The Wars of Watergate

by Stanley I. Kutler

  Butterfield told the committee staff that Nixon had directed him to have the Secret Service install and operate a voice-activated taping system. Besides the Secret Service operatives, only three other White House aides knew about it. Even the Director of the Secret Service Presidential Protective Division was unaware of its existence. Dean, he was certain, also did not know of it. The system had been installed in the Oval Office, the President’s Executive Office Building retreat, the Cabinet Room, several private White House rooms, and the President’s cabin at Camp David. “Everything was taped … as long as the President was in attendance. There was not so much as a hint that something should not be taped.” Butterfield did not believe any transcripts existed, nor had Nixon (in Butterfield’s tenure) requested any tapes for review. Butterfield believed that the President had no intention of depositing the tapes in the National Archives at the conclusion of his presidency.

  The original report of the investigators noted that Butterfield had stated that he thought his revelation was “something you ought to know about in your investigation.” But when Butterfield read the report, he protested, concerned as he was that some might think he had been “eager” to reveal the existence of the recording system. He had told the committee staff that he had not informed the U.S. Attorneys of the system because “they did not ask anything even closely related to this.” He corrected the report to read that he knew that the President would not want the information known, but since he had been asked, he had “no choice but to answer. And, of course, there is only one kind of truth.” He noted on the transcript that he had not said anything about the committee’s “need” to know. “That,” he said, “sounds as though I was eager, & I was not.”33

  Butterfield had assumed that the committee already had asked Haldeman and Higby about the tapes, and believed he was only corroborating what they had said. But apparently someone in high quarters had given Butterfield comfort after he had made the revelation, since in his public testimony he remarked that the tapes provided “the substance” for the President’s future defense. For his part, Butterfield hoped that he had not “given away something” that Nixon had planned to use in support of his position.

  John Dean, for one, was ecstatic over the revelation of the White House tapes. Alexander Butterfield, on the other hand, seemed distinctly unhappy with himself for having revealed them. Nixon later described himself as “shocked.” He thought that “any staff member” would have raised executive privilege rather than reveal the system’s existence.34

  In those suspicious times, Butterfield aroused the darkest of suspicions. Minority Counsel Fred Thompson thought that Nixon, that shrewdest and most nimble of politicians, had deliberately instructed Butterfield to describe the taping system because, Thompson believed, it would allow the President to provide irrefutable evidence of Dean’s culpability. Some suspected Butterfield of being a CIA agent, a charge Richard Helms later denounced as “ridiculous.” “I didn’t need Butterfield to spy for me,” Helms remarked. Butterfield’s motive was beside the point, however. His testimony changed the course of the hearings and redirected the conflict between Congress and Nixon. The tapes constituted the President’s deepest secret. Less than three months earlier, Nixon had underlined their importance when he warned Haldeman that the tapes had to remain secret. “Have we got people that are trustworthy on that?” the President asked. “I guess we have,” he said, providing his own response.35

  Most important, the President’s ability to defend himself and to be defended had shifted dramatically with the introduction of the White House tapes. Despite appearances, Howard Baker had been Nixon’s most effective supporter on the Senate Select Committee. While Edward Gurney was a caricature of the Nixon loyalist, Baker appeared to be disinterested. His question regarding the President’s knowledge, carefully repeated as it was, served to protect Richard Nixon. Who among those witnesses knew what the President knew, or when he knew it? Not many, and those who did seemed unlikely to answer. But the discovery of the tapes undid Baker’s careful handiwork. The tapes made irrelevant his question to John Dean, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” Through the tapes, Richard Nixon himself could answer Baker, and in indelible words.

  The President moved hastily to thwart the committee’s attempts to gain access to the tapes. On July 16, he directed that no Secret Service agents give testimony regarding their protective or other White House duties. A week later, an obviously bitter Richard Nixon dispatched two letters to Senator Ervin which were read that day in the Senate Caucus Room. The first said that Nixon knew of no useful purpose for holding a meeting between the two. The second curtly rejected any access to the tapes. The “special nature of tape recordings of private conversations” was such, the President said, as to make the principle of confidentiality even greater for tapes than for documents. The tapes, he insisted, were “entirely consistent with what I know to be the truth and what I have stated to be the truth.” Listening to them could only be confusing, for they were subject to interpretation against a wide range of other conversations and documents.

  The sharp rejection distressed Ervin. He replied, expressing his love for the nation, his veneration of the presidential office, and his wishes for President Nixon’s success—“because he is the only President this country has at this time.” But the widening scope of Watergate had alarmed him. With obvious pain and emotion, Ervin described it as “the greatest tragedy” in American history—one even more profound than the Civil War, which at least had the redeeming qualities of sacrifice and heroism. “I see no redeeming features in Watergate,” he concluded. Baker seconded Ervin’s comments, apparently having decided that the President now had to do more than “stonewall.” With that, the committee unanimously voted on July 23 to issue a subpoena duces tecum requiring the President to deliver the tapes to the committee.

  Three days later, Nixon rejected the subpoena. Baker moved that the committee take the matter to the courts. There was no precedent, but the issue was joined, as Ervin noted, “whether the President is immune from all of the duties and responsibilities in matters of this kind which devolve upon all the other mortals who dwell in this land.” The entire Senate voted to subpoena Nixon the following November. Lowell Weicker then suggested that the committee meet with the President to discuss the impasse, but Nixon again refused either to honor the subpoena or to talk to the senators. By December, Ervin was in despair. The President had convinced him “of his unrelenting purpose to hide … the truth respecting Watergate.”36

  Alexander Butterfield’s public testimony had disrupted the carefully channeled flow of witnesses that the committee staff had charted. Following Dean’s revelations of the cover-up and Mitchell’s acknowledgment that CREEP had authorized operations by its “security” team, the next witnesses confirmed the implementation of the cover-up. Herbert W. Kalmbach, Fred C. LaRue, and Anthony Ulasewicz all testified after Butterfield to their varied roles in the payment of “hush money.”

  Kalmbach poignantly talked of his trust in Dean and Ehrlichman, who had repeatedly encouraged his money-raising efforts for the Watergate defendants. “The fact that I had been directed to undertake these actions by the No. 2 and No. 3 men on the White House staff made it absolutely incomprehensible to me that my actions in this regard could have been … improper or unethical.” He described how Ehrlichman, a friend, specifically reassured him and told him that Dean had been authorized to direct him to raise money. All this gave the lie to Ehrlichman’s portrait of a John Dean who operated on his own writ, without the knowledge of his superiors. In a taped telephone conversation, Ehrlichman assured Kalmbach that the money paid was only for “humanitarian” purposes. That call, not coincidentally, came just before Kalmbach testified to the grand jury and clearly reflected Ehrlichman’s concern for the damage Kalmbach could do.37

  LaRue’s testimony was marked by confession and contrition: his actions, he said, were wrong “ethically and legally,… and I am prepared to
accept the consequences.” He described his delivery of cash payments, as well as his part in destroying records at CREEP. Like Mitchell, LaRue stressed the importance of re-electing the President, but with a sober sense of proportion markedly different from Mitchell’s.

  Damon Runyon might have written the script for Ulasewicz’s testimony. The former New York policeman’s comic descriptions of driving on the Washington Beltway, carrying a money changer for telephone calls, putting keys and envelopes in phone booths, lurking around corners, behaving in an exaggeratedly surreptitious manner, and delivering cryptic messages would have been the stuff of Broadway comedy except for the serious implications of his efforts. “Who thought you up?” Baker asked, much to the amusement of the audience. But Inouye soberly demanded to know whether Ulasewicz actually believed that he had delivered money for the legal defense of the Watergate conspirators. “Not likely,” Ulasewicz admitted.38

  Gordon Strachan, the key Haldeman staff assistant, established the relationship of Haldeman and CREEP and further described the workings of the Nixon White House. Strachan acknowledged at the outset of his testimony that his information would be “politically embarrassing” to himself and to the Administration, and he obliquely allowed that he had “closely associated” with confessed criminal elements. Blond-haired, well dressed, polite in demeanor, Strachan epitomized the dedicated young-man-in-a-hurry type embodied in many White House aides. He shamefacedly told Inouye that the White House staff had “an overwhelming and frequently inappropriate” sense of loyalty.

  Near the end of Strachan’s testimony, Joseph Montoya (as he often did) led the witness through a sackcloth-and-ashes expurgation of his sins. Were you “thrilled and enthused” about working in the White House? Montoya asked. “To be 27 years old and walking into the White House and seeing the President on occasion, and Dr. Kissinger … [is] a pretty awesome-inspiring [sic] experience for a young man,” replied Strachan. Montoya then reviewed Strachan’s “soldierly obedience” to his superiors and his “fall into the Watergate pit,” all of which, he noted, provoked disappointment and disillusionment in younger people and affected their attitude toward public service. What advice could Strachan give them? “Stay away,” he retorted, probably not offering quite the penitent statement Montoya desired.39

  Strachan described Haldeman’s vaunted efficiency, detailed the Chief of Staff’s intimate involvement with campaign matters, and explained his use of Dean. He was certain that Dean disclosed his doings to Haldeman and never would have operated on his own. Perhaps not inadvertently, Strachan testified as to Dean’s “remarkable facility” in remembering facts. Aside from attacking Magruder for continuing to perjure himself, Strachan carefully avoided incriminating anyone. He admitted that, just three days after the break-in, he had destroyed numerous memos regarding the campaign and Haldeman’s links to it, but he denied that the contents reflected illegal activity. The material simply was “politically embarrassing.” Strachan acknowledged that he had shredded documents at Haldeman’s request but would not confirm Ervin’s allegation that one of the memos described a “sophisticated intelligence operation” before the break-in.40

  The committee moved closer to the Oval Office when Ehrlichman and Haldeman testified from July 24 through August 1. For the first time in the hearings, the committee confronted formidable adverse witnesses who had prepared well for their appearance and doggedly defended their actions and those of the President. As if by prearrangement, the two men switched their public personae before the Senate committee. Haldeman, generally portrayed as a cold, ruthless, and rude fonctionnaire, appeared as reasonable and courteous. Ehrlichman, often considered the more amiable and gracious, and less dogmatic, of the two, responded defiantly, even contemptuously, to the committee. His body language and facial expressions reflected disdain for the committee’s intellectual and political qualities. He made no effort to disguise his low opinion of the senators and their staff.

  Egil Krogh, one of the Plumbers, who regarded Ehrlichman as something of a father-figure, had described him as “an intensely proud, vain man,” unable to tolerate being proven wrong on anything. Krogh saw Ehrlichman as the master of the “one-line putdown” and described him armed with a “razor-sharp wit” to skewer his antagonists. In later years, Ehrlichman acknowledged that his behavior before the Ervin Committee had been a tactical error: “I offered everyone an example of how not to do it.”41 When Ervin quoted a Biblical parable, Ehrlichman snapped back: “I read the Bible, I don’t quote it.” He used Sam Dash as a foil, alternately responding with mock amusement and outrage to Dash’s questions, generally treating the interrogation as pedantic and simplistic. Tapping anti-intellectual currents, Ehrlichman would refer to Dash as “Professor,” especially when (as often was the case) Dash would present a rather convoluted question. Altogether, Ehrlichman appeared as a man sometimes in error but rarely in doubt.

  Ehrlichman and Haldeman figured to be the President’s main line of defense. Yet White House Counsel J. Fred Buzhardt uncannily gauged their vulnerabilities. In a memo prepared for Nixon or Haig, Buzhardt expressed concern because of Ehrlichman’s aggressive manner. He realized that Ehrlichman would wrap himself in the blanket of national security to defend his actions with the Plumbers and worried that this reliance upon the President’s special role constituted danger for Nixon himself. Haldeman, on the other hand, had a “good demeanor,” but he was known as an inveterate note-taker and thus would accentuate the President’s “document denial problem.”42

  Ehrlichman’s testimony underscored the Administration’s basic defense: John Dean was a “vital link in a chain of delegation” who failed the President because of his desire to protect Mitchell and to cover up his own participation in criminal wrongdoing. In his opening statement, Ehrlichman challenged Dean’s credibility on almost every point. With typical effrontery, he dismissed the description of the fear and paranoia that Dean had contended gripped the White House. The reality, Ehrlichman insisted, involved the need to have critical positions staffed by loyalists, the need to prevent leaks that would jeopardize delicate negotiations, and the need to prevent the “terrorism” that reflected “a highly organized attempt to shut down the Federal Government.” Ehrlichman testified that the President was “not paranoid, weird, [or] psychotic on the subject of demonstrators or hypersensitive to criticism.”

  That defense was at odds with the analysis of Richard Nixon that Ehrlichman and Haldeman later offered in their memoirs. But in July 1973, Ehrlichman consistently defended the President as a man determined to conduct foreign policy on his terms, who refused to be influenced or intimidated by contrary opinions, and who initiated or considered activities including the use of the Plumbers, wiretapping, and the Huston Plan to prevent anarchy and subversion. Any successful defense of Nixon, of course, absolved Ehrlichman himself of culpability, but as Buzhardt realized, the game was a dangerous one for the President.

  Despite Ehrlichman’s desire to discredit Dean—the “star witness,” as he scornfully described him—the committee’s concern with Ehrlichman did not go directly to Dean’s testimony but centered on the nature of the Plumbers, his own connections to that group, and the President’s knowledge of their operations. Ehrlichman labored to depict Nixon as a President bent on fashioning a foreign and defense policy tailored to the national interest, who was thwarted and diverted from his mission by political enemies equally determined to fulfill their agendas, and even to force upon him a foreign policy “favorable to the North Vietnamese and their allies.” Such political expressions, Ehrlichman insisted, “were more than just a garden variety exercise of the first amendment.” Perhaps Ehrlichman was correct: clinical judgments of paranoia were beside the point. The conflict centered, from the White House perspective, on political divergence that was quite real. The only overuse of the imagination may have been in the Administration’s perception of their foes’ motivation, especially as it appeared in the more sinister overtones of Ehrlichman’s comments.43
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  Ehrlichman defended the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, finding nothing “completely irrational” in the action. Even if the deed had become public knowledge, he believed it could not have been “seriously embarrassing” to the Administration. Why? First, it was “part of a very intensive national security investigation” and second, the Plumbers were operating under “express authorization” in carrying it out. In short, the President had dictated the mission; and as a national-security matter, it could not be questioned.

  The actions of the Plumbers, Ehrlichman maintained, fit “well within the President’s inherent constitutional powers”—inherent powers that Ehrlichman confidently asserted were “spelled out” in the U.S. Code. Almost unnoticed in his testimony was that Ehrlichman took issue with his old antagonist John Mitchell, who had contended that the Plumbers represented part of the “White House horrors” and that Nixon would have “lowered the boom” had he learned of them. But Ehrlichman could speak firsthand for the President, correctly recalling Nixon’s contention that the Fielding break-in was “a vital national security inquiry,” well within the constitutional functions of the presidency. Meanwhile, Ehrlichman, recognizing the specter of a criminal indictment, fenced with Dash over his own role in the Fielding burglary: he was not conducting a “covert entry” but a properly authorized “covert investigation” of the psychiatrist’s offices. Still, the committee offered in evidence Ehrlichman’s August 11, 1971, memorandum to the Plumbers’ principals, Krogh and Young, approving a “covert operation” if done under their assurance “that it is not traceable.”44