The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It

by John W. Dean

  Per Haldeman’s notes (which I have translated from his abbreviated shorthand7), the following Watergate matters were raised during that morning’s meeting: The president instructed Haldeman to be sure his EOB office was thoroughly checked for bugs at all times. He wanted to know what the White House “counter-attack” to Watergate would be. He wanted to launch a public relations offensive that would undermine Watergate by charging his opponents with their own questionable activities. Nixon had always been annoyed by the well-known fact that Jack Anderson had gotten away with bugging (and at the time of Watergate there was a rumor that McGovern’s staff had tried to bug Nixon’s reelection committee). The president wanted to point out that libertarians had created a callous public attitude toward bugging and wiretapping, and “the public didn’t give a shit about it.” Finally, he repeated to Haldeman the complaint that his detractors were making a big deal out of stealing information from the DNC while justifying the theft of the Pentagon Papers and Anderson’s publishing of national security secrets. He told Haldeman that they “should be on the attack” regarding Watergate, if for no other reason than diversion. The 18½-minute gap also covered material unrelated to Watergate, according to Haldeman’s notes, for the president asked him to find out the schedule of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreement, and they discussed details of an upcoming trip to California.

  After listening to countless hours of Nixon’s conversation, I can confirm what he wrote in his memoir about the gap in the June 20 conversation: “It has always been my habit to discuss problems a number of times, often in almost the same terms and usually with the same people. This is the way I tried to elicit every possible piece of information and advice and examine every possible angle of a situation before making this decision.”8

  I would add that Nixon also had the habit of ending a discussion by going over key points he had made during it, and that appears to have been the case for this June 20 conversation. At its conclusion he returns to the subject of Watergate, as Haldeman’s notes recorded, but in a slightly different form: “If I can come back on this thing more intently, I can be very, very serious on the hypocrisy. There’s no question there’s a double standard here.” Haldeman agreed and made an inaudible counterpoint, which Nixon dismissed. “I don’t give a shit about that. Also regarding political money, and contributions, too. They’re all doing it. That’s the standard thing. Why the Christ do we have to hire people to sweep our rooms?”

  “Because we know they’re—”

  Nixon finished Haldeman’s sentence, “Yeah, they’re bugging. And why—”

  “Sue ’em,” Haldeman quietly interjected, as the president was making his point.

  “We have been bugged in the past, haven’t we?”

  With this question the recording ends abruptly, and it is followed by 2 minutes and 53 seconds of a specific tone added throughout the recordings by NARA to indicate that personal material was withdrawn. The NARA Tape Subject Log for this conversation (No. 342-16), prepared by people who listened to this redacted portion, indicates that Nixon’s rhetorical question referred to his “previous campaigns”—namely, the 1968 presidential campaign. Nixon raised this particular topic throughout Watergate, believing that if he could make an issue of what had been done to him, it would place the DNC break-in in context.

  Haldeman’s diary entry about this June 20 conversation is consistent with Nixon’s account of it in his memoir (which undoubtedly his postpresidency staff checked) concerning the information missing in the 18½-minute gap: “The P was concerned about what our counterattack is, our PR offensive to top this. He felt we have to hit the opposition with their activities. Also put out the point that the libertarians have created public callousness. Do they justify this kind of thing less than stealing the Pentagon papers, or Anderson’s files, and so on. He feels we should be on the attack for diversion, and not just take it lying down.”

  Nixon further explained in his memoir: “I am confident that our discussion about the break-in covered much the same points at 11:26 in the morning as it did just five hours later at 4:35 in the afternoon: that if any of our people, at any level, had embroiled us in such an embarrassing situation; and that the investigations and depositions, if they went too far in pursuing all angles available, would hand the Democrats a major campaign issue.”9 Haldeman’s diary confirmed that Nixon raised the subject again several times during the day, “and it is obviously bothering him. He had Colson over to talk about it, and then later called me a couple times on various specifics. He called me at home tonight, saying he wanted to change the plans for his press conference and have it on Thursday instead of tomorrow, so it won’t look like he’s reacting to the Democratic break-in thing.”10

  At 2:16 P.M. Nixon called Colson, whose office was right beside his in the EOB, and asked him to come over. They met from 2:20 P.M. to 3:30 P.M.11 Watergate was discussed for approximately twelve minutes at the outset, and then fleetingly at the end. The president tried to boost Colson’s spirits—he was already being implicated in Watergate by news accounts—while sharing his thoughts about how the White House should deal with the problem.

  “Now, I hope everybody is not going to get into a tizzy about the Democratic Committee,” Nixon said, sounding as if he is stretched out in his favorite easy chair, beside his desk.

  “It’s a little frustrating. Disheartening, I guess, is the right word,” Colson replied, with something of a pained tone, adding, “Pick up that God damn Washington Post. See you’re guilty by association.” Colson was annoyed about the story linking him to the Watergate break-in because Hunt had worked for him, although he had been off the White House payroll for three months.

  The president listened to Colson complain about how his family wondered if he had been involved but dismissed such speculation, because Nixon said he would not have someone that careless on his White House staff; “A lot of people think you ought to wiretap. Or knew why the hell we’re doing it. They probably figure they’re doing it to us.” Then Nixon added, “Which they are.” When Colson concurred, the president asked, “That’s why they hired this guy [McCord] in the first place, to sweep the rooms, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, sir. Frankly, sir, I haven’t gotten into all the details that we want to on this. But I assume he was hired to protect their offices,” Colson added regarding CRP offices.

  “Well, they’d better. Better have someone.” With political espionage on his mind, the president told Colson that Haldeman was working with Nixon’s political mentor, Murray Chotiner, who had a political operative known only as “Chapman’s Friend.” This individual, posing as a journalist, was in fact a spy at the McGovern campaign reporting to Chotiner, and his information was shared only with Haldeman and Mitchell. The president explained, “Chotiner has some guy with McGovern, aides he had on the road, the plane, the bus. I just said to Bob: Get it out, make a good story. Get it out.” Nixon wanted to leak some of the gathered material to go after McGovern. Then, after speculating on whether they had spies in their own ranks, Nixon returned to Watergate. “On this thing here,” he declared, but then, apparently reconsidering, said in a near whisper, “I’ve got to, well, it’s a dangerous job.”

  “Well, Bob is pulling it all together. Thus far, I think we’ve done the right things to date,” Colson reassured him.

  The president raised a central issue with respect to what would become a quickly developing cover-up: “I think the real question is whether we want it to remain with the people charged, whether they’ll hold up. I understand, basically, they’re all pretty hard-line guys.” Colson agreed that was correct. “Or if we are going to have this funny guy take credit for that,” Nixon wondered, probably thinking of Liddy, whom he later characterized as “a nut,” or perhaps McCord. He often confused the two men in the early days, and it is not clear if he knew of Liddy’s role until the following morning.

  Colson, however, thought Nixon was referr
ing to Hunt, and became defensive. “’Course, I can’t believe he’s involved. I think he’s too smart to do it this way, he’s just too damned shrewd. Too much sophisticated techniques. You don’t have to get into [unclear] with heavy equipment like that, put it in the ceiling. Hell of a lot easier way.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a skillful job,” the president noted. “If we didn’t know better, we’d have thought it was deliberately botched.”

  “Yeah, I thought of that this weekend,” Colson said. “And then I figured, maybe it’s the Cubans that did it. Organizing it on their own, because, you know, they had good reason.” Mention of the Cubans immediately caught the president’s attention, not as an explanation of what had actually happened but as a way to cover it up. He told Colson about having seen a Cuban newspaper, on Bebe Rebozo’s desk in Key Biscayne, with an article headlined TED KENNEDY, PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE, which Colson made a note to obtain. He then explained to the president that the Cubans in Miami hated McGovern, because they saw him as a Kennedy stand-in. They were concerned that the United States might recognize Castro, and if so, all Cuban nationals would be considered fugitives and returned to their homeland, with no possibility of political asylum in the United States. This information surprised and interested Nixon, and Colson concluded by saying that they would therefore be willing “to resort to something pretty serious.” Since Nixon was now well aware that this had not been a Cuban operation, but rather one initiated by his own CRP, he cut Colson off, bringing the conversation back to the real world and a discussion of the hostile press coverage, complaining again about the Pentagon Papers and Jack Anderson.

  Before turning to other matters, he wanted Colson to understand that, concerning responsibility for the Watergate break-in, “We are just going to leave this where it is, with the Cubans.”

  “I think that’s the only thing you can do,” Colson agreed. In an effort to exonerate Hunt, he added, “The fact that they had Hunt’s name was the most logical thing in the world, because he ran and trained the chief of brigade that went to the Bay of Pigs. He’s the fellow that came up and cried at John Kennedy’s office to send a second wave. Conservative syndicated columnist Bill Buckley is his children’s godfather. He’s a very hard-right, hard-running guy.”

  Nixon played the matter down, saying he hoped Hunt would not have a problem, and explained, “I’m not going to worry about it. I’ve—shit, the hell with it. We’ll let it fly, we’re not going to react to it.”

  Colson mentioned Larry O’Brien filing a lawsuit but had no further information on it. After a discussion of leaks, Chuck wanted Nixon to know he understood that they were not going to deal with Watergate the way they had ITT: “Back then, we were riding so damned high, and I guess we couldn’t do much about it, but they dragged us into it.” Then, referring to Watergate, he added, “But the press, the media and the Democrats are so God damn desperate for any issue that they can lay their hands on that it’s something which normally wouldn’t amount to that much. They’re just going to blow the hell out of it, because they haven’t got any other place they can lay a glove on us. And that was the case with ITT, which came after China, the economy was picking up, wage-price controls were working, they had nothing, so they went into ITT viciously.” When Nixon agreed, Colson added, “I think they’ll try to,” but noted, “You can’t make a case out of this the way you could out of ITT. The weakness in ITT was that it fed the public suspicion that the Republicans are dedicated to big business.”

  “Oh shit, that’s right,” Nixon said. “I couldn’t agree more. You’ve got to keep all your people away from it.”

  The conversation went on for almost another hour, addressing matters such as Colson’s suggestion of using the Securities and Exchange Commission to make life difficult for The Washington Post Company, because he believed that Katharine Graham, the publisher and head of the company, was a “vicious” woman who was primarily interested in her social status in Washington, DC, and who wanted someone in the White House who would “kiss her ass.” Watergate came up again toward the end of the conversation, and the president labeled it “the dumbest thing,” but he said he understood that “there are going to be all sorts of things in the campaign.” Most important, he did not want anyone to think the Watergate situation meant the “world’s coming to an end.” Rather, it was merely “a development,” not a scandal that was going to lose them the election. While he was concerned about the Democrats possibly filing a lawsuit, he did not think any judge would force his campaign manager, John Mitchell, to give “a deposition in the middle of the campaign.” Chuck agreed and departed.

  Haldeman returned to the president’s EOB office at 4:35 P.M. and remained for almost an hour.12 Although Nixon writes that “Haldeman ran through some of the other information he had picked up during the day,”13 Haldeman told him nothing that he could not have recounted earlier during the 18½-minute gap. Nixon asked, “Have you gotten any further on that Mitchell operation?”

  “No,” Haldeman answered softly, and they began to talk over each other, about Mitchell, speculating about his knowledge of the bugging operation at the DNC. Clearly audible is the fact that neither of them thought that Mitchell had advance knowledge. “I think he was surprised,” the president said. “I think that’s right,” Haldeman said, cautiously adding a qualification: “I don’t think he knew they were going to break in.” Haldeman’s tone suggested that Mitchell knew generally about such intelligence-gathering activities, as in fact he did, but not specifically about the DNC matter. Notwithstanding the bungled nature of the operation, Haldeman assured the president, “these guys apparently are a pretty competent bunch of people, and they’ve been doing other things very well, apparently.” Haldeman proceeded to provide Nixon with a strikingly detailed account of the break-in: “My goodness, the stuff, all they had in there. They had a three-channel transmitter. Two of the channels went out. They went in to get those untangled, and get the pictures of stuff.”*

  The president, still thinking about Mitchell, said coldly, “It’s his problem.”

  Haldeman had more information about the Democrats’ lawsuit: “They directly sued the committee for re-election and the Republican National Committee for a million dollars. One hundred thousand dollars damages and nine hundred thousand dollars punitive. Quite a sum. They want to take depositions on all this crap. Dean said that’s the kind of thing, once they file and a judge orders, sets the thing, and starts the suit going and all, you could stall it for a couple of months, probably down to the election, with technical delays and pleadings.”

  Nixon remained concerned about Colson being attacked by The Washington Post and thought the situation called for “a little more sympathy.” Haldeman agreed, noting, “I know he’s sensitive, hypersensitive.” But Haldeman wanted it understood that Colson did, in fact, have ties to Hunt, so the story was not baseless. With the point noted, the president said, “It’s fortunately a bizarre story. Don’t you agree?” Haldeman did, and added, “Its bizarreness almost helped to discredit it.”

  “On McCord, how was he employed?” Nixon now asked.

  “He was on a regular monthly retainer fee,” Haldeman replied.

  “Does he have other clients?”

  “He had a regular monthly fee at the [Republican] National Committee also,” Haldeman said.

  Nixon wanted to know about McCord’s relationship to the Cubans: who was working for whom; what McCord might say, if he said anything; and how Howard Hunt fit in the picture. Haldeman speculated, “McCord, I guess, will say that he was working with the Cubans, who wanted to put this in for their own political reasons.” As for Hunt, Haldeman had some new intelligence. “Hunt’s disappeared, or is in the process of disappearing. He can undisappear if we want him to do so. He’s planned for this day all along and has a whole process set up to disappear to a Latin American country. At least, the original thought was that that was good, that he might want to disappear, mainly because he can, on the basis that t
he Cubans see he was in the Bay of Pigs thing. One of the Cubans, Barker, the guy with the American name, was his deputy in the Bay of Pigs operation, and so they’re kind of trying to tie it to the Cuban nationalists business.”

  “We are?” Nixon asked, surprised, and Haldeman explained that this was originally the press’s doing. “Now, of course, they’re uncovering these ties to Colson, to the White House. The closest they come was that Hunt was a consultant to Colson.”

  “Do we know what Hunt did, somewhat the nature of his consulting fee?” Nixon asked. The usually well-informed chief of staff did not know of, or perhaps decided not to report, Ehrlichman’s relationship with Hunt, and replied, “I don’t know about this.”

  “You don’t know what he did, then?” the president asked, with a tone of displeasure in his voice. In fact, there was probably no information Richard Nixon needed more at that time. But with Haldeman pleading ignorance, both men speculated a bit on Hunt, and then the president reported, “Colson’s protested his innocence in this. As I’ve told you, I’ve come to the conclusion that Colson’s not that dumb.”

  Haldeman agreed, “In fact, we all knew that there were some—”

  “—intelligence things,” the president finished the sentence.

  “Some activities, and we were getting reports, or some input here and there. But I don’t think Chuck knew specifically that this project was under way or that these people were involved.”

  “But Mitchell, if he did—ah, well, I’m second-guessing,” the president said, checking his thoughts about the obvious.

  “Mitchell seems to take all the blame himself,” Haldeman added.

  “Did he? Good.”

  “He was saying this morning that it was damn stupid for him to not learn about the details and know exactly what was going on.”

  After a brief tangent, the president inquired again about White House security protection against eavesdropping, just as he had during the 18½-minute gap. Haldeman advised him that the Secret Service swept his office and telephones twice a week. As for their own secret recording system, the president told Haldeman that the Oval Office conversations were the most important. “They say it’s extremely good. I haven’t listened to the tapes,” Haldeman said, to which Nixon explained, “They’re just kept for our future purposes.” Haldeman reassured him, “Nobody monitors those tapes, obviously. They are kept stacked up and locked up in a supersecure area, and there are only three people that know they exist.”* “There’s nothing we can do to help Mitchell out,” the president said plaintively, returning to their previous topic, and said he thought that Mitchell was “in for a fall” because of the arrests.