think he’d be much wiser to resign,” Martha Mitchell said. Mitchell himself told reporters afterward that he would not be a “fall guy.” On June 6 a liberal Republican congressman began to read a speech in the House, charging that the President might have violated criminal laws, when a fellow Republican stopped the proceedings for lack of a quorum. A week later, a congresswoman suggested that the House of Representatives establish an impeachment inquiry.24

  Meanwhile, Nixon urged his staff to seize the initiative. In a memorandum reminiscent of the public-relations concerns that had so preoccupied the President and Haldeman in the first term, he complained to Haig that “we have tried to get a point across using only one bullet [while] our opponents have been enormously effective in getting three or four rides out of the same story.” He wanted more Cabinet officers and Republican senators to speak out in defense of his aides. Typically, he suggested a counterattack focusing on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations for their uses of the FBI and the military for wiretapping and surveillance activities and their use of the IRS for political purposes. But perhaps more important, Nixon wanted Elliot Richardson to rein in Archibald Cox and take him to task for conducting “a partisan political vendetta rather than [doing] … the job he was appointed to do—bring the Watergate defendants to trial at the earliest possible time.” Richardson, the President feared, would “be a relatively weak reed in this respect.”25

  During the holiday recess, Nixon released a letter he had sent to the Senate committee, refusing to make presidential papers available or to testify himself. He had urged his staff to furnish “information pertinent” to the investigation, but he would not allow “public scrutiny” of his private papers. The Senate request that had elicited that response had been vague and, to some extent at that point, constituted a fishing expedition. Dean had described the President’s habit of annotating daily news summaries, for example—words that sometimes in a vague sense implied a directive but often simply reflected his momentary responses. Those notes, Nixon insisted, in no way constituted a criminal act, and, more important, they had no bearing on the legislative concerns of a Senate investigating committee. As to whether or not he would testify, Nixon insisted that his doing so would offer “irreparable damage” to the separation-of-powers principle.

  The Senate Select Committee met on July 12 to consider the President’s position. Baker urged his colleagues not to confront Nixon, confident as he was that the President would eventually comply with the request because of other pressures. But the committee insisted on stating its position to the President, and Ervin allowed Baker to draft the letter. Baker suggested that Nixon meet with representatives of the committee to avoid “a fundamental constitutional confrontation between the Congress and the Presidency.” When Ervin read the letter in open session and announced that it been sent in a sealed envelope, marked for the President’s eyes only, the spectators laughed. Earlier, in executive session, Ervin spoke to the President on the telephone and described the substance of the letter. Throughout the call, Ervin insisted that “we are not out to get anybody.” The Senator assured the President that he would be delighted to say that there was “nothing in the world to connect you with the Watergate in any way.” Nixon told Ervin that he was ill with viral pneumonia and would be hospitalized. He added that he would meet the Chairman at some future date to discuss the impasse.26

  Magruder and Dean had revealed themselves as foot soldiers, prepared to sacrifice themselves, though not in silence. They had implicated the President’s closest and most important aides, and by indirection, Nixon himself. The President would not appear before the committee—there would be no subpoena—but others had no choice. John Mitchell testified for nearly three days. The cooperation so apparent in the Magruder and Dean testimony now evaporated, replaced by a public display of what the President himself had called “stonewalling.” The printed record inadequately conveys Mitchell’s behavior. His recalcitrance, his foggy, vague answers, his angry interruptions, and his snide, sarcastic remarks directed at the committee and at some of his own associates need to be seen and heard to be fully appreciated. His long pauses, his silent rejection of questions, and his facial expressions amply reflected his absolute contempt for the proceedings and his total loyalty to the President. That loyalty is the more remarkable in view of what Mitchell and the President both knew: Mitchell acted as he did despite Nixon’s eagerness to make him a scapegoat just two months earlier.

  The antagonism between Mitchell and the President’s closest aides ran deep, especially in the case of Ehrlichman. Early in the Administration one White House staff member supposedly remarked that Mitchell believed only in his own advancement and that of his friends. Nixon’s April meetings with Haldeman and Ehrlichman consistently betrayed hostility toward Mitchell on the part of the President’s retainers. Ehrlichman complained that “M lies unsuccessfully,” and told the President to stand by his immediate advisers and not move “a peg.” Dean had testified about the “rather strained relationship” between Mitchell and Ehrlichman and the “longstanding competition” between Mitchell and “certain people” in the White House. The White House memorandum and questions Inouye read to Dean implicated Dean for trying to protect his earlier patron, Mitchell. But shortly before Mitchell testified, Buzhardt said that the memo did not represent the White House position and that the President had not
“reviewed” it, although he had been “briefed” on its contents. Shortly afterward, Mitchell’s lawyer told reporters that the former Attorney General “definitely has no information implicating the President in the Watergate bugging or cover-up.”27 The White House disavowal of the memorandum and Mitchell’s subsequent posture before the committee seemed more than coincidental.

  Mitchell early on indicated how he would deal with the committee. When Talmadge asked him about his March 1972 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had no “party responsibilities” while Attorney General, Mitchell tried to distinguish between party matters and the President’s re-election campaign. Talmadge found that the record showed that Mitchell had been asked specifically about “re-election campaign responsibilities.” Mitchell simply insisted that the question had been raised in the “context” of party matters. Talmadge was disgusted and brought forth CREEP memoranda illustrating Mitchell’s campaign activities as far back as December 1971. “The public can draw their own conclusions,” he said. The next day Ervin reminded Mitchell of his confirmation hearings in 1969, in which he pledged to be the President’s legal, not political, adviser. Why had he not fulfilled that promise? Ervin asked. “Mr. Chairman,” Mitchell answered, “that would have been my fondest wish. Unfortunately, it is very, very difficult to turn down a request by the President of the United States.”28

  In his own fashion, Mitchell revealed a great deal about the nature and character of the White House and the President’s close aides. He vehemently denied Magruder’s allegation that he had been involved in discussions regarding bugging the Democratic National Committee. “To the best of my recollection,” Mitchell said, no targets had been discussed, and “to the best of my recollection,” he had not suggested any. He admitted that Liddy’s original plan for spying on and sabotaging their opponents was “beyond the pale” and that he had instructed him to return with detailed plans for dealing with demonstrators. But why didn’t Mitchell throw Liddy out of his office? Dash asked. “Well, I think, Mr. Dash, in hindsight I not only should have thrown him out of the office,” Mitchell somberly replied, “I should have thrown him out of the window.” When Dash further queried why Mitchell did not arrest Liddy for conspiring to commit illegal acts while talking in the Attorney General’s office, Mitchell wryly answered that it “would have been a very viable thing to do.” He denied having seen any wiretap documents; Magruder’s contention to the contrary was “a palpable, damnable lie.”29

  As Dash led Mitchell through his knowledge of the Huston Plan and the Plumbers’ operations, Mitchell referred to these activities as the “White House horrors.” His remarks at this point effectively diminished the singularity and importance of the Watergate break-in and provided a window on the entire pattern of wrongdoing and abuse of power in the Administration. He bluntly stated that the cover-up really was designed to conceal the “horrors” rather than any aspects of the Watergate break-in. Watergate, in short, “did not have the great significance that the White House horror stories … had,” Mitchell concluded. When Magruder told Mitchell that it would be best to “cut their losses” and acknowledge their role in the break-in, Mitchell replied that the White House could not allow that. Indeed, he told the committee substantially the same thing: “some” White House people had been involved in those adventures, and their “interests” dictated a cover-up strategy.

  Mitchell subsequently listed the White House horrors for Talmadge: the Ellsberg psychiatrist’s office break-in, the silencing of an ITT lobbyist, the forging of cables regarding the assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem, “alleged extracurricular activities in the bugging area,” the planned firebombing of the Brookings Institution, “a lot of miscellaneous matters” relating to Chappaquiddick, “and this, that, and the next thing.” Some of Mitchell’s information, he said, had come from friendly White House staff workers who often enlisted his aid “to pour water on inflammatory requests,” such as those involving political reprisals against Republican congressmen who occasionally strayed from the Administration line.30

  More chilling, perhaps, was Mitchell’s explanation of why he never informed Nixon of wrongdoing that had occurred. Talmadge particularly pressed him, reminding Mitchell that he had a special relationship with the President. “[W]hy on Earth didn’t you walk into the President’s office and tell him the truth?” Talmadge asked. The truth was not the issue, Mitchell said; rather, it was important not to involve the President in such things. Knowing Richard Nixon, Mitchell said, led the Attorney General to believe that he would “just lower the boom,” and the result would be to hurt his re-election. Talmadge pressed further: was the President’s re-election more important than his learning about the crimes, perjury, and obstruction of justice that lurked all about him? Mitchell: “Senator, I think you have put it exactly correct. In my mind, the reelection of Richard Nixon, compared with what was available on the other side, was so much more important that I put it in just that context.” He later testified that he was certain that the President did not know about the Watergate cover-up.

  Inouye raised the obvious question: why not tell the President after the election? By then, however, Mitchell worried that such matters might be “a detriment” to the second term. He told Baker that none of the crimes and “horrors” could match the importance of re-electing the President. “I still believe,” he said, “that the most important thing to this country was the re-election of Richard Nixon. And I was not about to countenance anything that would stand in the way of that re-election.” Mitchell, like the President, wanted to relive the 1972 campaign as the most effective way of deflecting the growing charges against the Administration. Despite Nixon’s declining approval ratings, polls still showed that voters overwhelmingly preferred him to George McGovern. But when Ervin told Mitchell he had exalted the President’s political fortunes above Nixon’s responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, Mitchell displayed a rare glimmer of uncertainty as he acknowledged that that was a “reasonable” interpretation and, on reflection, “it is a very serious one.”31

  On Friday, July 13, committee investigators privately interrogated former Haldeman aide Alexander Butterfield in preparation for his public appearance. Butterfield was an important witness in setting the scene for testimony from Haldeman and Ehrlichman. The three men had attended UCLA together in the 1940s. Butterfield’s and Haldeman’s wives were best friends, and the two men were on good terms. Butterfield had served more than twenty years in the Air Force as a fighter pilot and a member of the jet aerobatics team, rising to full colonel. At Haldeman’s invitation, he had joined the White House staff shortly before Nixon’s inauguration in January 1969 and remained until March 14, 1973, when he resigned to become Administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency.

  Butterfield’s job was, in his own words, to see to the “smooth running of the President’s day.” He completely controlled the paper flow to the President, logging in memos, weeding out those which “the President did not have to see”—certainly a considerable responsibility. Butterfield and Haldeman shared the task of accompanying the President on domestic trips, mainly to direct the staff. (Haldeman monopolized the foreign excursions, apparently trusting Butterfield to oversee White House operations in his absence.) At 2:00 P.M. each day, Butterfield and his aides would map the President’s schedule for the next day. Every presidential meeting required a briefing paper that included “talking points” for the President. Whoever prepared the paper generally would attend the meeting and then have responsibility for preparing a summary memorandum afterward, for both immediate and historical reference. Butterfield tracked those reports and ensured that they were completed. He also directed FBI investigations made on behalf of the White House. Although an FBI background check was normal procedure for nominating appointees, Butterfield acknowledged that he filled approximately eight requests for investigations of individuals who were not prospective appointees, including entertainers Frank Sinatra and
Helen Hayes, and reporter Daniel Schorr. (Interestingly, Butterfield classified Schorr as a “non-appointee,” indicating that the background check for job purposes was a ruse.)

  Although relatively unknown outside Administration circles, and of a modest, accommodating demeanor, Butterfield nevertheless could act with an authoritative confidence. After the President and Ehrlichman had met with key Administration officials on tax policy in September 1972, Butterfield’s aide asked Ehrlichman’s assistant for a memorandum of the meeting for the White House records. The Ehrlichman man replied that Ehrlichman had said that there should be no report, because of the “sensitive nature” of the session. Butterfield personally replied: “Nothing is too sensitive—really! No one sees these except Dave Hoopes [his aide] & me … & neither of us has to read anything. We have K[issinger]’s memos on Mao, Chou, Brezhnev, etc.… —Haldeman’s, Connally[’s] meetings. Surely you can comply with this request. Just put memo in sealed envelope & mark it P[resident] & E[hrlichman] eyes only—if you want. But some written record is mandatory.”32

  Butterfield’s decision to leave the White House apparently was his own. He told Senate investigators that the position no longer challenged him. Nixon initially asked Butterfield whether he wanted to join the State Department. The FAA was a second suggestion. Shortly after he left in March, Butterfield visited U.S. Attorneys Silbert and Glanzer to describe his tenuous connection to Haldeman’s $350,000 fund for “political polling.”

  Three Senate committee staffers interviewed Butterfield on that Friday afternoon in July. He cooperated mechanically, aptly reflecting his White House functions. But except for Haldeman, the investigators would speak to no one with as intimate a knowledge of the President’s day-to-day conduct. Since Dean’s rather offhand remark that he thought his Oval Office conversations had been taped, the Ervin Committee’s staff had routinely asked witnesses if they had any knowledge of such action. When asked whether he was aware of any taping, Butterfield forthrightly responded: “There is tape in the Oval Office. This tape is maintained by the Secret Service, and only three (3) Secret Service men knew about it initially … now four (4) know about it. The system was installed about 2 1/2 years ago, I think—about at the 18-month point of Mr. Nixon’s 1st term.… [T]he President is very history-oriented and history-conscious about the role he is going to play, and is not at all subtle about it, or about admitting it.”