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

by John W. Dean

  It was inevitable that the unraveling cover-up would sooner or later simply collapse. On March 21 I had made my best effort to attempt to convince the president that Haldeman, Ehrlichman and I all had serious problems with respect to the cover-up, and to warn him, so that he did not become personally enmeshed. Over three weeks had passed since both that disappointing conversation and the meetings I had had with Haldeman and Ehrlichman on the same day. I had brought my colleagues copies of sections 371 (the federal conspiracy statute) and 1503 (the federal obstruction of justice statute) from an annotated edition of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, and as the president requested, I had minced no words with them about why we were in trouble. On April 8, when I hired Charles Shaffer to talk to the Watergate prosecutors, I had urged Haldeman and Ehrlichman to likewise hire criminal defense attorneys. By mid-April, any hope I had that we could end the cover-up was fading fast. I had not spoken to Shaffer about the president, and to the prosecutors I mentioned only vague problems that suggested a cover-up, as I hoped Haldeman and Ehrlichman would admit to our mistakes as well, and if we all honestly explained what had happened, the Nixon presidency would survive.

  Nixon’s recorded conversations reveal that the April 14–15 weekend was a fateful turning point, when the cover-up finally collapsed. The president had immersed himself in his problems and sorted through his options. He later told Ron Ziegler that it was on April 13 that he made “the terrible decision we had to make” to remove Haldeman and Ehrlichman from the White House.1 Over the course of that weekend, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Colson and Nixon would all realize that new battle lines had to be drawn, for it had become clear to them that I was unwilling to lie or fall on my sword. It was also during this weekend that I realized my mistake in thinking that by stepping forward myself and openly going to the prosecutors, others would follow. I had encouraged Jeb Magruder and Fred LaRue to do so as well, and they had. On Friday evening, April 13, I learned that the assistant U.S. attorneys with whom my attorney had been dealing had been forced by their superiors to breach our confidentiality agreement, ending my informal working relationship with them. I still decided to make one last attempt to encourage Haldeman and Ehrlichman to admit having made serious mistakes. Thus began the process by which I was transformed from a friend and trusted staff person into a bitter enemy of my colleagues and the president. In a White House that maintained a list of its enemies, I would soon make my way to its top.

  April 14, 1973, the White House

  The president began the day with a trip to his dentist but was back in his EOB office by 8:44 A.M., and he requested that Ehrlichman and Haldeman join him.2 This hour-and-a-half-long conversation revealed Nixon in a far more commanding, take-charge state. He clearly understood his situation and his options. He asked his top aides, when both had arrived, if they had reached any conclusions or had any recommendations. Ehrlichman said they had arrived at no conclusions, but that they did have recommendations, and they felt the president should be personally involved in unraveling Watergate. Nixon first wanted to hear again about Ehrlichman’s conversation with Colson and Shapiro. In response to leading questions, Ehrlichman repeated much of what he had said earlier, adding again that Hunt had apparently decided there was no longer any point in remaining silent since others were testifying. Colson and Shapiro thought the president should get busy and nail Mitchell. “So what does Colson want us to do?” Nixon asked. Several things, Ehrlichman explained, and specified, “He wants you to persuade Liddy to talk.”

  “Me?” Nixon asked. “Yes sir,” Ehrlichman said. Nixon said he did not recall Ehrlichman mentioning this detail previously, but Ehrlichman said he thought he had. (Nixon was correct; Ehrlichman had only referred to “the president’s man” going to Liddy.) Colson wanted the president to be able to say that it was he who had cracked the case. He felt that “the next forty-eight hours are the last chance for the White House to get out in front of this, and that once Hunt goes on, then that’s the ball game.” Nixon needed to take “provable, identifiable steps which can be referred to later as having been the proximate cause.”

  The conversation turned to Magruder and what he was or was not telling reporters. Haldeman doubted Colson’s account. He said Magruder claimed he had run into former White House aide Danny Hofgren at a bar in the Bahamas (where Magruder had flown to hire his lawyer) and told him, “Everybody’s involved, Mitchell, Haldeman, Colson, Dean, the president.” The president wondered if Magruder really believed this, but Ehrlichman assured him that Higby’s tape of Magruder would “beat the socks off him if he ever gets off the reservation.” Ehrlichman, who like Higby had taped conversations, said that while the practice was illegal, Higby could serve as a witness. Haldeman pointed out that it was not, in fact, illegal in the District of Columbia, where it was only necessary to have the consent of one party to secretly record telephone conversations.

  After discussing Colson’s motives and Magruder’s perjury, the president asked Ehrlichman if Hunt would testify that he had been promised clemency. Though Ehrlichman thought not, Nixon was clearly concerned about his vulnerability: “You see, the only possible involvement of the president in this is [the clemency issue]. Now apparently, John, either you or Bob or Dean, somebody told Colson not to discuss it with me.” Ehrlichman said he had, and the president wanted to know when it had happened, but not letting Ehrlichman get a word in edgewise, he continued, recalling his conversation about clemency for Hunt with Colson. “I remember a conversation, it was about five thirty or six o’clock, Colson only dropped it in sort of parenthetically. He said, ‘I had a little problem today,’ and we were talking about the [Watergate] defendants, and I sought to reassure him, you know, and so forth. And I said, [when he told me about the death of Hunt’s wife], ‘It’s a terrible thing,’ and I said, ‘Obviously we’ll do just that, we will take that into consideration.’ And that was the total conversation,” the president explained, putting his best spin on it.

  Ehrlichman explained that Hunt had written Colson “a very ‘I’ve-been-abandoned’ kind of letter” after the election, which Colson has brought to Ehrlichman’s attention. Ehrlichman said he advised Colson to talk to Hunt (which the president thought had been “good advice”) but not to say “anything about clemency or a pardon,” and he warned Colson that “under no circumstances should this ever be raised with the president.” The president reported, “Well, he raised it, in a tangential way. Now he denies that, as I understand it, that [he told Hunt] he’d be out by Christmas.” The president accurately described how Colson had dealt with Bittman, giving him that impression but avoiding “any commitment” and simply allowing Bittman to draw the conclusion he wanted.

  Nixon next wanted to know how Hunt might testify regarding Colson’s pressuring Magruder on Liddy’s plans: “Does Colson realize his vulnerability there?” Ehrlichman said Colson felt he had no vulnerability, because Hunt and Liddy had talked only “in general terms about intelligence, and when they said intelligence, he meant one thing, and apparently they meant another.” Nixon understood, noted the weakness of Colson’s defense, and pushed forward: “Question: Is Hunt preparing to talk on other activities that he engaged in?” This question raised unstated matters, such as the Ellsberg break-in, which directly involved Ehrlichman, who responded he “couldn’t derive that” from his conversations. When the president asked, “The U.S. attorney, I would assume, would not be pressing these things?” Ehrlichman agreed, saying, “Ordinarily not.” This led to a discussion of the Greenspun operation, which Ehrlichman thought they had undertaken successfully, speculating that it had been done at the request of Hunt’s employer Robert Bennett (son of a Utah U.S. senator and later himself a Utah U.S. senator), who represented a faction of the divided Howard Hughes organization.

  Nixon, remaining very much in charge, said, “Hunt’s testimony on payoff, of course, would be very important.” Ehrlichman, who was unaware of the president roles with the money and his particular interest, thought Hunt would li
kely implicate the reelection committee lawyers, Paul O’Brien and Ken Parkinson. When the president pressed, Ehrlichman said Hunt would “hang them on obstruction of justice.” Nixon asked if this would implicate Kalmbach as well, but Ehrlichman thought not.

  “What did Dean call Kalmbach about?” the president asked. “He said we have to raise some money in connection with the aftermath, and I don’t know how he described it to Herb,” Ehrlichman answered, to which Haldeman added, somewhat misleadingly, “Dean says very flatly that Kalmbach did not know the purpose for the money and has no problem.” Obviously Kalmbach did know that the money was going to those involved with the Watergate break-in, but little more than that. (I did, in fact, think that Kalmbach had a problem, as I would explain to both Haldeman and Ehrlichman that afternoon.) “So basically, then, Hunt will testify that it was so-called hush money, right?” Nixon asked. “I think so,” Ehrlichman agreed, with the caveat, “Now again, my water can’t rise any higher than its source.”

  They next discussed how Hunt’s testimony might help him get a reduced sentence. Haldeman thought Hunt could also help himself by not calling it hush money but simply saying that he wanted to help out the families of the men he had recruited. The president liked that: “That’s what it ought to be, and that’s got to be the story that will be the defense of these people [involved with the money], right?” Ehrlichman acknowledged it was the only defense. Haldeman added, “That was the line that they used around here. That we’ve got to have money for their legal fees and family support, to support them.” The president admitted, “Well, I heard something about that at a much later time. And frankly, not knowing much about obstruction of justice, I thought it was perfectly proper. Would it be proper?”

  “Well, it’s like the defense of the Chicago Seven,” Ehrlichman said,3 and Haldeman added, “They had a defense fund for everybody.” Nixon continued, “Not only a defense fund, Christ, they took care of living expense, too. You remember the Scottsboro case? Christ, the communist front raised a million dollars for the Scottsboro people, nine hundred thousand went into the pockets of the communists.”4 As Haldeman laughed, Nixon asserted, “So it’s common practice. Nevertheless, that’s Hunt then, [probably] saying it was payoffs.”

  The president proceeded through a mental checklist, methodically moving to each item but, as was his style, returning to topics discussed the preceding evening or even earlier in the same conversation. “I think I’ve got the larger picture,” he announced, as this conversation progressed, but what he needed to figure out was how to get credit for breaking the case—perhaps for having gotten Magruder to testify, or maybe Mitchell and Liddy. Ehrlichman, however, had been trying to position himself as the catalyst for having broken the case. He had been meeting with Magruder, Strachan, O’Brien, Haldeman and me, so he asked the president to step back and imagine how it might unravel from the point of view of a week, if not a month or so, later. “I’m trying to write the news magazine story for next Monday, a week. And if the grand jury indicts Mitchell.” Ehrlichman had two versions of this imagined account. Adjusting his voice as if reading an actual news story, he offered the first version: “‘The White House’s main effort to cover up finally collapsed last week when the grand jury indicted John Mitchell and Jeb Magruder. Cracking the case was the testimony of a number of peripheral witnesses, each of whom contributed to developing a cross-triangulation and permitted the grand jury to analyze it,’ and so on and so forth. And then, ‘The final straw that broke the camel’s back was an investigator’s discovery of this and that and the other thing.’ That’s one set of facts. And then the tag on that is, ‘The White House press secretary, Ron Ziegler, said the White House would have no comment.’”

  Nixon groaned with displeasure at this possible turn of events, and Ehrlichman continued with the story he felt they should develop, based on information he had obtained: “The other one goes, ‘Events moved swiftly last week, after the president was presented with a report indicating for the first time that suspicion of John Mitchell and Jeb Magruder as ringleaders in the Watergate break-in were in fact substantiated by considerable evidence. The president then dispatched so and so to do this and that and it’—maybe to see Mitchell or something of that kind—‘and these efforts resulted in Mitchell going to the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Monday morning at nine o’clock and asking to testify before the grand jury. Charges of cover up by the White House were materially dispelled by the diligent efforts of the president and his aides in moving on evidence which came to their hands in the closing days of the previous week.” “I’d buy that,” Nixon said, and he indicated he was ready to talk tactics.

  “‘Now,’” continued Ehrlichman, taking on the role of Nixon in his scenario, “‘I’ve been concerned because, since the end of March, I have turned up a fair amount of hearsay evidence that points at this guy. Now, just take—’” Nixon interrupted, “And so did Dean, so did Dean.” Ehrlichman, who was not aware of my March 21 conversation with the president, added, “‘And so did John.’” But the president wanted to make clear that we really did not know if Mitchell was or was not guilty. Ehrlichman conceded that he only had hearsay but that he had listened to Higby’s recording of Magruder, who “flat-out” said on the tape that he and Mitchell were guilty. So, Ehrlichman continued, “‘I said to myself, “My God! I’m, you know, a United States citizen. I’m standing here listening to this, what is my duty?”’” Nixon answered, “Well, the point is, you’ve now told me. That’s the problem.” He clarified, “The problem of my position up to this time has been, quite frankly, nobody ever told me a God damn thing, that Mitchell was guilty.”

  “That’s right,” Ehrlichman agreed. “Well, we still don’t know,” Haldeman pointed out. “I will still argue that I think the scenario that was spun out by Dean on Mitchell is basically the right one. I don’t think Mitchell did order the Watergate bugging, and I don’t think he was specifically aware of the Watergate bugging at the time it was instituted.” The president added, “For your information, here’s what [Mitchell] told Rebozo, who he knows very well.” This conversation occurred either “right after [Mitchell had testified before the grand jury] or a month ago,” Nixon reported. “He told Rebozo, ‘I may have perjured myself on the ITT matter but I sure didn’t on this God damn thing.’ Well, there you go.” And Haldeman agreed that “technically that may be correct.” Ehrlichman added that that was what he had told Dick Moore as well. They discussed who should confront Mitchell, and Nixon thought it should be Ehrlichman, who knew the case, rather than Rogers, whom Mitchell did not like and could “wind him around his finger.”

  But the president knew the relationship between Ehrlichman and Mitchell was strained, at best, so he asked Ehrlichman to explain the situation, as he saw it. “Let me put it in a setting,” he began. “Mitchell has felt from the days of Haynsworth and Carswell—” referring to Mitchell’s rejected recommendations while attorney general for seats on the U.S. Supreme Court, which led Nixon to interrupt, “That you were out to get him.” Ehrlichman ignored the president’s characterization and continued, “—that I disapproved of him, And that it fell to my lot to second-guess his operation at the Justice Department, day after day.” In fact, the problem was far deeper and had real consequences, but the fact Ehrlichman acknowledged that it existed was enough to satisfy Nixon.5

  The president told Ehrlichman, “You know the case. You’ve conducted the investigation for me. You have reported to me, and I have asked you to go up and lay it on the ground to Mitchell, and to tell Mitchell, look, there is only one thing that could save him. I think John’s got to hear that kind of talk, and I think he’s got to hear it from somebody that doesn’t have—” The president caught himself from absolving Ehrlichman from any involvement, but not missing a beat, continued, “I was thinking of bringing Rogers in and telling him all this stuff, but God damn it, Mitchell will wind him around his finger.”

  Ehrlichman said he would do it if Nixon wanted it done but noted,
“Bob has a pretty good feel of Mitchell’s attitude toward me that I don’t have.” Haldeman said nothing in response, and after further conversation and speculation about the testimony and problems of others, Nixon returned to the subject of Mitchell. “I don’t think there’s anybody that can talk to Mitchell except somebody that knows this case. Now there’s one or two people, I mean, I’ve versed myself in it enough to know the God damn thing. But I’m not sure that I want to personally know. I want to say to Mitchell, Now look, I think that the attorney for the committee, O’Brien, found out this, and I found out that, and the grand jury’s going to do this.’ I just don’t know. They talk about my going out [and doing it], but really, I am not trying to duck it. I don’t mind, I’ve done unpleasant things, and I’ll take this in one minute. The thing, John, is that there’s nobody really that can do it except you. And I know how Mitchell feels. But you conducted this investigation. The way I would do it—Bob, you critique this—is, I’d go up and I’d say, ‘The president’s asked me to see you.’ That you have come in today with this report. These are the cold facts indicating, of course, that this does not indicate [guilt], but the grand jury is moving swiftly, Magruder will be indicted, you think. Under the circumstances, time is of the essence.” The president proceeded to outline Mitchell’s problem, suggesting that Ehrlichman point out that the president had assumed responsibility, and nobody in the White House is involved. He then added to the pitch for Ehrlichman to present: “‘We did try to help these defendants afterward, yes.’ [Mitchell] probably would not deny that, anyway. He probably was not asked that at an earlier time. But, just as any, the defendants are entitled to that sort of—”

  “Well, now you’re glossing it,” Ehrlichman protested, as it was getting into what he was calling the aftermath, which he did not think he should bring up. The president, understanding, backed off and asked Ehrlichman for his version of his confrontation speech to Mitchell. Ehrlichman’s points were a bit more blunt: The jig is up. Magruder’s going to blow. It’s now time to rethink what best serves the president. You are not going to escape indictment. It would be better if you were prosecuted on an “information” [a voluntary plea] rather than an “indictment [from the grand jury] by fifteen blacks and three whites.” Mitchell would get credit for stepping forward, and it would serve the president’s interests. Both Haldeman and the president occasionally added suggestions to this approach, and when Ehrlichman finished, they all speculated about how Mitchell might or might not react.