by John W. Dean
When they moved on to other matters, Nixon recalled that I had sent him another very clear warning in our final conversation, four days earlier, on Easter Sunday, April 22: “Basically, Dean, it might be that he said he told the president that he was going to do this.” He recalled that I had again tried to caution him that he might be obstructing justice in colluding with Ehrlichman to block my testimony and influence my dealings with the prosecutors. “Dean told me when I called him on Sunday, I recollected this, he said, ‘You know, I know how that statement with regard to no immunity got into your statement.’ And he lobbed that out; this is a guess, of course.” Nixon asked Haldeman, “Remember the April seventeenth statement? But I’m just trying to look at things as he may look at them.”134 Haldeman reported that I had told Larry Higby the same thing regarding my scapegoat statement: “He put that statement out, he said, ‘That reached the right place.’” Haldeman clarified this for Nixon, “And he said, ‘The people that I was talking to got the signal,’ something to that effect.” He added that I had told Higby, “I’m not out to get anybody.” Haldeman thought the signal had gotten through, and Nixon agreed.
When Haldeman said he was not happy with this headline—NIXON CALLS DEAN, SAYS YOU’RE STILL MY COUNSEL—Nixon denied he had made that statement (although Ziegler later corrected him, telling him he had been present when the president said it.) “You doing it privately to Dean is fine,” Haldeman said, but publicly he thought created a problem. Indeed, Haldeman wanted to know when they were going to take action on me. “I mean, they have to either indict him or give him immunity, and you’ve got to move on Dean either way.” Nixon said, “One thing you and John got to work on is the game plan on how you handle John Dean. Let’s face it: You remember, the only reason I put the immunity thing in there, Bob, was because John insisted it go in there, do you recall?” Haldeman confirmed, “Yes, I sure do.” Nixon went on, “I think Colson did, too, as I recall. But John was the one. ‘Be sure that you say that nobody gets immunity and tell Petersen nobody’s to get immunity, that is it.’ Whether that was a good move or not, I do not know.” Haldeman explained that the only reason to grant immunity to any witness was to nail a more important defendant, and while they had plenty of witnesses to nail Mitchell, I was the witness who could nail Haldeman and Ehrlichman.
As this conversation continued, Haldeman admitted to Nixon, “I don’t think that we can pretend that we didn’t know there was an interest on Mitchell’s part in raising money for the defendants.” “But,” he protested, “I sure as hell don’t know what it was for,” as if unaware of Hunt’s demands. Nixon noted, “The staff protected me from it, [and] I just wasn’t getting involved.” “It wasn’t a matter of protection,” Haldeman explained. “It was not something that was necessary to get to you. It didn’t involve you.”
Reviewing the matters that had arisen during the March 21 conversation caused Nixon to wonder when he had first learned the defendants were being paid, when this “blackmail stuff” had first come up. Haldeman did not have a clear answer. “I never got any of this crap about defendants or attorneys’ fees or anything at all here that I remember, with you or anybody else,” Nixon said.* But he correctly suspected it had arisen before March 21, whether it was legal or not, so he wanted Haldeman to listen closely for that when he resumed with the March 21 conversation. Haldeman said he had discussed this matter with his lawyers, “Because they made the point that the support thing doesn’t hold up [when] the defendants were out on bail and able to earn their own support.”
Nixon wanted to know what their attorneys thought about any potential charge on “the conspiracy thing, on the support for defendants, in other words, the launching of Kalmbach and so forth.” “We didn’t have any motive, and we did not launch Kalmbach,” Haldeman replied. “We didn’t take initiative on any of this stuff.” It was an evasive answer, but Nixon clearly did not want to debate Haldeman’s conspicuous problems and said, “Okay, fine.” But Haldeman claimed their “thing” was “passive, nondisapproval”—which he did not understand still placed him solidly in a conspiratorial agreement—“because Mitchell said there was a need.” Nixon reminded Haldeman that Ehrlichman had called Kalmbach, according to what he had been told by Petersen. When Haldeman said he thought Kalmbach had called Ehrlichman, Nixon responded, “All right, whatever it is, fine,” likely perceiving that Haldeman lacked knowledge of the law. Nixon still pressed as to what the attorneys had said about “subject A, the purpose of the so-called hush money. The obstruction of justice. You must have discussed this with them in some language, Bob?” Haldeman replied, “They’ve been researching the statutes on the question.” Nixon, of course, had already listened to them try to explain that they were searching for (nonexistent) case law to establish that their clients had not acted “corruptly” or “willfully” under the obstruction statute.
When not discussing the March 21 conversation, Nixon continued to question Haldeman on what might be my “big bomb,” so they went over my schedule and activities, which I had openly reported to Haldeman and he had recorded in great detail in his notes. I had made no secret of the fact that I had hired an attorney and that he had visited with the U.S. attorneys. While they merely began going through my day-by-day calendar during this morning conversation, that afternoon they would spend almost five hours examining this material, with Haldeman reading page after page of his notes of his conversations with me during March and April 1972.
As this analysis progressed, Nixon explained that Haldeman understood better than Ehrlichman “the human factor.” As the president reported, “Dean says, according to Petersen, he said, ‘He’s never going to be able to express anything but the greatest respect for and even affection for the president.’ Now I don’t know whether that is the case that is with others or not. But what was Higby’s report?” Haldeman replied, “Same thing.” Nixon asked, “What’s Ziegler say he said on that?” Haldeman again reported, “Same thing, that he was trying to give advice to the president,” and more recently, “Don’t let the president get caught in the obstruction of justice–type stuff and all that.” Nixon asked, “What do you think he meant by that?” Haldeman did not know but suggested, “I think that [he was] protecting his own ass, but not in the way of trying to hurt the president. I think he will use everything he’s got except that. I don’t think, unless he becomes a madman, that that is the danger, that I guess you do have to have to possibly contend with, but so the argument there is, you don’t want to do anything to drive him to becoming a madman, but you, in the same point, cannot let a record be made of your protecting him.” “No, no,” Nixon insisted. “Oh, no, no. But Bob, I am in a totally defensible position,”
This conversation ended with the president reminding Haldeman that if I did not receive immunity, “if convicted, there’s only one place where he will ever get any possible clemency.” Haldeman agreed, and Nixon added, “But I sure wouldn’t say that to him.” Haldeman agreed, and said he was sure that that had to be in the back of my mind.
Before lunch Ziegler spent not quite an hour with the president in the Oval Office. Ziegler wanted guidance on how to explain John Wilson and Frank Strickler’s visit to the president, about which the press had learned. Ziegler was told to say that Nixon was gathering facts, but Wilson and Strickler were not his legal representation.135 Shortly after noon the president phoned Kleindienst for an update on what was happening in the Ellsberg trial now that the judge had received the information about the Ellsberg break-in. Kleindienst said the message had been given to the judge as instructed, and they hoped he would keep it confidential and that it would not disrupt the trial.136 Following his conversation with Kleindienst, Nixon went over to his EOB office, where he had lunch, a brief nap and then went through paperwork until he asked Haldeman and Ehrlichman join him. Haldeman arrived just before four o’clock and remained until after nine o’clock; Ehrlichman arrived at 5:57 P.M. and left at 7:14 P.M. Most of this lengthy session entailed Haldeman reporting
the remainder of the March 21 discussion and then reading more pages of his notes of his March and April conversations with me.137 Periodically this session was interrupted by Nixon making telephone calls, nine in all, principally to Kleindienst and Petersen. The president and Haldeman went deep into the minutiae of the conversations as they recalled them to explore Nixon’s potential vulnerabilities, and they continued to look for the suspected bomb in my arsenal. Only a few insights and revelations surfaced from this meeting.
Nixon felt that the part of the March 21 conversation when Haldeman joined in was better than the first segment, but Haldeman acknowledged that that was only when looked at in the context of the spin he was placing on the conversation, of “trying to smoke out from Dean what kinds of things he would say to do.” He was most concerned about whether he had given me orders to pay off Hunt, and he had not (nor had I ever thought otherwise, for I was trying to prevent him from taking such action). Haldeman read the president a forthcoming story from Jack Anderson attacking me, asserting that everything that was amiss about Watergate was my fault. Haldeman assumed that Colson had given Anderson information, but he admitted that Ehrlichman had assisted Colson, and they “made up a story partly.”
After going over the March 21 recorded conversation, Nixon wanted Haldeman’s thoughts on how he would deal with the matter when he testified. “It’s a privileged conversation, and the president’s authorized me to characterize it as I remember it,” Haldeman replied, and then proceeded to characterize it as he hoped Nixon would also remember it; namely, Nixon was merely smoking me out. Then they returned to “the Pappas thing,” and how to handle that. “Well, Pappas was one of a number of major contributors that we met with,” Haldeman said, trying to recall what he had told the president, and added, “I don’t think I said the Watergate thing. I said Mitchell wants you to be sure and talk to Pappas. He’s very helpful. Well, I may have said ‘helpful in raising money for the defense.’”
“Give me a little rundown on your lawyers, if you wouldn’t mind,” Nixon then asked. “[To see] if there’s anything that they’ve added.” Haldeman said they were still going through details and were going to visit the prosecutors that afternoon to arrange an appointment. “Now they very much do not want the appointment until you get the thing from Petersen on what he sees as the potential charges on us,” Haldeman said, in effect telling Nixon their attorneys did not want to meet with him until they had a chance to evaluate the charges against them, which Petersen had promised to provide the next day, because the prosecutors would not likely be as forthcoming in revealing the situation to their attorneys when they met as Petersen would be with Nixon. Haldeman and Ehrlichman wanted inside information.
Returning to the Anderson story falsely attacking me, the president had a warning for Colson: “He’d better watch out; Dean will try to nail him.” “Yeah, or Dean will lash back,” Haldeman agreed. “Now Dean will read this and figure it out. That it ether came from Colson or Ehrlichman or both,” although Haldeman noted that the piece implicated both Colson and Ehrlichman as well. Nixon asked if it was true that Ehrlichman had confronted Dean with charges, as Anderson reported. Haldeman said, “Well, he didn’t really confront Dean with charges. What Ehrlichman did is say, ‘Here’s the way the thing stacks up.’ I don’t think he confronted him with him having advance knowledge, because Ehrlichman still doesn’t think he did have advance [knowledge.]”
Nixon and Haldeman had another lengthy discussion of the $350,000 that went back to LaRue at the reelection committee for payment to the Watergate defendants, which prompted the president to ask if Haldeman had talked to their lawyers about this money, “What is their latest feeling as to what the hell your defense is on that point?” Haldeman responded, “Well, they don’t feel I have a defense, because they don’t feel there’s a charge.” When Nixon suggested, “Conspiracy to obstruct justice?” Haldeman replied, “They can’t make that. Because there’s no way that I intended to obstruct justice.” Nixon asked about Hunt, and Haldeman said, “They feel I have (A) no motivation to keep him quiet and, (B) no intent to.”138
When discussing the March 21 conversation, Haldeman repeated that Ehrlichman was not threatened by Hunt’s blackmail; Ehrlichman had spoken to Krogh and didn’t think he was going to be in any trouble. Haldeman thought I was wrong in the March 21 conversation when I reported that Krogh was troubled by his perjury. Ehrlichman was still claiming all this was “national security,” adding, “For that reason, maybe I just don’t understand it, but I’m not at all sure that this whole Ellsberg thing coming out is bad.”* Clearly Haldeman did not understand it.
Haldeman admitted to Nixon that the part of the March 21 conversation that really shocked him was when I warned, “‘Some people may go to jail.’ You said, ‘Who?’” And he said, ‘Well, me, to begin with.’ And that really jarred you. You said, ‘Oh, hell, no.’” Haldeman said he could tell “by listening to the tape, it startled, came as a blow to you.” He added, “As soon as he told you that, a thought process starts in your mind. ‘What the hell, you know, who am I dealing with here? What’s going on?’ Because he was always the dispassionate operator, and you knew he was carrying some water on [unclear] keep Mitchell on, for example. But you didn’t know he was [involved himself.]” “I didn’t,” Nixon agreed. “When they talked about the load, I was not thinking, basically, Bob, of the load taking care of defendants. He never told me that until this damn conversation was made, in February, I don’t know.” (Although Nixon misspoke here, I had actually previously hinted at my problems—as early as February.) Haldeman continued, “Well, that isn’t the load that he was really carrying. He was trying to keep the whole thing on track, as he had all these people lying, bouncing out with all sorts of different tales.”
Nixon fell silent for almost a half minute, then said, “My God, he should have come to us earlier and said something. But Dean, too, has told you and John, ‘What the hell, all we’re doing here is protecting John Mitchell.’ Correct?” Haldeman agreed and admitted, “We know that, too.” Nixon continued, “Bob, I think, we had several conversations on that point. Remember? In February, right? You said, ‘This whole God damned thing is about Mitchell. Why doesn’t Mitchell get out?’”
The direction of this conversation changed when Ehrlichman joined and the president learned that the New York Times had the story of Pat Gray destroying documents from Hunt’s safe. Nixon first called Petersen: “I just wanted to get your reaction as to how we how we handle the Gray situation on this New York Times thing: You want to think about it a little bit overnight or should we react right away or what?”139 “Well,” Petersen replied, “I told Kleindienst that I’d think about it overnight and then discuss it with him in the morning.” He described it as an “unfortunate, almost needless casualty.” The president agreed it was “a dumb thing” and asked, “Why the hell did he destroy the damn file?” “I don’t know,” Petersen responded, and then replied to Nixon’s question about how Gray was going respond to the charges: “He said, ‘I had implicit confidence in Ehrlichman and Dean; when they gave him documents and said these should be destroyed, he didn’t see any reason why they shouldn’t.’” “But, well, he can’t say that Ehrlichman and Dean told him to destroy them.” Nixon, sounding flabbergasted, objected, “It wouldn’t stand up for him, I mean, apart from anything else. Why would, for example, Ehrlichman and Dean call the director of the FBI over and say, look, here’s some documents, destroy them. Why the hell wouldn’t they destroy them themselves?” Petersen said he understood that it made no sense. Nixon reminded Petersen that Gray had previously told him he had not been given the documents, and therefore had lied on at least one occasion. Nixon wanted Petersen to talk sense into Gray, and then wanted to know who should run the FBI. Petersen, somewhat presumptively, said he did not care if he got the job, but added, “I don’t want to see anybody from the inside take that job.” Nor did Nixon: “It’s got to be cleaned out.” “I don’t think that Gray should pop off
with a statement tonight on the thing,” Nixon concluded.
At 6:20 P.M. a frustrated Nixon called Kleindienst, complaining that Gray’s account of the documents was contrary to what both Ehrlichman and I had told him. Nixon suggested that if Gray took that position, he would publicly call Gray a liar. “Well, I have left the office, Mr. President,” Kleindienst reported, “I’m at a dinner party of ten people. I have talked to Henry about it. I am going to call Gray on the telephone in the next two minutes.” At 7:12 P.M., after talking with Ehrlichman, who was putting out his own statement with the matter still unresolved, Nixon called Petersen again, wanting to know how this was going to be handled. Petersen said he was just commencing a conversation with Gray. At 7:44 P.M. Kleindienst called and said he and Petersen were now in Kleindienst’s office at the Justice Department with Pat Gray, who had a new position: He would not say he had been ordered to destroy the documents by Ehrlichman and me, but with a hitch: If cross-examined he would claim, as Kleindienst explained, “He said, ‘I had to gather from Dean, as being, you know, a representative of the president of the United States, and I had to just infer from his remarks that these documents should not see the light of day, they were of such a highly sensitive nature they should not be put in the FBI files,’ he just concluded himself he ought to destroy them. Now that’s quite a bit different, you know, than being given a specific direction.”
