The Wars of Watergate

by Stanley I. Kutler

  42. Ehrlichman to Hoover, April 14, 1969, Hoover to Ehrlichman, April 28, 1969. Chotiner File, FBI.

  43. Loch K. Johnson, A Season of Inquiry: The Senate Intelligence Investigation (Lexington, KY, 1985), 85; William C. Sullivan, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI (New York, 1979), 211–16; Neil J. Welch and David W. Marston, Inside Hoover’s FBI: The Top Field Chief Reports (New York, 1984), 153; Dean, Blind Ambition, 37.

  44. Helms Interview, July 14, 1988; Huston Interview, September 1, 1988; Liddy to Krogh, October 22, 1971, Young Papers, Box 21, NP; Ehrlichman Notes, December 18, 1972, Box 13, Ehrlichman Papers, NP; Nixon’s version of his presidential relationship and dealings with Hoover are in his Memoirs, 2:70–76; Carl Stern Report (based on Nixon Papers), NBC News, February 12, 1987; Johnson, Season of Inquiry, 293. Sullivan, The Bureau, 199, raises the possibility of Hoover’s blackmailing of Nixon. Nixon’s concern for Sullivan’s silence is in Ehrlichman Notes, October 25, 1971, Box 5, Ehrlichman Papers, NP.

  45. Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 167–68.

  46. Sullivan, The Bureau, 217; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities, Hearings, 2:32, 45; Ovid Demaris, The Director: An Oral Biography of J. Edgar Hoover (New York, 1975), 251, 304; Johnson, Season of Inquiry, 86.

  47. TT, the President and Dean, February 28, 1973 (9:12 A.M.–10:23 A.M.), Transcripts of Eight Recorded Presidential Conversations, Committee on the Judiciary, H.R., 93 Cong., 2 Sess. (May-June 1974), 28.

  V: “I WANT IT DONE, WHATEVER THE COST”: ENEMIES, PLUMBERS, TAPS, AND SPIES

  1. Nixon Notes, November 28, 1970, December 6, 1970, NPF, Box 186, NP.

  2. “Six Month Compilation of Activities,” Caulfield to Ehrlichman, October 8, 1969, Krogh Papers, Box 6, NP; Caulfield to Ehrlichman, September 10, 1969, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 20, NP; Ehrlichman to Dent, April 17, 1969, Dent Papers, Box 1, NP; John D. Ehrlichman, Witness to Power (New York, 1982), 292. Caulfield himself described his extensive activities in a series of interviews with the Special Prosecutor in 1973. Interviews, July 2, 18, 25, October 17, November 29, 1973, Caulfield Witness File and Henry Ruth Files, WGSPF Records, NA.

  3. Dean Memorandum, “Dealing With Our Political Enemies,” August 16, 1971; Colson to Dean, September 9, 1971; Dean to Larry Higby, September 14, 1971, in SSC, Hearings, 4:1689–98; Dean Testimony, ibid. (June 28, 1973), 4:1527, 1529. Butterfield to Dean, October 6, 1972, Dean Papers, Box 6, NP.

  4. Colson in HJC, Testimony of Witnesses (July 16, 1974), 3:453; “Blacklist,” Box 38, Colson Papers, NP; see, for example, memoranda of Lyn Nofziger (April 21, 1971), Joan Gordon (March 9, 1971), Tom Huston (January 25, 1971), Colson (August 27, 1970, December 17, 1970).

  5. J. Anthony Lukas, Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years (New York, 1976), 12–18; Dean Testimony, SSC Hearings; 3:1073–74, 4:1529; John Dean, Blind Ambition (New York, 1976), 316; Robert Pack, Edward Bennett Williams: For the Defense (New York, 1983), 14–15; Nixon in Newsweek, April 16, 1984, 37. “I want Moe Annenberg for dinner,” FDR told his Treasury Secretary, regarding an income-tax prosecution of an unfriendly newspaper publisher. Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography (New York, 1985), 555–56.

  6. Final Report, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, U.S. Senate, 93 Cong., 2 Sess., 135–43. Hereafter cited as SSC, Final Report. Dean and Colson’s various notes on the subject are in Dean Papers, Box 30, NP; Caulfield to Dean, September 30, 1971, ibid.; Clark Mollenhoff Interview, November 27, 1973, Plumbers Task Force, WGSPF Records, NA.

  7. Fred Fielding to Dean, September 9, 1971, Dean Papers, Box 30, NP; IRS Talking Paper, prepared by Dean for Haldeman, SSC, Hearings, 4:1382, Exhibit 44, 1682–85.

  8. Ehrlichman Notes, August 3, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 12, ibid., December 7, 1972, Box 13, NP.

  9. TT, The President and Haldeman, May 5, 1971, printed in NYT, September 24, 1981 (story by Seymour Hersh). The transcript is an apparently rough one, but points very clearly to a much seamier conversation on the full tape recording.

  10. Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (paperback ed., New York, 1979), 1:478; H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power (New York, 1978), 11–12; Colson’s remark is in Lukas, Nightmare, 71.

  11. Caulfield to Haldeman, February 11, 1971, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 30, NP.

  12. Colson to Ehrlichman, July 22, 1971, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 17, NP; Colson to Ehrlichman, July 16, 1971, Colson Papers, Box 7, NP.

  13. Haldeman Notes, September 18, 1971, Haldeman Papers, Box 44, NP; Nixon, Memoirs, 1:629; Sanford Ungar, The Papers and the Papers (New York, 1975), 27; Laird’s and Nixon’s comments are in Ehrlichman’s Handwritten Notes, HJC, Statement of Information, Appendix III:106, 108; Leslie H. Gelb, “Today’s Lessons from the Pentagon Papers,” Life, September 17, 1971; NYT, January 17, 1971.

  14. Nixon, Memoirs, 629–34; Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston, 1979), 116–17; Ehrlichman Notes, August 11, 1971, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 12, NP.

  15. New York Times Co. v. U.S., 403 U.S. 713 (1971); Griswold Interview, May 4, 1987.

  16. Caulfield Testimony, SSC, Hearings, 22:10356–61; Dean, Blind Ambition, 44–49; Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 403; Dean to Krogh, July 27, 1971, Dean Papers, Box 30, NP.

  17. Nixon, Memoirs, 1:635–36; Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 115–16; Nixon to Ehrlichman in Haldeman, Ends of Power, 112; Dent Interview, September 24, 1986; Krogh Statement to the Court, January 24, 1974; Krogh Interview, August 20, 1986.

  18. WP, December 8, 1972; Krogh Testimony, Nominations: January 1973, Hearings, Committee on Commerce, U.S. Senate, 93 Cong., 1 Sess. (January 11, 1973), 74–90; Ehrlichman Testimony, SSC, Hearings, 6:2529.

  19. Colson to Ehrlichman, July 22, 1971, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 17, NP.

  20. Helms Interview, July 14, 1988; Krogh’s affidavit is discussed in Nomination of Elliot L. Richardson to be Attorney General, Hearings, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 93 Cong., 1 Sess. (May 22, 1973), 244–46; Krogh’s more formal statement to the District Court came on January 24, 1974. Krogh Interview, August 20, 1986. Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 399–407; Haldeman, Ends of Power, 114, raises the distinct possibility that the President authorized the break-in. Ehrlichman Notes, May 2, 1973, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 14, NP; HJC, Testimony of Witnesses, 3:54; Nixon’s versions of events can be found in Nixon, Memoirs, 1:637, and in the account of his 1977 television interviews, described by David Frost, “I Gave Them a Sword”: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (New York, 1978), 281ff.

  21. Jaworski Memoir, 5:936–37, Jaworski MS, Baylor University; William Merrill to Edward Soden, December 17, 1973, ibid. (re Krogh and Liddy); Ehrlichman-Richardson Telephone Conversation, April 30, 1973, Summary in Richardson MS, LC; Young’s statements and Richardson’s conclusions are in Elliot Richardson’s Notes, May 1, 1973, Administrative Files, WGSPF, NA; Richardson to Assistant Attorney General Petersen, April 25, 1973, Richardson MS, LC; Ehrlichman to Colson, August 27, 1971, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 57, NP. Howard Hunt’s grand jury testimony was released on May 4, 1973, and detailed the operational side of events; NYT, May 5, 1973. General Robert Cushman’s testimony described the CIA’s connection: SSC, Hearings, 8:3289–3311.

  22. Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (New York, 1984), 65–76, attached significant importance to the affair.

  23. Athan G. Theoharis and John Cox, The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (Philadelphia, 1988), 417; Krogh Interview, August 20, 1986.

  24. Moorer Interview, June 25, 1985; Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., On Watch (New York, 1976), xiv.

  25. Transmittal of Documents from the National Security Council to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hearings, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 93 Cong., 2 Sess. (February 6, 20, 21 March 7, 1974); Moorer Interview, June 25, 1985; Welander “Confession,” in Ehrlichman Papers, Box 6, NP; Laird Interview, June 27, 1985; Nixon, Memoirs, 1:660; Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 302–08; Raymond L. Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations
from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, D.C., 1985), 410; Ehrlichman Notes, January 5, 6, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 6, NP; Nixon to Kissinger, November 12, 1971, Haldeman Papers, Box 140, NP. (The President preferred to talk about national-defense matters to Moorer without Laird present.)

  26. Mitchell Interview, April 11, 1988; Ehrlichman Notes, December 23, 1971, January 5, 6, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 6, NP; Henry Ruth to Carl Feldbaum, October 7, 1975, SP Files: Jack Anderson, WGSPF Records, NA; Symington in Committee on Armed Services, Transmittal of Documents, 6; Hougan, Secret Agenda, xviii; Joseph C. Spear, Presidents and the Press: The Nixon Legacy (Cambridge, MA, 1984), 135; Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 305; Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 807–09. The “blackmail” incident is described in a memo, Richard Tufaro to Leonard Garment, May 14, 1973, and other memos, furnished by Mr. Garment. Nixon later expressed outright contempt for the Pentagon’s handling of the Vietnam war. Richard Nixon, No More Vietnams (New York, 1985).

  27. NYT, May 11, 1973, 1, 18, 19; Nixon, Memoirs, 1:478–479; Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 115–16.

  28. William Sullivan to J. Edgar Hoover, Gray/Wiretap Investigation, Martin Files, WGSPF Records, NA. Transcripts exist of a Kissinger “spy” reporting on Haig’s activities.

  29. Martin to the Files, October 10, 1975, WGSPF Records, NA; Sullivan to Hoover, May 20, 1969, Gray/Wiretap Investigation, Young Witness File, Plumbers Task Force, WGSPF Records, NA; Powers, Secrecy and Power, 444–48; NYT, May 15, 16, 17, 1973; Nixon, Memoirs, 1:481; Clarence M. Kelley, The Story of an FBI Director (Kansas City, 1987), 155; WP, August 6, 1977.

  30. Dent to Mitchell, June 17, 1969, Dent Papers, Box 1, NP; Caulfield to Ehrlichman, June 20, 1969, Krogh Papers, Box 66, NP; Butterfield to Krogh, June 6, 1970, Krogh Papers, Box 14, NP.

  31. Christopher Pyle, “Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics, 1967–1970.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 1974.

  32. Federal Data Banks, Computers, and the Bill of Rights, Hearings, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 92 Cong., 1 Sess. (February–March 1971), 597–624, 849–914; ibid., Army Regulation No. 381–115 (Delimitations Agreement), July 2, 1969, 1172–75.

  33. Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1 (1972). Rehnquist’s refusal to disqualify himself is in 409 U.S. 829 (1972). The later revelations of Rehnquist’s role, and its ethical implications, are discussed in the Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1986, and in a letter from Yale Law Professor Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., to Senator Charles Mathias, September 8, 1986. Copy provided by Professor Hazard.

  34. John T. Eliff, Crime, Dissent, and the Attorney General: The Justice Department in the 1960’s (Beverly Hills, CA, 1971), 206–37.

  35. United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, 407 U.S. 297 (1972). Arguments are in Records and Briefs. The Circuit Court’s ruling is in 444 F. 2d 651 (6th Circ. 1971). Griswold Interview, May 4, 1987. The lead defense lawyer, Arthur Kinoy, has written an invaluable account of the proceedings: Rights on Trial: Odyssey of a People’s Lawyer (Cambridge, 1983), Ch. 1. Ehrlichman Notes, June 20, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 6, NP. Attorney General Kleindienst claimed that he promptly terminated all wiretaps that conflicted with the Court’s ruling. He also said that similarly unauthorized programs had existed for twenty-six years. NYT, June 20, 22, 1972. Judge Keith rendered a landmark school-desegregation decision involving housing patterns: Davis v. School District of Pontiac, 309 F. Supp. 734 (E. D. Mich. 1970).

  VI: THE POLITICS OF DEADLOCK: NIXON AND CONGRESS

  1. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston, 1965), 712; Rowland Evans, Jr., and Robert D. Novak, Nixon in the White House (New York, 1971), 105–110.

  2. Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (paperback ed., New York, 1979), 1:512.

  3. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953–1956 (New York, 1963), 565; Nixon, Memoirs, 1:515–17.

  4. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, 1956–1961 (New York, 1965), 479, 37, 45, 272; Nixon, Memoirs, 1:559.

  5. Nixon to Colson and Haldeman, January 28, 1972, NPF, Box 3, NP; Richard J. Whalen, Catch the Falling Flag: A Republican’s Challenge to His Party (Boston, 1972), 254.

  6. James MacGregor Burns, The Deadlock of Democracy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1963).

  7. Richard Nixon, A New Road for America (New York, 1972), 519–46.

  8. Ibid., 519–20; NYT, September 11, 1970, Nixon, Memoirs, 1:608.

  9. Alexander Bickel, “Watergate and the Legal Order,” in Lawrence M. Friedman and Stewart Macauley (eds.), Law and Behavioral Sciences (2d ed., New York, 1977), 227.

  10. Nixon to Ehrlichman, March 13, 1969, NPF, Box 1, NP; Butterfield to Charles Wilkinson, July 16, 1969, Dent Papers, Box 1, NP.

  11. The best historical survey of impoundment is in Louis Fisher, “Impoundment of Funds: Uses and Abuses,” 23 Buffalo Law Review 141–70 (1973). Also useful for many of the official quotations that follow is the compilation prepared by the House Judiciary Committee during the Impeachment Inquiry: HJC, Statement of Information, Book 12.

  12. Louis Fisher, Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President (Princeton, NJ, 1985), 236; Opinions of Attorneys General (February 25, 1967), 42:347–56.

  13. James L. Sundquist, The Decline and Resurgence of Congress (Washington, D.C., 1981), 204–06.

  14. Dapray Muir to John Dean, June 23, 1971, Dean Papers, Box 39, NP.

  15. Sundquist, Decline and Resurgence of Congress, 206–07. See Executive Impoundment of Appropriated Funds, Hearings, Subcommittee on Separations of Powers, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 92 Cong., 1 Sess. (March 1971).

  16. Ehrlichman Notes, October 18, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 13, NP; “Impoundment of Appropriated Funds,” Ad Hoc Subcommittee of Government Operations and Judiciary Committees, U.S. Senate, 93 Cong., 1 Sess. (January 30, 1973), 363, 369, 381, 839–841 (Sneed).

  17. Ehrlichman Notes, February 28, 1973, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 28, NP.

  18. HJC, Statement of Information, 12:88–91. The Supreme Court unanimously held some impoundments improper in Train v. City of New York, 420 U.S. 35 (1975). The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is discussed in Chapter XXI, infra.

  19. Peri Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency (Princeton, 1986), 272–73. Richard P. Nathan, The Plot That Failed: Nixon and the Administrative Presidency (New York, 1975), offered a shrewd assessment by a scholar-participant of Nixon’s plans to weaken the decision-making power of the bureaucracy and correspondingly to focus it in the White House or in state and local governments.

  20. Advisory Council on Executive Organization to Nixon, August 20, 1969, File Group PACEO, NCF, NP.

  21. William Safire, Before the Fall (New York, 1975), 261–62; Garment Interview, May 29, 1985; Ken Cole to John Ehrlichman, June 15, 1971, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 57, NP; Cabinet Meeting, January 18, 1971, Executive Reorganization File, NCF, Box 34, NP.

  22. Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1970, Hearings, U.S. Senate, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate, 91 Cong., 2 Sess.; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 240; Harold Seidman, Politics, Position, and Power: The Dynamics of Federal Organization (New York, 1975), 74; A. James Reichley, Conservatives in an Age of Change (Washington, D.C., 1981), 239; Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency, 283. The Nixon Central Files have the extensive working and final papers of the Ash Commission, some of which appear in public documents.

  23. Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency, 285–86; Reichley, Conservatives in an Age of Change, 238–41; Nathan, The Plot That Failed, passim.

  24. Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency, 300.

  25. Charles L. Clapp to Egil Krogh, March 4, 1971, PACEO, NCF, NP.

  26. Barry D. Karl, “The Nixon Fault,” Reviews in American History (June 1979), 7:143, 151; Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency, 301–02; Joel D. Aberbach and Bert A. Rockman, “Clashing Beliefs Within the Executive Branch,” American Political Science Review, July 1976, 70:456–68.


  27. Roy P. Basler (ed.), The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ, 1953), 2:495.

  28. Fortas Interview, April 27, 1967, Fred Graham MS, LC; Bruce Allen Murphy, Fortas: The Rise and Ruin of a Supreme Court Justice (New York, 1988); Robert Shogan, A Question of Judgment: The Fortas Case and the Struggle for the Supreme Court (Indianapolis, IN, 1972).

  29. Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York, 1971), 545–46; Murphy, Fortas, 234–304.

  30. Warren Interview, September 23, 1968, Fred Graham MS, LC; Nixon, Memoirs, 1:518.

  31. Stewart Interview, April 18, 1970, Fred Graham MS, LC.

  32. James F. Simon, In His Own Image: The Supreme Court in Richard Nixon’s America (New York, 1973), 76–92, has a good summary of Burger’s court and public writings before 1969; Nixon, Memoirs, 1:519.

  33. PPPUS:RN, 1969, 391–96; NYT, July 1, 1972. The idea of broad construction has its roots in Madison’s Federalist 44: “No axiom is more clearly established in law, or in reason, that whenever a general power to do a thing is given, every particular power necessary for doing it is included.” The principle gave a cue for John Marshall.

  34. Murphy, Fortas, 568–71; Petersen Interview, December 24, 1969, Fred Graham MS, LC; Petersen Telephone Interview, May 6, 1987; Burger to Nixon, May 8, 1969, Executive FG-51, Supreme Court, NCF, NP.

  35. Buchanan to Nixon, May 6, 1969, Executive FG-51, Supreme Court, NCF, NP.

  36. Dent to Tom Charles Huston, June 16, 1969, Dent Papers, Box 5, NP. Simon, In His Own Image, 105–12, offers a fair summary of Haynesworth’s voting record.

  37. Nyle Jackson to Dent, October 24, Dent Papers, Box 6, NP; Nixon to Brooke, October 2, 1969, FG-51, Supreme Court, NCF, NP; Nixon, Memoirs, 521.

  38. Kirk to Nixon, May 31, 1969, NPF, Box 188, NP; “Tentative Plan: Carswell Nomination,” March 18, 1970, Dent Papers, Box 11, NP.

  39. George Harrold Carswell, Hearings, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 91 Cong., 2 Sess. (January 29, February 2, 1970), 114, 238–39, 240–42; PPPUS:RN, 1970, January 30, 1970, 39; Ehrlichman Notes, March 26, 1970, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 10, NP.