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

by John W. Dean

  When their conversation resumed, Haldeman explained to Nixon that they were still trying to develop a strategy to delay the Senate proceedings as long as they could. Although the president thought they should get them over with as quickly as possible, the White House, in fact, had absolutely no control over the situation.

  That afternoon, Howard Baker was slipped into the Executive Office Building from West Executive Drive by Bill Timmons and taken to the president’s office.21 Baker managed to seat himself about as far away from the microphones buried in the president’s desk as possible, resulting in a mostly inaudible recording. While the president’s official record of the meeting indicates it lasted approximately forty minutes, the recording runs only eight and a half minutes. This visit might well have continued in Nixon’s outer office, which would not have been recorded. Notwithstanding the poor audio, the gist of the recorded conversation can be heard, and Nixon later mentioned matters they had discussed.

  Pleasantries were brief, and almost immediately Baker told the president, “Nobody knows I’m here, except Bill Timmons.” Baker wanted to keep his visit secret.* It is not clear what “guidance” Baker was seeking, but what he got were protestations of innocence from the president, with Nixon dominating the conversation. Baker may have been concerned that he was inadvertently assisting in developing a case that would destroy a Republican presidency, so he wanted to see if he could read any problem signs, and later use this private meeting to protect his own ambitious career. Early in the conversation Baker stressed that he did not want the committee conducting “a fishing expedition.” Nixon’s only real complaint was that he did not like the idea of Haldeman’s and Ehrlichman’s being hauled up to the committee and put on television, but he agreed with Baker that they should get the hearing over with as quickly as possible. The president said he had made an investigation, and Watergate would fall on Mitchell’s shoulders.

  “Who is Dash?” the president asked. “Sam Dash was Dick Kleindienst’s classmate at Harvard [Law],” Baker reported. “Who is Thompson?” the president asked. “Fred Thompson is an [assistant] U.S. attorney for Tennessee,” Baker responded. The president expressed concern about Dash’s getting “awfully partisan,” and whether Thompson could “go in there” and handle him. Baker said Thompson was tough, six feet six inches tall, “a big, mean fella.” “Smart?” Nixon asked. “Terribly,” Baker assured him. The president reported that he was going to ask Kleindienst to stay on through the hearings, and while Baker found Kleindienst “a little flamboyant, a little unpredictable,” he thought he would be fine in this case. After about six minutes of bouncing matters around without much direction, Baker said, “I’m really sorry to trouble you with this.” The president said it was no problem, adding, “In the meantime, I know you’ll do a good job. You’re exactly right. The main thing is to have no damn cover-up, that’s the worst thing that could happen.” He added, “If it does get rough, then I think you may have to, at a certain time, turn and get out, get away from it.” Baker agreed, and the meeting ended.

  February 23, 1973, the White House

  Talking with John Ehrlichman the next morning, the president reported, “Baker’s line is about what you’d expect. He would like to have his contact be Kleindienst. He and Ervin met with Kleindienst.”22 The president asked if that was okay with Ehrlichman, who replied that it was fine. “Kleindienst has a kind of metaphysical attachment to John Mitchell,” Ehrlichman observed. The president said, “I must have scared him to death. I put it very hard to Baker about Mitchell. Because Baker was hinting about the White House staff and all that, and I said, well, I checked them all over, and I said, unless somebody’s lying, my main concern [is Mitchell.]” But the president told Ehrlichman that was not quite true, because “the thing I’m concerned about [is] the Magruder thing, [because] Bob and that Magruder is just awfully close. I don’t think Magruder would say something. But he might.”

  “If he did, he would implicate Mitchell. He would protect Bob, I suspect. I think that’s the way now [it would fall],” Ehrlichman surmised. Nixon solicited Ehrlichman’s view regarding Colson’s role, whose exposure Nixon assumed was Hunt. Ehrlichman agreed, adding, “And Magruder.” The president was confused, and asked, “Did Magruder work with Colson?” Ehrlichman explained, “Magruder claims to Dean, and Magruder’s playing a game, he’s telling different people different things, apparently, and I’ve not talked to him. But the impression I have is that Magruder’s peddling the line that Colson is the guy who put the unmitigated pressure on him.”

  “To change the bug?” the president asked. “To do this,” Ehrlichman said flatly. “To bug?” Nixon asked again, and Ehrlichman responded with a matter-of-fact “yep.” The president reported, “Well, you see, Colson denies that completely,” which Ehrlichman said he knew. The president continued, “But I’ve asked both Bob and Colson. Well, I don’t know, I can’t—” This information troubled the president. He added, “I have really got to know whether or not, because, mainly because—” His thoughts were not clear as he stuttered a bit, but he said, if they were involved, “then I’ll deny that I ever heard it.” Ehrlichman said he understood, and Nixon declared, “I’ve got to know whether Bob knew about it, and I’ve got to know whether Colson knew about it.” No one had ever laid it all out for him, even when he had asked. He added, “If they both, if they did, then we’re going to play our games,” clearly meaning to cover it up. “That’s right,” Ehrlichman agreed. The president explained that it was important for him to know this before issuing a statement on executive privilege.

  Nixon then continued his report on the meeting with Baker, telling Ehrlichman, “I gave him a good lecture about how the Hiss case was handled,” saying he told Baker, “We ruled out hearsay. We ruled out guilt by association and innuendo and so forth. You ought to really insist on that.”

  The president went on: “He wanted me to issue a statement to the effect that we would cooperate with the committee. I said, I’m going to have a press conference one of these days, and I’ll so say. I’ve always stated that. I mean, I’m not going to put out any written statement to the effect.” The president then told Ehrlichman that Baker explained the way the committee’s inquiry was going to proceed, which he did not like: They would first call “a lot of pipsqueak witnesses, little shit-asses over periods of weeks to build it up, the pressure, so they would have to call Colson, you got to call Haldeman, you got to call Ehrlichman and Chapin, whoever the hell, sorry, they’ll have called Chapin, anyway.” Nixon said Baker’s strategy was to conduct their own private investigation, confront Ervin, and cut off the inquiry, whether or not it went higher than the seven already convicted. Baker wanted to “call the big men right away. Prick the boil.” After that, Baker felt, everybody would get bored to death. Nixon said he liked the strategy.

  The president reported that Baker wanted to sit down with Ervin and place a “total limitation as to the subjects.” The president added that he had told Baker he did not like having his top aides “dragged up.” Again Nixon pressed Ehrlichman: The real question was, whose testimony were they afraid of, and therefore needed to cover on executive privilege? He wanted to know if it should be Haldeman or Colson, but when he addressed Ehrlichman, he said, “I don’t think you have a problem.” Ehrlichman, who would be convicted of more crimes than anyone save Liddy, flatly told the president, “I don’t have the problem.” Nixon pressed, “You worked with Hunt.” Ehrlichman repeated, “I don’t have the problem.”

  Ehrlichman noted that those he thought did have a problem—Mitchell, Stans, Colson and Kalmbach—were all out of the White House, so without any potential privilege, and the real concern was who had approved the money for the operation. “And those chips are going to have to pretty much fall where they may, as I see it.” “What are they going to say? They raised the money?” Nixon asked. Ehrlichman noted, “There’s a hell of a lot of money, and it floated around, and there weren’t receipts, and there was funny bookkeeping, and t
here was a lot of hanky-panky, and money went to Mexico and back, and there were just a hell of a lot of odds and ends of stuff over there. Now, Stans says he’s clean, and I suspect he is. I think he can tell a damn good story.”

  “Knowing Stans, yes,” the president agreed. “So Mitchell was going to end up being the fall guy in that,” Ehrlichman noted. “What’ll Mitchell say?” the president asked. Ehrlichman replied, “I don’t know what he’ll say. I just don’t know what he’ll say. He’s been puffing his pipe and looking at the ceiling and saying, ‘You guys got a problem.’ And we’re beginning to get to him a little bit. Dean’s been hammering away on him to impress on him that he’s got a problem here.” They speculated about what Mitchell might say, agreeing that his best defense was to claim he simply failed to keep close controls on the distribution of the money. “It’s his only defense, and it may be correct,” the president said.

  Ehrlichman replied, “I think he knew, and I think LaRue was sort of his agent, and he kept him posted.” This was a new player in the Watergate story. “LaRue?” the president asked, for it was the first time anyone had mentioned the former Nixon White House aide and Mississippi oilman being connected with these illegal activities. “Oh, yeah, LaRue’s in this thing up to his ass,” Ehrlichman assured the president. “Has he been called?” Nixon asked. “LaRue’s a mysterious, shadowy figure that hasn’t been called,” Ehrlichman said. “But he was into it?” the president said with dismay. “Oh, yeah,” Ehrlichman again assured the president, and then decided to give him a bit more information about Haldeman: “Now, Bob had what we call constructive knowledge.” Nixon asked, “How did he get that?”

  “Through a fellow named Gordon Strachan. Gordon Strachan’s job here was Bob’s liaison with the campaign.” Ehrlichman had the president’s full attention with this information, for while Nixon knew of Strachan’s role in the Segretti matter, he had not been aware that Strachan had somehow been involved in, or connected to, Watergate, other than a fleeting hint by Haldeman during their December 10, 1972, morning conversation. Ehrlichman continued, “Gordon Strachan kept the most meticulous attention to the details. But very little of it was actually imparted to Bob. Strachan was a sort of a data bank, so that if Bob needed to know something, he’d pick up the phone and say, ‘Gordon, what about this or that?’ and he knew.”

  “My point is, did Bob know that information was coming from tapped sources?” Nixon asked. “No, but I suspect Strachan did,” Ehrlichman surmised, leading Nixon to suggest, “Strachan’s just the message guy.” Ehrlichman continued, “Well, Strachan probably never comes into it, because Strachan’s job was not to direct anybody to do anything. He was just to keep informed.” This was less than a full characterization of Strachan’s role, which involved carrying messages for Haldeman and taking part in certain actions when requested to by him.

  “Information manager,” the president said, which Ehrlichman affirmed, and continued, “Now, on Colson you have two diametrically opposite stories. You have his and you have Dean’s conclusions born of a lot of odds and ends of circumstantial evidence that he’s putting together. Dean tells me privately that he thinks that Colson was in fact in meetings and that Colson probably was the effective cause of Magruder doing this tap work. Now, that’s his conclusion, based on circumstantial evidence,” which Ehrlichman did not mention had come to me from Magruder, Mitchell and Colson. After a few false starts the president reacted to this information, as he had when Haldeman had given him similar information earlier: “I believe Colson’s totally capable of it, but I would doubt if Colson would be that unintelligent, that’s all.” Ehrlichman, however, quickly called Colson’s intelligence into play, reminding Nixon, “Well, let me tell you, the Hunt trip to [interview] Dita Beard was a bonehead play.”

  “Oh, it was. Silliest thing I ever heard of,” Nixon agreed. Ehrlichman noted that was a “Colson operation from beginning to end, so I have to assume that Hunt was kind of intrigued with—” Nixon interrupted to note that Colson “very possibly might be behind this whole thing,” and Ehrlichman continued, “—I think he was. I think he was, because Hunt’s a cops-and-robbers type. Now, I’m not going to tell you with any degree of assurance that Chuck’s involved, but what’s important to know about this is that there are circumstances which diligent counsel could put together in the same way as John [Dean] did.” Nixon did not disagree with any of Ehrlichman’s analysis, and it brought him back to the issue of executive privilege, which was the first thing they needed to decide. Nixon thought he might talk with Kleindienst about it, when he called him to get him to stay on, suggesting they start with written interrogatories as the opening negotiating point.

  As they probed this topic, the president finally said he was worried about Colson, who out of the White House could not be protected by executive privilege. But Ehrlichman was not concerned. “Colson will handle himself beautifully. He’s righteously indignant. He’s been on the Elizabeth Drew show. He’s taken the Today Show questions, and he says, hell, I haven’t anything to hide, and I’m fine, I’m clean and all the rest of it.

  “Right, right, right,” Nixon said, and added, “Except he’ll perjure himself.” But Ehrlichman was not sure it was perjury, and the president harkened back to the Hiss case, and then noted, “Whether it’s against Mitchell or Colson, it’s a hell of a hard rap to prove. Don’t you agree? As a trial lawyer?” When Ehrlichman described their situation as “very circumstantial,” Nixon added, “I don’t believe you can convict a person on circumstantial evidence of perjury. I don’t believe it can be done.” Ehrlichman posed a hypothetical: “Let’s suppose we said, as a matter of long-standing policy back seven generations, the president’s immediate staff does not testify, regardless of what the matter is. And so in effect we take the Fifth Amendment, and we sit here, and we just sit it out. Is that worse?”

  “Yeah, it’s a cover-up. It’s a cover-up, and I think that’s worse than what’ll come out, in my opinion,” the president said. “Well, I think so, too,” Ehrlichman agreed. “I’d like to do that from a personal standpoint,” Nixon said, “but believe me, I’ve been through this. The cover-up is worse than whatever comes out. It really is. Unless somebody is going to go to jail. I’m not going to let anybody go to jail. That, I promise you. That is the worst.” The conversation that followed did not resolve what kind of executive privilege statement might be appropriate nor was there additional discussion about who might go to jail because of Watergate. As Ehrlichman left the Oval Office, Attorney General Dick Kleindienst was ushered in.

  At the outset of their conversation the president offered his attorney general advice about big-time law firms, which he knew well.23 He had spoken the day before with John Connally, who wanted to hire Kleindienst. “First, you should not go with Mitchell. You must not do that,” Nixon stated adamantly, without explaining why. Kleindienst had, in fact, already reached that same conclusion. “Second, you should not go with former [Florida Democratic senator George] Smathers, because [of the type of practice, although] you’d make twice as much money at Smathers, but you had to deal with a lot of Jews and other people that Smathers said [are] bad people. Third, Connally’s a decent man and, and, I’ve had business with his firm. Since he would make you one of the managers of the firm, it’s a big firm, you’d have your voice in things. And since he would not be pushing you to get in business, it means you wouldn’t have to sell your soul, very few get that as well. You’d be tremendously valuable to them. He likes you, that’s the key for the guys who are running that firm. You’d make a hell of a lot of money. And you’d live in Washington and, if you want to go the law way, that’s infinitely better than New York firms. New York firms are selfish, horrible bastards. Texans would be selfish, too, but there is decency about them, and Connally would be good. Connally also is going to be in on a lot of good international stuff, and you could have a lot of fun with, if you want to do it, you know, you’d enjoy moving around the world and so forth. You’d be a very good a
sset to him, which I told him, and I think you could, you have something to bring to him that you can’t bring to Mitchell.”

  Adjusting his position in his chair, the president continued. “The other possibility you have in law is to go in for yourself. The difficulty with that is that then everybody’s going to be coming to you, frankly, for influence peddling. See, the Connally firm is big, established. They’ve got clients already, and they wouldn’t say, well, they came because of [your arrival]. The main thing I found when I went into a firm in New York, they were very nice about it, but I felt an obligation to get out and try to hustle some business for them, and of course, people did come to us. God, in the long range, it was embarrassing. You should never be out feeling that you’ve got a rod in your back to get out and, you know, to hustle business. You’ll do it anyway, but you must always be in a position, Dick, to be able to turn down something that doesn’t smell good. There it is. How does it sound? Now, you just think about it.” Kleindienst, somewhat overwhelmed by the president’s thoughtful analysis and candid counseling, replied only, “My goodness.”

  Nixon raised a few more points, based on his chat with Connally, while Kleindienst reminded him that federal law prohibited him, while in office, from negotiating for a job outside government. So he was not having any conversations with the Connally folks. They discussed the practice of law for a while, until the president turned to the reason he wanted to visit.

  “Now, the other thing I wanted to get into, obviously, is Watergate, and I want to talk to you candidly about it, and this affects your plans. You were talking about staying on through July or August or something like that,” the president began. “I’ll stay on as long as you want,” Kleindienst volunteered. “I’d like to ask you to stay, and I want you to tell Connally this, until [the Watergate committee issues its] reports.” The president estimated that would be through the year. “You’ll lose a hundred thousand dollars, let’s face it, but if you could stay through the year, I would appreciate it.” “I want to stay there as long as you want me, Mr. President,” Kleindienst repeated.