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

by John W. Dean

  Buzhardt explained how the committee had voted 6 to 1 to postpone the hearings when it received a letter so requesting from Mansfield and Scott, and he assured the president he should not be concerned by the delay; they would use it to good purpose. Buzhardt was convinced I would be a weak witness, saying, “He is going to be in conflict with every witness practically that’s testified, that’s been involved,” and he added, “Mr. President, he can’t go through this whole place and tell a legitimate story and have it stand up under all circumstances. He doesn’t know enough, and he doesn’t remember enough. He can’t put it all together.”

  Later on the morning of June 19, the president spoke with Haig about the growing problem with Elliot Richardson.94 Haig said that Richardson had himself grown concerned about Cox—Richardson had not liked the matter about a subpoena for the president to testify, which he thought Cox had taken out of context—and was going to review his charter with him. Haig said that he, too, had also asked for an appointment with Cox to discuss all this with him. “Well, good enough,” Nixon said. “I guess we shouldn’t get our balls in an uproar about him.”

  June 20–21, 1973, Camp David

  On Wednesday and Thursday, June 20 and 21, Nixon was preoccupied with the Soviet summit, entertaining Brezhnev, traveling from the White House to Blair House to the State Department to the Sequoia and on to Camp David, and he had only fleeting conversations about Watergate. During a morning call Haig reported that I was furious at the committee for having leaked information I had given them in the closed testimony session, and I was now refusing to talk to them.95 Haig said apparently the IRS investigationof Larry O’Brien had come up during my testimony, which Buzhardt had confirmed. “Don’t be concerned about it,” Nixon told him.

  The weeklong postponement proved to be a significant opportunity for me. My written opening statement ran over sixty thousand words. I had never considered having to read the entire statement, and had I known I would be asked to do so, I would have written something closer to six thousand words. But I knew the committee was not aware of either the information I had or my understanding of what had occurred. Because this was not a criminal proceeding, but rather a legislative hearing, I assumed the committee would want to know how these abuses had occurred and why. Rather than simply testify about what had happened I thought I should place it in context. Contrary to Buzhardt’s assumption—and as the president and Haldeman were aware from my March 21 conversation—I had very good recall, but I also fully appreciated that it was my word against that of Magruder, Colson, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Haldeman and Nixon. Magruder was easy to refute, given that he was hopelessly confused, had told so many different versions of his accounts and was so clearly eager to drag others down. But by the time I was writing my testimony, I knew that the others were prepared to lie, if necessary.

  In drafting my testimony I had scrupulously avoided speculating about what others knew and restricted myself to what they themselves had told me of their activity. For example, when Magruder told me that he went to Florida at the end of March 1972 to get Mitchell’s approval for Liddy’s plans, I did not take this as confirmation of Mitchell’s actions, but only of Magruder’s. In short, I sought to avoid hearsay. I did, however, have a recurring temptation, when writing my testimony, to include one matter that I did not know for a fact but thought a highly reasonable assumption, based on what I had been told, as well as on firsthand experience: I had been recorded by Nixon in one if not more conversations. I had suggested as much to Len Garment in April to make them worry that “I knew,” even though it was actually “I suspected.” I decided, therefore, to add a small insert near the end of my testimony. My thinking was that, if I intimated that I believed at least one and perhaps more of my conversations had been recorded, it was unlikely I would opt to lie about the content of them. More important, if I had indeed been taped, the Senate would have no problem in determining the truth. So I had the following statement typed up and inserted, and when cross-examined on this matter I elaborated further about why I believed I had been recorded:

  On Monday night, April 16, I had learned that the President had informed the Government that he allegedly had taped a conversation in which I had told him I was seeking immunity from the Government in exchange for testimony on Haldeman and Ehrlichman. I have no recollection of ever telling the President that I was so negotiating with the Government, and the President told me very specifically that he did not want to do anything to interfere with any negotiations I was having with the Government.

  When I learned this from my attorney, I suggested that he request that the Government call for the tape and listen to the tape, because I told him it must be a reference to the meeting I had with the President on April 15, and if that conversation were taped, the Government would have a pretty good idea of the dimensions of the case they were dealing with. I was referring to the fact that the President had mentioned the million-dollar conversation and the fact that he had talked to Colson about clemency for Hunt. I do not in fact know if such a tape exists, but if it does exist, and has not been tampered with, and is a complete transcript of the entire conversation that took place in the President’s office, I think that this committee should have that tape, because I believe that it would corroborate many of the things that this committee has asked me to testify about.96

  It was also during this period, Sam Dash later wrote, that Buzhardt sent to the Senate Watergate committee via Fred Thompson a typed copy of what he called “Fred Buzhardt’s reconstruction of Dean’s meeting with the President Nixon.”97 Buzhardt had walked Thompson through the information Nixon had given him, if not his notes, but since Buzhardt did not know that it had been drawn from recorded conversations, he merely told Thompson that he had obtained the information, without disclosing its source.* Since it had not come from me, it had obviously originated with Nixon. The White House, meanwhile, had also leaked this document to the press, claiming this “authentic” account of the meeting revealed that I had misled Nixon by never warning him of his culpability. Dash, based on his knowledge of my testimony from our secret meetings, knew this was false, and Dash’s staff was struck by how much this information corroborated my testimony. Dash noted that while the material was close to the content the tapes would later reveal, it was always falsely twisted to put me at fault, though that fact would not be established until much later. This document also caused several Dash staffers to wonder precisely how the information it contained had been reconstructed.

  June 22–July 9, 1973, the Western White House

  After a signing ceremony for the agreement reached with Brezhnev, the president took his guest to California, giving him a tour of the plane before retreating to his office to work, but visiting again with him as they flew over the Grand Canyon en route. With no recording equipment at the San Clemente offices, nor a Haldeman or Ehrlichman taking notes (Haig took few, and Ziegler less), we have only Nixon’s later report of these nineteen days on the West Coast, during which I testified publicly.

  The daily briefing of the press office provided no information about Nixon’s reaction to my testimony. Ziegler told the press while I was testifying on Monday, June 25, before the Senate Watergate committee: “We do not plan to have any comment on the Ervin Committee hearings as the week proceeds from the White House.”98 Ziegler further explained that the president was following the hearings “much as he did in the past. He will receive a report from his staff,” principally Ziegler and Haig.

  Much to my surprise, the committee insisted I read my entire written statement, which I had planned merely to submit for the record and then answer their specific questions. My account, which began with a description of the atmosphere out of which Watergate had grown, would take an entire day to read, from shortly after 10:00 A.M. until a lunch break at 12:30 P.M., resuming at 2:00 P.M. until shortly after 6:00 P.M., with three brief recesses while members of the committee went to the Senate floor to vote (approximately twenty-five minutes total). I was ev
en more surprised when the committee spent four days cross-examining me while all three television networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—carried my entire appearance live (approximately thirty hours) and PBS rebroadcast the hearings every night.*

  In his memoir Nixon noted that it took me a day to read my opening statement which, the president stated, “contained most of [the] charges against me.” Nixon said that, while he had not watched the hearings, the reports of my testimony filled him “with frustration and anger. Dean, I felt, was re-creating history in the image of his own defense.”99 Because even when writing his memoir Nixon decided to use only a select few of the recordings of his Watergate conversations, he effectively remembered Watergate as he wished, rather than as it had actually occurred. For my part, at the time I had no idea of the true depth of his involvement in the cover-up as would later be revealed by his recorded conversations. Nixon would later write that his ongoing attacks on me (which continued long after my testimony) were a miscalculation, for he had set “off on a tangent.” His efforts to smear me were no longer the point, or as he put it:

  It no longer made any difference that not all of Dean’s testimony was accurate.* It only mattered if any of his testimony was accurate. And Dean’s account of the crucial March 21 meeting was more accurate than my own had been. I did not see it then, but in the end it would make less difference that I was not as involved as Dean had alleged than I was not as uninvolved as I had claimed.100

  Nixon also noted that my testimony “caught us unprepared.” He claimed based on “news reports” that I was asked by the “Ervin Committee’s Democratic members and staff” to include in my opening statement “plenty of ‘atmospherics’ about the White House,” and that I had “readily obliged.” That was untrue, for no one on the committee made any suggestion whatsoever about my testimony. But Nixon wrote that “even more than what [I] had to say about Watergate, it was from this that we would never recover.” He was referring to the world of the White House in which I found myself, fixated on political intelligence and using government resources to attack the president’s countless enemies. Nixon noted that I later said I was surprised how the press overplayed the “enemies list,” which was true, for many on the list had not been targets of Nixon’s wrath but had merely been designated as enemies by Colson’s office. Yet because many on the list had been attacked by the Nixon White House, in response to a question from Senator Lowell Weicker, I produced these lists, believing it appropriate that this underbelly of the Nixon White House be seen for what it was—something that should not be part of the executive branch of the government.

  While I had testified in my opening statement about how Nixon had used a national security cover for intelligence gathering and political skullduggery like that carried out by the plumbers unit, I had only hearsay information about other matters in which I had not been directly involved. Only after the fact did I become aware of the Segretti operation. In fact, the Watergate break-in and cover-up section of Senator Ervin’s committee report runs 95 pages, while the section on campaign practices and finance, and the uses of incumbency, runs 456 pages.101 Watergate, as the overwhelming evidence revealed, was merely one particularly egregious expression of Nixon’s often ruthless abuses of power. Had Richard Nixon not encouraged his aides to collect political intelligence by any means fair or foul, or insisted from the moment of the arrests that there must be no cover-up, neither would have taken place. Nixon was not only responsible for all that went amiss during his presidency, he was in almost every instance the catalyst, when not the instigator.

  July 10–11, 1973, the White House

  When Nixon returned from California on July 10, John Mitchell was scheduled to begin his testimony before the Senate Watergate committee. He was the first of the line of witnesses that Nixon and his aides knew would dispute my testimony: Mitchell, Moore, Ehrlichman and Haldeman. Before leaving for the Cabinet Room that morning for a discussion with Republican congressional leaders on his Phase IV economic controls, he asked Ziegler for “anything else of interest” on Watergate.102 Ziegler reported: “Mitchell looked very stoic on TV last night. I think he probably will do well today.” Nixon had a number of questions for Ziegler about my testimony, and when it fit with Nixon’s own view, he agreed it was true, and when it did not, he charged me with lying. Ziegler reported that Ehrlichman, who had given an interview to his hometown newspaper in Seattle, had stated that my testimony “was wrong on point after point after point, and he says it was one hundred and eighty degrees from the truth.” Ziegler added that several stories had indicated that Mitchell would not support my testimony. “Dean will be destroyed with these witnesses,” the president said confidently. Ziegler reviewed several press accounts, noting that even Nixon’s archenemy Jack Anderson had a column that made Nixon look “pretty good” regarding his meeting with Kleindienst and Petersen on April 15 (clearly leaked by Kleindienst).

  After the congressional economic briefing, Steve Bull went to the Oval Office to clear with the president giving Haldeman the tape of our September 15, 1973, conversation, since that had become an issue with my testimony, and Haldeman had requested it.103 Nixon agreed that Haldeman should listen to it. Haldeman was staying at the Statler Hilton, but Bull said he would set the tape up for him at his own home. That afternoon Bull had another tape-related question for the president, with regard to clarifying who could listen to which tapes.104 More specifically, the following exchange occurred, which is especially interesting in that the April 15 conversation later vanished: Nixon explained, “The general rule on these is that I don’t want anybody [listening], except myself, unless I directly authorize it.” “Well, you directly authorized me on April 15, did you not, sir, when we were in California?” “Oh, yeah, sure,” Nixon said, and Bull reminded him, “That’s the only one Buzhardt has heard.” “No, no, no. I authorized that. I directed that, because I didn’t want that sent out there. Oh, shit. [I’d forgotten about that],” Nixon said. “And that is the only one,” Bull clarified. “That was on the day, just April 15,” Nixon repeated. “Just that one, yeah, that is correct,” Bull agreed. “Yeah, okay,” Nixon confirmed. “Other than that there is [none],” Bull added. “Okay, fine. We’ll check it out and see, okay, fine, fine,” Nixon said.*

  When Bull departed, Nixon continued his conversation with Haig, who had been present during this discussion of the April 15 tape. Haig reported on his conversation with Elliot Richardson about the White House’s concern about Cox. Haig had told Richardson that the White House interpreted the Cox charter “in its narrowest sense here in the context of Watergate and campaign abuses.” Richardson protested, “Well, that’s not the way to do it,” to which Haig said he told Richardson, “That’s the way he is going to have to do it.” Haig reported that Cox, meanwhile, was investigating any number of matters that the White House felt were beyond his constitutional authority. Richardson gave Haig “his breakdown of things, and there is one in there that I said I just don’t accept. It’s not going to go anywhere, but that’s the De Carlo thing.” This was a reference to the pardon that had been sent to Nixon, via my office, in late 1972 commuting Angelo De Carlo’s sentence, which apparently arose because of an investigation of Spiro Agnew, who had recommended it. (Haig was correct; it went nowhere, and De Carlo himself died.) Haig explained that Cox was also investigating Vesco (although that was primarily being handled in the Southern District of New York), Watergate, Ellsberg and election law violations. Nixon was not happy but did not feel personally threatened, so his protests went no further than Haig.

  To give the president some good news (before relaying more bad), Haig said, “Incidentally, Mitchell has just been superb.” “People have told me that,” Nixon replied. “They said he stood up like a rock.” “Best witness that we’ve had, by far,” Haig noted. “And he handled that God damn creep Dash like a puppy dog.” Haig now turned to his unpleasant information: “I’ve got some bad news that I think you should be aware of. I don’t know the full details,
but the vice president is in trouble.” Haig shared with the president what he knew: Someone who had handled Maryland state contracts for Agnew as governor had been given full immunity to testify about payoffs to Agnew. It surprised Nixon to learn that this witness was now working for Agnew, but Haig assured Nixon this problem did not occur during Agnew’s time as vice president. This conversation ended with Nixon telling Haig that things were looking very promising, even if they were keeping the “stinking Watergate” thing going. “Dean, that was their big bullet, and the big bullet didn’t hit. Don’t you agree?” When Haig said nothing, Nixon added, “Don’t you think they’ve begun to realize it now?” but Haig remained noncommittal.

  Late that afternoon the president asked Haig for an update and was told again that Mitchell had done a fine job.105 “He will never stand a day in prison if I have any power to solve it. Never. Never. Never. That would be a tragedy of mass proportions. If they would like to try impeachment on that, they can try,” Nixon said. He added, “Democrats are going to continue to harass us, of course they are, and that’s part of the game.”