by John W. Dean
Nixon returned to his scheme to disqualify Gray by planting questions he was sure that Gray would dissemble over. He would then summon Gray and confront him: “You didn’t tell the truth there,” the president would say, and he thought Gray would respond, “I agree. Now, I’ll withdraw.” Again Nixon asked me if I understood. I did, and I understood that his repeating this question effectively communicated that he felt it was very important.
When Haldeman arrived in the Oval Office, as I was leaving, the president began by sharing his assessment of his nominee to head the FBI: “You know, Gray is a bit of a pompous ass, isn’t he?”29 Haldeman said, “Well, yeah. I know Dean’s on top of it, but the son of a bitch Gray said, you know, ‘This is all fine. We’re going to close the curtain down on Tuesday.’ Well, he didn’t close it down at all. He lifted it up a little higher.” Haldeman said he felt that the Gray nomination had been a mistake, and that while he and Ehrlichman had been against Gray from the outset, it had been Mitchell who had argued for him. “He’s trying to sell himself at the expense of everybody else, which is exactly what Kleindienst did,” Haldeman said of Gray.
The preceding evening (March 6) the president had held a private White House dinner for “business and community leaders,” which included the major contributors to Nixon’s 1972 campaign. During the evening he had mixed and mingled with his guests in the East Room, and then in the State Dining Room. At some point he chatted with Tom Pappas, who told Nixon he would like to visit with him. The president quickly scheduled him for the next morning. Five days earlier Haldeman had told the president that Pappas was cash rich, after having sold his oil company, and that he had been helping with the “continuing financial activity in order to keep those people”—referring to the Watergate defendants—“on base.” Haldeman had also informed Nixon that this was a quid pro quo understanding, for Pappas wanted to keep Henry Tasca, his friend, as ambassador to Greece. Nixon had agreed to do so. On the morning of March 7, when the president told Haldeman that Pappas was coming in, he began to refresh his recollection of exactly who had told him that Pappas was helping out, or as he said to Haldeman, “somebody said he’s financing people.” Haldeman confirmed that it had been he who had told the president this, and suggested, “You might as well get your chits out of him” by telling him that Tasca could remain in Greece.
When Pappas arrived, the funding of the Watergate defendants was handled discreetly and obliquely in a little over a minute of their eight-minute conversation. They spoke briefly and generally about Ambassador Tasca, then about a coming state visit by Greek prime minister George Papadopoulos and Nixon’s family friend Frank Birch, who had once run a gas station in Whittier, before the president turned to the darker business of Watergate.30 “Let me say one other thing,” the president began, lowering his tone. “I want you to know what I was mentioning last night, I am aware of what you’re doing to help out on some of these things that Maury’s people and others are involved in. I won’t say anything further, but it’s very seldom that you find a friend like that. Believe me. And frankly, let me say, Maury is innocent—”
Speaking in a raspy whisper, Pappas injected softly, “I know.” And Nixon continued, “Mitchell is innocent,” and then added, “A few pipsqueaks down the line did some silly things—” which Pappas understood, saying reassuringly, “Sure, sure” “But it’s down the line they’re all guilty, you know that,” Nixon added, without indicating that these were in fact the people to whom Pappas’s money was being directed. “But nobody in the White House is involved,” Nixon asserted. “It’s just stupid, it’s just stupid,” Pappas said. Nixon agreed that bugging the Democratic National Committee was useless, adding, “I always thought it was the most stupid thing. But you know, a lot of them are amateurs.” The president declared, “That’s what it is. Amateurs, believe me.” After a bit of idle chatting, the conversation ended with everyone happy: Tasca would stay, and Mitchell had a solution to his cash needs for the Watergate defendants.31
March 8, 1973, the White House
I was called to the Oval Office for a midmorning visit,32 and it was clear Nixon was in a hurry, as he asked, “I was curious about the big play that the Segretti thing got in the Post this morning,” he began, wondering if this was a new story. It was a large headline, accompanied by oversized pictures of Dwight Chapin, Herb Kalmbach and Donald Segretti, that caught the president’s attention.33 I told him it was not, but rather a matter of Gray’s testimony adding to the record. I suspected the real reason he wanted to see me was that he wanted to know if I had planted his questions with a friendly senator, as instructed, and I assured him that that had been done. (To make certain the questions were not attributed to the White House I had given them to Senator Hruska’s daughter to pass along to her father, with the permission of John Ehrlichman, for whom she worked as a private secretary, along with careful instructions. Senator Hruska, however, never posed the questions, maybe because it was already clear that Gray was not going to be confirmed.)
March 9–13, 1973, the White House
By now Gray’s confirmation hearing had effectively morphed into a mini-Watergate hearing, with the Democrats using select items plucked from the raw FBI material and other information offered by Gray. What Gray had provided was being used not only to discredit him as a potential FBI director but to drag others who were defenseless into the fray. Remarkably. Gray just kept digging himself a deeper hole, and by thrusting me into his hearings, he provided the Democrats with sufficient leverage to kill his nomination: They asserted that if I did not appear as a witness, they would not confirm him. By the time I spoke with the president for twenty minutes, on Saturday, March 10, in a nonrecorded telephone call from Camp David, I had become totally disenchanted with Pat Gray. So had Nixon. When the president spoke with Pat Buchanan on Sunday afternoon, March 11, he told Buchanan he was not going to give Gray a lifeline by responding to any press questions about either Gray or Watergate.34 He would not defend his nominee. A few hours later, when talking with Colson, they commiserated over what a lousy witness Gray had been proven himself and the damage he had done to the FBI.35
On March 13 Haldeman observed when meeting with the president shortly before noon, “It is almost like we have a death wish and never learn” in sending a nominee like Gray up to the Senate, for he had proven even more a nightmare that Kleindienst had been in early 1972.36 Haldeman noted, “Gray, just like Kleindienst, would not listen to anyone,” insisting on screwing it up his own way. By then Gray had pulled me so deeply into his hearing that Haldeman advised the president that even a Nixon loyalist like Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Eastland was “going to vote for calling Dean up.”
That afternoon I was asked to join the president and Haldeman in the Oval Office. Haldeman soon departed and I spent over an hour discussing Watergate-related matters with Nixon.37 While we principally considered procedural and process matters, we briefly wandered into who was and was not involved. The conversation touched on a range of matters: having Colson serve as a White House consultant, to give him executive privilege protection; the drafting of a speech for Senator Barry Goldwater, to raise the fact that Congress was ignoring all of the things that had been done to the Nixon reelection campaign; my advising the president to expect a lot of Watergate questions at a press conference he was considering, because of Gray’s hearings; and matters relating to Chapin, Kalmbach, Segretti and myself. We also ran through the kinds of questions he was likely to be asked, and he tested responses; I updated him on what Bill Sullivan had and had not reported; whether Sullivan could or could not change the direction of the Gray hearings by opening old FBI misdeeds; and Sullivan’s motives. Nixon wondered if Sullivan knew about the bugging of Martin Luther King, which I reported he did, and that he would testify about it if called upon.
I reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee was voting, either as we spoke or that afternoon, on whether I should be asked to testify, and based on my information, I had no doubt that the
y would send me a letter inviting me, but not a subpoena. I told the president that, given the issues which had arisen, I would have no problem answering any point Gray had raised. “Would you respond under oath?” the president asked. “Heck, I would be willing to, yes,” I assured him.
The president liked my response, explaining that he was preparing for his press conference, where he planned to make a comment to that effect. As the conversation proceeded, I answered Nixon’s questions about the Senate’s holding up Gray for my testimony being a purely political matter and Eastland claiming that, in fact, he had the votes to get Gray’s nomination out of the Judiciary Committee to the Senate floor. But because Senator Byrd was opposing Gray, it was not clear if he could win confirmation. To my surprise Nixon said, “Gray, in my opinion, should not be the head of the FBI. Not because of any character or other flaws, or thoughtless flaws, but because he is going to be much like Kleindienst. After going through the hell of the hearings, he will not be a good director.”
“What happened to this Texas guy that took his money back?” the president asked. The Mexican money had once again caught Nixon’s attention via an Associated Press story that had appeared on the front page of The Washington Post on Saturday, March 10, while he was at Camp David. The story recounted how Robert H. Allen, a Texas oilman who had given $89,000 that was later traced to the bank account of Bernard Barker, had requested and received back the entire $100,000 contribution he had given to the reelection committee.38 The Justice Department was investigating the legality of the contribution, which had come to the Nixon committee in the form of four checks from a Mexico City lawyer.
I shared what I had learned from the reelection committee lawyers: “All hell broke loose for Allen for this reason: His money apparently originally came out of a subsidiary of one of Allen’s corporations down in Mexico. It went to a lawyer in Mexico, who put it down as a fee billed to the subsidiary. Then the Mexican lawyer sent it back into the States, and it came back up here. But the weakness of it is the Mexican lawyer: One, didn’t have a legitimate fee; and two, it could be a corporate contribution. Allen had personally put a note up with the corporation to cover it. But Allen is meanwhile having problems with his wife, and a divorce is pending, and tax problems. So he requested the refund.”
The president said he thought the problem with the money was that “it was being used for Watergate.” I clarified this, explaining, “It wasn’t used for the Watergate. That’s the interesting thing. What happened is, these Mexican checks came in. They were given to Gordon Liddy,* who said, ‘What do we do, why don’t you get these cashed?’ Gordon Liddy, in turn, took them down to this fellow Barker in Florida, and said, ‘Would you cash these Mexican checks?’ So that’s how they went through Barker’s bank account [and came] back here. They could have been just as easily cashed at the Riggs Bank. There was nothing wrong with the checks. Why all that rigmarole? It’s just like a lot of other things that happened over there. God knows why it was all done. It was totally unnecessary, and it was money that was not directly involved in the Watergate. It wasn’t a wash operation to get money back in to Liddy, and the like.”
The president wanted to discuss who would be good and poor witnesses before the Ervin committee. We both thought Sloan would not be effective but that Kalmbach would be a solid witness. The president was not happy that Kalmbach was referred to as his lawyer. “Well, what I meant is this. I don’t care about that, it’s just the fact that it’s played that way, as if he’s in and that he’s talking to me all the time. I don’t talk to him about anything. I don’t know, I see Herb once a year when he brings the income tax returns. I’m sure that he handles that San Clemente property and all the rest, but he isn’t a lawyer in the sense that most people have a lawyer.”
After we speculated on the skills of those likely to be called by the Senate regarding Watergate, the president asked when Judge Sirica was going to sentence. I said we thought it was going to happen the previous Friday, March 9. Liddy was already serving his sentence at Danbury, Connecticut, because he wanted to get it over with and gain good time, and Hunt was out on bail. Liddy and McCord were appealing, but I noted that, given Sirica’s “zeal to be a special prosecutor,” Liddy and McCord might have a case for a new trial.
“Well, some of those statements from the bench,” the president found “incredible.” He asked about the Cubans, and I said I had no idea. When I added, “Sirica’s known as a hanging judge,” Nixon remarked, “That’s the kind that I want,” which struck me as so strange a comment that I laughed, but he was serious. He asked about the Senate’s Watergate investigation, and I reported that Kleindienst had finally scheduled a meeting with Ervin. I told the president the hearings would start in early May, and we speculated about how long they might last and what kind of public attention they might attract. Nixon was sure new information would emerge from the hearings: “Oh, yes, there’ll be the revelations in Watergate.” He said the Senate wanted to find out who was involved: “Is there a higher up? They’re really, let’s face it, after Haldeman.” “Haldeman and Mitchell,” I added. “Mitchell, I mean,” the president corrected himself. “Colson is not a big enough name for them. He really isn’t.” I added, “Or I bet they’d take Ehrlichman if they could drag him in, but they’ve been unable to drag him in, in any way.” I was not sure if the president understood that the effort driving the cover-up included Ehrlichman. He did not respond.
“Ultimately, Haldeman’s problem is Chapin, isn’t it? Bob’s problem is circumstantial,” I said, unaware that Ehrlichman had similarly described Haldeman’s situation to the president. “Bob didn’t know any of those people, like the Hunts and all that bunch,” Nixon explained. “Colson did. But Bob, Bob did know Chapin. Now, however the hell much Chapin knew, I’ll be God damned, I don’t know.” “Well, Chapin didn’t know anything about the Watergate,” I assured him, “and—” The president cut me off. “You don’t think so?” “No,” I replied, “absolutely not.”
“Did Strachan?” the president asked. “Yes,” I responded. “He knew?” Nixon was surprised. “Yes,” I repeated. “About the Watergate?” he asked for clarification. “Yes,” I answered, referring to the fact that Liddy had broken into and bugged the DNC’s Watergate offices. It was not clear to me then, nor is it clear today, the precise details of Strachan’s knowledge. I do not believe he had advance knowledge of the Watergate bugging and break-in. Strachan later testified that he was not given nor did he review information obtained by the bug in the DNC, but he was aware of Liddy’s “electronic surveillance plans” being approved by Mitchell.39 Liddy later claimed he specifically told Strachan he was going to reenter the Watergate offices of the DNC to repair the defective bugging equipment, but Liddy’s account may be confused.40
“Well, then, Bob knew. He probably told Bob, then. He may not have. He may not have,” the president speculated aloud. I reported that Strachan was judicious in what he relayed, and that he was as tough as nails. “What’ll he say? Just go in and say he didn’t know?” Nixon asked. I speculated, “He’ll go in and stonewall it and say, ‘I don’t know anything about what you are talking about.’ He has already done it twice, as you know, in interviews.” I did not consider Strachan to be a natural liar but rather, by personality and disposition he said what needed to be said, nothing more, and he did not trust his own memory. When the president probed, I also added that Strachan was personally loyal to Haldeman.
“But he knew? He knew about Watergate? Strachan did?” I gave a loose affirmative, “uh huh,” and the president responded, “I’ll be damned. Well, that’s the problem in Bob’s case, isn’t it? It’s not Chapin then, but Strachan. Because Strachan worked for him.” I agreed, but noted, “They would have one hell of a time proving that Strachan had knowledge of it, though.”
“Who knew better? Magruder?” the president asked.“Well, Magruder and Liddy,” I answered. “Ah, I see. The other weak link for Bob is Magruder, too. He having hired him and so forth,�
�� the president observed. “That applies to Mitchell, too,” I added, since the president seemed both interested in and surprisingly unaware of the facts. “Now, where do you see Colson coming into it? Do you think he knew quite a bit, I can’t, I can’t—” the president caught his own thought with another about Colson. “Yet he could know a great deal about a lot of other things and not a hell of a lot about this, but I don’t know.”
“Well, I’ve never—” as the president cut me off I was about to say that I had never pressed anyone about any of this information; rather, I only knew what had been volunteered to me. Nixon continued, “He sure as hell knows Hunt. That we know. And was very close to him.” “Chuck has told me that he had no knowledge, specific knowledge, of the Watergate incident before it occurred,” I said. “There have been tidbits that I have raised with Chuck. I have not played any games with him, I said, ‘Chuck, I have indications—’”
“Don’t play games,” the president advised. “I don’t,” I assured him. “You’ve got to be the lawyer [who] has got to know everything,” he insisted. I agreed, and continued with my explanation. “And I said, ‘Chuck, people have said that you were involved in this, involved in that.’ And he said, ‘That’s not true,’ and so on and so forth. I don’t—” I had misspoken, so I started again, “I think that Chuck had knowledge that something was going on over there. A lot of people around here had knowledge that something was going on over there. They didn’t have any knowledge of the details, of the specifics of the whole thing.”
The president addressed my information. “You know, that must be an indication, though, of the fact that they had God damn poor pickings. Because naturally, anybody, either Chuck or Bob, was always reporting to me about what was going on. If they ever got any information, they would certainly have told me that we got some information, but they never had a God damn thing to report.” Nixon said this with a chuckle signaling irony. “What was the matter? Did they never get anything out of the damn thing?”
