by Russ Baker
14. Rudy Rochelle, “Little Relief Seen for Sugar Problem,” Dallas Morning News, November 22, 1963.
15. Haldeman’s notes were first published in James Rosen’s “An Insider’s Notes from the OvalOffice,” Newsday, April 25, 1994.
16. Years later, Kendall became a member of the International Council at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
17. FBI JFK Assassination File 62-109060. Available through the Mary Ferrell Foundation.
18. Jack Langguth, “Group of Businessmen Rules Dallas Without a Mandate from the Voters,” New York Times, January 19, 1964.
19. Robert Dallek, Partners in Power: Nixon and Kissinger (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), p. 434.
20. George Bush, All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writing (New York: Scribner, 1999), p. 191.
21. The Haldeman Diaries, December 16, 1969, pp. 115–16.
22. Author interview with Jack Gleason, April 6, 2008.
23. The Haldeman Diaries, December 11, 1969, p. 114.
24. Prior to a new stricter law that went into effect in April 1972, the then-governing Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 required campaign contributions over one hundred dollars to be reported by a candidate’s election committee. Each committee was to have a formal chairman and treasurer who did the reporting. The national committees of political parties were then supposed to file postelection reports regarding their contributions to individual candidates. Up until 1970, this law was rarely followed, let alone enforced by the Justice Department. But in 1970, a new public interest group called Common Cause, heavily financed by Rockefeller interests—whose philanthropy has certainly mitigated to some extent the methods of an earlier generation—sued both the Republican and Democratic Parties for violating the Corrupt Practices Act, triggering a public clamor for election reform. The public, quite simply, was disgusted over influence-buying of politicians by large donors. It was in this milieu that the townhouse Operation warily functioned. See Herbert E. Alexander, ed., Campaign Money: Reform and Reality in the States (New York: Macmillan, 1976), pp. vii–ix.
25. Such efforts in secrecy were ultimately defeated. By 1972, Common Cause’s lawsuit against the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) bore substantial results: through the discovery pro cess, its lawyers were able to identify the major donors to townhouse. “Among the gifts disclosed,” wrote Herbert Alexander in Campaign Money, “were funds that financed some of the most unsavory episodes of Watergate.” Ibid., p. viii.
26. Author interview with Jack Gleason, April 21, 2008.
27. Jeff Gerth with Robert Pear, “Files Detail Aid to Bush by Nixon White House,” New York Times, June 11, 1992.
28. Memorandum from Charles Ruff, Assistant Special Prosecutor, to Leon Jaworski, Special Prosecutor,August 19, 1974. National Archives and Rec ords Administration.
29. Department of Justice interview with Charles Colson, Febrary 2, 1972, Townhouse files, NationalArchives and Rec ords Administration.
30. Department of Justice interview with John Mitchell, December 19, 1973, Townhouse files, National Archives and Rec ords Administration.
31. When I called Kalmbach in 2008, he declined to discuss the subject, citing his age—eighty-seven—and attorney-client privilege, “and all that.” He told prosecutors that he sat in on Townhouse planning meetings and solicited funds from large contributors (though these were to go to the campaign in general, he stated, rather than to specific candidates), and insisted that he never gave cash to any specific candidates. (Department of Justice interview with Herbert Kalmbach, October 11, 1973, townhouse files, National Archives and Rec ords Administration.) On June 29, 1972, White House counsel John Dean met with Kalmbach on a bench in Lafayette Park across from the White House. “We would like you to raise funds for the burglars,” Dean told Kalmbach, whereupon Nixon’s attorney, believing the president was in full approval, agreed. See also Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, Silent Coup: The Removal of a President (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 212.
32. Colodny and Gettlin, Silent Coup, p. 96.
33. Colson recalled that delivery to Dean would entitle them to certain legal privileges, presumablyagainst disclosure. Department of Justice interview with Charles Colson.
34. Dean would later turn over some of those notebooks and documents to the Senate Watergate Committee as evidence against Nixon. One document that apparently was not contained in the prosecutors’ files was the letter Gleason requested assuring him of no illegalities in the Townhouse Operation. Author interview with Jack Gleason, April 6, 2008.
35. Joseph J. Trento and Jacquie Powers, “Was Howard Hunt in Dallas the Day JFK Died?” Wilmington (Del.) Sunday News Journal, August 20, 1978. The article described a secret 1966 CIA memo, initialed by both counterintelligence chief James Angleton and director Richard Helms, that cited E. Howard Hunt’s presence in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The memo reportedly noted that a cover story providing him with an alibi for being somewhere else “ought to be considered.” Trento had learned about the memo directly from Angleton. “In 1978, Angleton called and asked me to come down for lunch at the Army-Navy Club,” Trento recalled in an interview with the author Dick Russell. “He said he wanted to talk to me about something. This was as the House Committee’s investigation was winding up, and he told me a number of things concerning the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath. Then he explained some very complicated counter intelligence operations. ‘Did you know Howard Hunt was in Dallas on the day of the assassination? . . . What I’m trying to tell you is, some very odd things were going on that were out of our control.’ Then he added the possibility that Hunt was there on orders from a high-level KGB mole inside the agency—and that this should have been looked into at the time.” Trento said Angleton also informed the House Assassinations Committee. “I later came to conclude that the mole-sent-Hunt idea was, to use his phrase, disinformation; that Angleton was trying to protect his own connections to Hunt’s being in Dallas.” See Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992), pp. 306–7.
36. Various sources, including: the House Select Committee on Assassinations; Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (New York: Random House, 1984); Tad Szulc, “Cuba on Our Minds,” Esquire, January 1974; and James Rosen, The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate (New York: Doubleday, 2008).
37. Charles Wendell Colson Papers, Billy Graham Center, Wheaton, Illinois. The late Howard Liebengood, who served as deputy minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, has verified the factual accuracy of this material.
38. Hougan, Secret Agenda, pp. 27–29.
39. Ibid., p. 119.
40. The Pentagon Papers consisted of a multivolume report detailing top-secret planning and policy regarding United States involvement in Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War. These papers were leaked to the New York Times by Daniel Ellsberg, a former military analyst. They proved that Johnson routinely lied about what was going on in the war to cover up that the situation was much worse than the administration had claimed; the Pentagon was furious. The president, however, initially seemed indifferent, especially since it was LBJ’s administration, not his, that was being embarrassed. According to Ehrlichman, “He was really cranked up pretty hard by Henry [Kissinger] on those.” (Interview by author Len Colodny of John Ehrlichman, April 29, 1986.) Kissinger, who had known Ellsberg for years, sought to convince Nixon that Ellsberg was “the most dangerous man in America today.”
41. Charles Wendell Colson Papers, Billy Graham Center, Wheaton, Illinois. Verified by Senate Watergate Committee staffer Howard Liebengood.
42. John Dean, Blind Ambition: The White House Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), pp. 256–57.
43. Renata Adler, Canaries in the Mines: Essays on Politics and Media (New York: Macmillan, 2001), p. 82.
44. The so-called Moorer-Radford affair has been documented in s
everal books, notably Silent Coup by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin.
45. Rosen, The Strong Man, p. 295, citing a June 15, 1987, interview of John Mitchell by Len Colodny.
46. This was the kind of top-level job that few college graduates ever dreamed of, and according to military writer and Green Beret veteran Shelby Stanton, “It sounds like Woodward was being groomed. They would not have assigned just anybody to that ship.” For a detailed description of Woodward’s background, see Adrian Havill, Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1993).
47. Author interview with Bob Woodward, September 5, 2008. To listen to Colodny’s tapes, go to www.watergate.com. Interview with Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, by Robert Gettlin, October 4, 1989; interview of Al Woodward, by Robert Gettlin, August 29, 1989; interview of Melvin Laird, by Robert Gettlin, September 6, 1990; interview with Jerry Friedheim, by Robert Gettlin, September 25, 1990.
48. Brendan McGarry, “Uncovering History: Editor Looks Back at Breaking the Watergate Story,” Saratogian (Saratoga Springs, NY), August 1, 2004.
49. Author interview with Harry Rosenfeld and Paul R. Ignatius, September 14, 2008.
50. Bradlee served in naval intelligence during World War II. Post publisher Katharine Graham’s deceased father had been a great fan of the intelligence services, a close friend of CIA wunderkind Frank Wisner and of Prescott Bush—and a generous ground-floor investor in Poppy Bush’s first, fledgling Midland business, the landman firm of Bush-Overbey. See Deborah Davis, Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and the Washington Post (Bethesda, MD: National Press, 1979).
51. James M. Perry, “Watergate,” in Tom Rosenstiel and Amy S. Mitchell, eds., Thinking Clearly: Cases in Journalistic Decision-Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), p. 149.
52. Charles Wendell Colson Papers, Billy Graham Center, Wheaton, Illinois. Verified by Senate Watergate Committee staffer Howard Liebengood.
53. Eric Boehlert, “Team Bush Declares War on the New York Times,” Guardian (U.K.), October 19, 2004.
54. Richard Harwood, “O What a Tangled Web the CIA Wove,” Washington Post, February 26, 1967. Harwood’s series built on work by Ramparts magazine, regarding the funding and control of the National Student Association and other supposedly independent domestic groups over many years. The New York Times followed up with a series of articles that would expand considerably our understanding of CIA involvement on U.S. college campuses. This included the manipulation of student groups and the use of academics as authors of propaganda materials to be distributed abroad. As a result of this coverage, President Johnson announced a halt to such funding.
55. Carl Bernstein, “The CIA and the Media,” Rolling Stone, October 20, 1977.
56. Perry, “Watergate,” pp. 148–49.
57. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Watergate break-in, Washington Post editor Sussman wrote that he never knew the identity of Deep Throat—a rare situation, he said, because reporters usually revealed their sources to their editors. Several months after the break-in, Sussman recalled, Woodward approached him with a “minor story” and made “an unusual request: He said he could tell me who the source was if I really wanted to know, but that in this instance he would rather not. I had no problem in acceding.” But on later reflection, it struck him that Post editor Ben Bradlee “wasn’t concerned enough to ask about Deep Throat’s identity” until it was revealed to him after Nixon’s resignation in 1975, or, for that matter, that Bradlee even kept Deep Throat’s identity as secret. As Sussman wryly noted, “This is one of the few secrets Bradlee ever kept.” His final thoughts on the matter are not complimentary toward his own reporters: “The logic of the Deep Throat myth is confounding. On the one hand, Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein deserve credit for helping uncover the Watergate scandal. On the other hand, the basic legend is that one of them, Woodward, did little more than show up with a bread basket that Deep Throat filled with goodies.” In other words, “it can’t work both ways. The greater the importance of Deep Throat the less the achievement of the two reporters.” Sussman’s account can be found on www.watergate.info.
58. Colodny and Gettlin, Silent Coup, p. 284.
59. Ibid., p. 234.
60. Author interview with Pierre Ausloos, April 22, 2008.
61. The important fact that Poppy had hired Lias out of his office supervising Townhouse appearsto have been obscured by Barbara Bush in an error she introduced into her book Barbara Bush: A Memoir—in almost exactly the manner she had used with the letters she wrote about November 22, 1963. “There were 11 floors of State Department people at the US mission—for the most part, very able and dedicated people,” wrote Barbara. “George brought Tom Lias, Jane Kenny, and Aleene Smith with him from his congressional office.” Barbara Bush: A Memoir (New York: Scribner, 1994), p. 90.
62. Author interview with John Dean, September 12, 2008; John Dean’s phone logs, NationalArchives.
63. Sam Ervin, Democrat of North Carolina, headed up the committee. The other Democrats were Herman Talmadge of Georgia, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, and Joseph Montoya of New Mexico. The Republicans were Minority Leader Howard Baker of Tennessee, Edward Gurney of Florida, and Lowell Weicker of Connecticut.
64. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., with Barry Sussman, Maverick: A Life in Politics (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995), pp. 27–28.
65. In 1988, Weicker decided to support George H. W. Bush, not Robert J. Dole, in the GOP presidential primaries, in part because of Bush’s ties to Connecticut. “For me and all other Republican candidates in Connecticut, there was more to gain with Bush at the top of the ticket. I supported Bush and he supported me. If that seems cold and calculated, so be it.” (Weicker, Maverick, p. 179.)
66. Author interview with Jack Gleason, April 6, 2008. Round Hill is both an exclusive part of Greenwich and a golf club there.
67. Weicker, Maverick, p. 46.
68. The six defendants were Bernard Baker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Howard Hunt, Gordon Liddy, Eu-genio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis. James McCord would be sentenced at a later date.
69. John M. Crewdson, “Nixon Suggests High Court Ruling on Refusing Data,” New York Times, March 16, 1973.
70. The Bull Elephant Club was composed of male assistants to GOP House members.
71. Stanley I. Kutler, Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (New York: Free Press, 1997), pp. 241–42.
72. John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), p. 369.
73. Kutler, Abuse of Power, p. 242.
74. “Telephone conversation, the President and John Dean, March 20, 1973, 7:29–7:43P.M.,” The White House Transcripts (New York: Viking Press, 1974), p. 128.
75. Ibid., pp. 130–31.
76. Author interview with Stanley Kutler, July 17, 2008. See also John H. Taylor, “Cutting the NixonTapes,” American Spectator, March 1998.
77. Transcript prepared by the Impeachment Inquiry Staff for the House Judiciary Committee of arecording of a meeting on March 13, 1973, from 12:42 P.M. to 2:00 P.M.
78. Gordon Strachan, testimony to Senate Watergate Committee, book six.
79. Transcript of recording of a meeting between the president and John Dean in the Oval Officeon March 17, 1973, from 1:25 P.M. to 2:10 P.M. (H. R. Haldeman was present for only a portion of the meeting.)
11: DOWNING NIXON, PART II: THE EXECUTION
1. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. with Barry Sussman, Maverick: A Life in Politics (Boston, Little, Brown, 1995), pp. 54, 59–60.
2. According to a February 16, 1972, memo from Gordon Strachan to H. R. Haldeman: “The registration drive (Target ’72) begins in Florida and Texas in January and will continue through the spring. Ed DeBolt at the RNC is the man responsible to register 11.2 million Republicans by May 15 and 8 million by October 1972.” Cited in House Judiciary Report, 1974.
3. Author interview with Ed DeBolt, August 30, 2008.
4. Richard J. McGowan, “Watergate Revisited
,” Barnes Review, March 2003.
