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

by John W. Dean

  When inquiring about when I might be going to the grand jury, the president obviously recalled our March 21 conversation. “How does Dean, incidentally, what is the liability, or Hunt, or I’m thinking of the payoff thing, in this business,” he began, juggling his thoughts over how much information he wanted to share; the following passage is reprinted verbatim to indicate Nixon’s concern about this subject: “Dean, Dean, ah, Dean asked, told me about the problem of Hunt’s lawyer wanted, had gotten, this was a few weeks ago, needed sixty thousand or forty thousand dollars or something like that. You remember? He asked me about it, and I said I don’t know where you can get it. I said I would, I mean, I frankly felt he might try to get it, but I didn’t know where. And then he left it up with Mitchell, and Mitchell then said it was taken care of, am I correct? Is my recollection?” Ehrlichman answered, “Yes, sir.” Nixon asked Ehrlichman, “Is that approximately correct? Did he talk to you about that?” Ehrlichman answered, “He talked to me about it. I said, John, I wouldn’t have the vaguest notion where to get it. I saw Mitchell later in the day, Wednesday, [I think],” Ehrlichman recalled.* “What happened?” Nixon asked. “And he just said, it’s taken care of,” Ehrlichman reported.

  Haldeman added his own recollection: “Mitchell raised the topic. He turned to Dean and said, ‘What have you done about that other problem?’ And Dean kind of looked at us and then said, ‘Well, you know, I don’t know.’ And Mitchell said, ‘Oh, I guess that’s been taken care of.’” Haldeman then reported I had told them later that it had been taken care of by LaRue, who, I advised them, was going to cooperate with the prosecutors. Haldeman added, “Oh, Dean told us he had a long talk with LaRue, and LaRue said, ‘This whole thing is ridiculous now,’ and [added] ‘If I were in charge of this now, what I would do is, I’d get a large bus, and I’d put the president at the wheel, and I’d throw everybody we’ve got around here in it, and I’d drive up to the Senate, and I’d have the president open the door, and I’d say, you all get out and tell everything you know, and I’ll be back to pick you up when you’re through.’ He said, ‘It’s all out now, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’ And LaRue also said, you know, ‘I can’t figure out how I got into this to begin with, but it seems to me all of us have been drawn in here in trying to cover up for John.’”

  “For Mitchell?” the president asked. “Yeah, which is exactly what’s happened,” Haldeman added. The discussion of LaRue ended when Haldeman pointed out that LaRue was going to tell the truth and take responsibility for his actions: “I think LaRue’s figured that the jig is up.”

  After the president clarified that no one had ever discussed clemency for Liddy, or for anyone other than Hunt, with him, he returned to the hush money and offered his version of our March 21 conversation: “Dean told me an interesting thing; when I said [to] Dean, ‘John, where’s it all lead?’ I said, ‘What’s it going to cost, if you continue on this course? He said about a million dollars. I said facetiously, ‘[That’s a lot]. I know where you can get that.’ That’s the point. That’s the foul-up in the whole Mitchell argument. Unless I could just up and say, ‘Look, fellows, it’s too bad,’ and I could give you executive clemency, like tomorrow, what the hell do you think, Dean, I mean, do you think Hunt and the Cubans are going to sit on their ass in jail for four years and their families not [be] taken care of? That’s the point. Now where the hell do you get the money for that? That’s the reason this whole thing falls. I mean, that astonishes me about Mitchell and the rest. It’s not only improbable, there’s no way to get the money, is there? Who was it, Tom Pappas they had to see me?”

  Haldeman confirmed that it was Pappas but remained very vague. The president recalled that Haldeman had told him that Pappas “was helping on the money,” but Haldeman reminded the president that he was seeing a number of contributors, and Pappas “was Mitchell’s contact.” The president recalled that he was careful with “good old Tom” when thanking him for raising money “for the purpose of helping the poor bastards through the jail.” But when Nixon asked Ehrlichman how long this financial support could be provided, Ehrlichman said he had no idea, although he and the president acknowledged that the Berrigan brothers had funds.

  They briefly discussed how long I should remain at the White House, and when the president said he was ready to let me go, Ehrlichman cautioned that that might not be the right decision. He said he felt that I might receive better treatment by the grand jury and the U.S. attorney if I were kept on, which he thought important. Haldeman concurred that they would treat me differently as “the dismissed president’s counsel” and Ehrlichman added that dismissal was “a very heavy psychological factor.” The president agreed to keep me on, since there was no reason not to do so, and noted, “Dean is not like Mitchell now, let’s face it. Dean is not like Mitchell in the sense that Dean only tried to do what he could to pick up the God damn pieces, and everybody else around here knew it had to be done.”

  They next discussed my involvement in “the aftermath,” the now-accepted euphemism for the cover-up. Haldeman noted, “The known involvement in the aftermath was for what was understood here to be the proper purpose.” The president said, “The question of motive.” “That’s number one,” Ehrlichman said, and his second reason was based on his investigation. “There were eight or ten people around here who knew about this, knew it was going on,” Ehrlichman said, regarding the aftermath. “Bob knew, I knew, all kinds of people knew.” Nixon added, “Well, I knew it, I knew it.” Realizing what he had just confessed, and possibly realizing that it had been recorded, the president immediately tried, rather awkwardly to retract it. “I knew, I must say though, I didn’t know it. But I must have assumed it, though, but, you know, fortunately, and I thank you both for arranging it that way, and it does show why the isolation of the president is a bad position to be in.” Ehrlichman, apparently unable to contain his disbelief at Nixon’s sudden reversal and claims of ignorance, punctuated the president’s comments with several guttural “humpf” sounds. These seemed to invoke a bit of candor from Nixon; he continued: “But the first time that I knew that they had to have money was the time when Dean told me that they needed forty thousand dollars.” Nixon then gave a confused description of what he did not know and added, “But others did know.”

  “The point is,” Ehrlichman said, “that if the wrongdoing which justifies Dean’s dismissal is his knowledge that that operation was going on, then you can’t stop with him. You’ve got to go through this whole place wholesale.” This got the president’s attention: “Fire the whole staff?” “That’s right,” Ehrlichman answered. “It’s a question of motive. It’s a question of role, and I don’t think Dean’s role in the aftermath, at least from the facts that I know now, achieves a level of wrongdoing that requires you terminate him.” Nixon thought that a powerful point and added, “You can be pragmatic and say, well, Christ, cut your losses and get rid of him. I mean, give them an hors d’oeuvre, and maybe they won’t come back for the main course. Go out, John Dean. On the other hand, it is true others did know.” The president instructed Ehrlichman to have a talk with me, particularly about motive. He said he had, and explained that I became involved because Mitchell had kept turning to me for help, and I would come back to Ehrlichman and Haldeman at his request. Mitchell would send the message, “These guys, Hunt’s getting jittery, and says that he’s got to have umpty-ump thousand dollars, and Mitchell’s terribly worried about it, and it was never expressed, but it was certainly understood.” When the president pressed as to whether I had ever discussed the motive, Ehrlichman could not recall, although both he and Haldeman did remember that they had referred me to Kalmbach to raise money, which soon led into another discussion of the $350,000 being returned to the reelection committee.*

  This conversation ended with Ehrlichman’s again selling the president on his investigation, which was supposedly broader than my nonexistent report. He said he had examined the full picture of what had happened while I had
only probed to determine if there was any White House involvement. When the subject turned to bracing Magruder, the president said that Ehrlichman should start by telling him “of the president’s own great affection for” him and his family. Haldeman recommended taking the same stance with Mitchell, and the president agreed. The president said he was doing to Ehrlichman what President Eisenhower had done to him as vice president when he sent Nixon to deal with Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Sherman Adams.6 When referring to the impact of my testimony on Mitchell, not to mention others, Haldeman noted, “If Dean testifies, it’s going to unscramble the whole omelet.” And after further discussion about Mitchell and Magruder, Haldeman and Ehrlichman departed for Ehrlichman’s office, with the president requesting they report when they had further information.

  I had spent Saturday morning in my office with my attorney, Charles Shaffer. Over the prior week I had given him general information about the cover-up, still excluding any discussion of the president’s role. I had only incidentally described Mitchell’s, Haldeman’s and Ehrlichman’s roles in the affair, as it had been necessary to do so to explain my own actions. Shaffer had little doubt that those who would likely be indicted for what we called “pre” activities (relating to the planning and execution of the Watergate break-in) would include at least, in addition to the original defendants, Mitchell and Magruder, but we placed a question mark by Strachan. I took out a yellow note pad, and we added those for whom we thought my testimony might result in “post” indictments for what I called the “post” activities—the events after the arrests on June 17, 1972. For the post candidates I listed: “H” (Haldeman), “E” (Ehrlichman), “JWD” (me), “LaRue,” “Mardian?” “O’Brien,” “Parkinson?” “Colson?” “Bittman?” “Kalmbach/Tony (Ulasewicz)?/source [thinking of Pappas and others who had provided funds]” and “Stans?” Beside the names of those on this later list I added the statutes and their penalties: “Potential O/J” (obstruction of justice), “§371 5/$10” (five years and ten-thousand-dollar fine) and “§1503 5/$5” (five years and five-thousand-dollar fine).7

  Shortly after noon, with my list in hand, I went to Ehrlichman’s office. Just as I knew he was going to tell Mitchell that the time for resolution had come, I was trying to do the same with Haldeman and Ehrlichman. I told them I had considered the exposure of everyone involved with my attorney, and we had prepared a list of who might be indicted for conspiracy to obstruct justice. More important, I told them that Shaffer had learned that they were now targets of the grand jury, just as was I. My new information momentarily startled both men, because it conflicted with reassurances Ehrlichman had received from Kleindienst only days earlier. Ehrlichman, however, dismissed my warning as pure speculation. While I had discussed the facts with them in a similar conversation on March 21, I reminded them that what I was sharing with them today were the opinions of a seasoned criminal attorney. Shaffer had counseled me to share only conclusions and not get into details. Given the fact that Ehrlichman was busy secretly taping his conversations, it was good advice.8 While the tone of the meeting was friendly, for they recognized that I was trying to help both the president and them, it was very clear that neither of them was going to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong. As Ehrlichman said to me, “I think something putrid has gotten into your drinking water over there in Old Town, where you live.”

  Haldeman left the session in Ehrlichman’s office to meet with Magruder, and at 1:55 P.M. returned to the Oval Office to report on that discussion. Meanwhile Mitchell had arrived and was still meeting with Ehrlichman.9 Haldeman told Nixon that Magruder had decided the night before to tell all, and “his lawyers met with Silbert today.” He was not requesting immunity, “because he didn’t feel entitled to it.” Magruder had made his decision after realizing that the matter had reached an endpoint: “They’ve got witnesses on witnesses now, and there’s no reason for [him] to be quiet,” Magruder had said, and related that the only thing Magruder hoped to get out of coming forward was a lighter sentence. He told Haldeman he was guilty “on six or eight counts of perjury, two counts of conspiracy and two counts of obstruction of justice [with possible] sentences of 135 to 160 years in jail,” though his lawyers had yet to make a deal. “He told me that whole thing in an unbroken voice and showed more strength than I thought he had, to be perfectly frank,” Haldeman said. Magruder also had advised Haldeman that others involved at the reelection committee—Fred LaRue and Bart Porter—were going to cooperate with the prosecutors, although Mitchell was not. Haldeman had had this conversation with Magruder just as Mitchell was arriving, so he was able to share the gist of it with Ehrlichman. The president asked about “the aftermath,” but Haldeman did not believe Magruder knew anything about it. Haldeman surmised that Magruder’s testimony would hurt both Strachan and me.

  Ehrlichman arrived in the Oval Office with Haldeman accompanying him at 2:24 P.M. to report on his meeting with Mitchell.10 “He is an innocent man in his heart, and in his mind, and he does not intend to move off that position,” Ehrlichman said. When the president said he wanted “chapter and verse,” Ehrlichman proceeded to recount their exchange in greater detail, as best he could recall it. Mitchell’s position was “You know, these characters pulled this thing off without my knowledge.” He claimed, contrary to Magruder, “I never saw Liddy for months at a time. I didn’t know what they were up to. Nobody was more surprised than I was.” When Ehrlichman pointed out that Mitchell had “lobbed mud balls at the White House at every opportunity,” Mitchell claimed that “the origin, of course, was in the White House, where Bob Haldeman and [Mitchell] talked about something called the Operation Sandwedge. That was really the grandfather of this whole thing. And, of course, that was never put together because we couldn’t get the right people to do it. They were talking about Joe Woods and people of that kind, so it never happened.”

  Ehrlichman said he played Mitchell “with kid gloves” and, more specifically, he explained, “In fact, I never asked him to tell me anything. He just came forward with all this stuff.” Ehrlichman said they speculated on my and Magruder’s testimony and that Mitchell’s “characterization of all this is that he was a very busy man, and he wasn’t keeping track of what was going on at the committee, that this was engendered as a result of Hunt and Liddy coming to Colson’s office and getting Colson to make a phone call to Magruder, and that he, Mitchell, was not aware that all that had happened until [a committee aide, Van Shumway] brought Liddy into Mitchell’s office sometime in June, and that’s the first knowledge he had of it.”

  Haldeman asked if that was before or after the arrests, and Ehrlichman did not know but said that it could be checked, because he had taped the conversation. Ehrlichman said he raised with Mitchell Magruder’s account of bringing him a memo with targets, and his checking off those he wanted pursued, but Mitchell denied it (although he had admitted it to Haldeman on March 28, which he had recorded in his diary). Haldeman interrupted to clarify that, while he had not checked off anything, Mitchell had approved Liddy’s operation.11 Mitchell also told Ehrlichman that a lot of his problems with Liddy were that Liddy was a name-dropper. Mitchell indicated that he planned to defend himself every way he could, but he understood he could never get a fair trial in Washington, D.C. He regretted that so much was going to redound on the White House.

  Ehrlichman reported that they discussed the money, particularly the $350,000 that had come from the White House. As he went through Mitchell’s recollections, Haldeman corroborated most of Mitchell’s account, and the president wanted Strachan informed so that he would get his own testimony correct. Mitchell said he was not aware of anyone’s going to the defendants and telling them not to testify, and Ehrlichman quoted him as saying, “I wasn’t really worried about what they testified to. I was worried about what they’d say to the press.” Haldeman noted, “That, somehow, Dean doesn’t see that, that way,” nor would anyone else when this claim was made to justify the payments. “Oh,” Ehrlichman remembered, �
�I told him that the only way that I knew that he was mentioned, insofar as the aftermath was concerned, was that from time to time he would send Dean over saying, ‘Hey, we need money for this,’ and [Mitchell] said, ‘Who told you that?’” Haldeman jumped in with “John Dean.” Ehrlichman, taking Haldeman’s statement as his own, continued, “And I said [to Mitchell], ‘John, that’s common knowledge. And Dean, among others, has told me that.’” Then, unaware that I had personally told Mitchell that I was talking to the prosecutors, Ehrlichman said that I had not been subpoenaed, which was true, nor had I testified, which was also true, but then said, “The way they are proceeding down there [at the U.S. Attorney’s Office], it looks like they are losing interest in [Dean].” When the president corrected him, Ehrlichman admitted that he had been spinning the facts, because he did not want Mitchell to think they were “jobbing him.” When Ehrlichman reported that Mitchell was claiming that it was the fault of the White House, because, in effect, Haldeman, Colson and Dean, working through Magruder, had frozen him out, Haldeman said, “He’s got an impossible problem with that.” To which Ehrlichman added, “The poor guy is punting.” (Ehrlichman failed to mention to the president—or had lumped it into “mud throwing by Mitchell”—a fact captured on Ehrlichman’s recording of their meeting: Namely, Mitchell thought the cover-up had been necessary because of Hunt’s and Liddy’s activities while they worked at the White House, which Mitchell had felt more serious threats to the president’s reelection than Watergate.12)