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

by John W. Dean

  43 Conversation No. 893-16.

  44 Conversation No. 893-21.

  45 Walter Rugaber, “Watergate Grand Jury Hears Two Former White House Aides and Segretti: None Will Comment,” New York Times, April 12, 1973, 41.

  46 Conversation No. 894-2.

  47 Conversation No. 894-4.

  48 Conversation No. 894-7.

  49 Conversation No. 428-12.

  50 The point that Ehrlichman mentioned to the president—that Strachan had testified to $350,000 when, in fact, he returned $328,000—was not the most serious problem with his testimony. He was later indicted for perjury regarding that testimony on matters Ehrlichman did not raise with the president—namely, to whom he had delivered the money and why. See count thirteen of the March 1, 1974, indictment in U.S. v. Mitchell et al.

  51 In Strachan’s testimony before the Senate he acknowledged destroying these documents. See 6 SSC 2490–91.

  52 The question of what Gordon Strachan knew and when he knew it has remained an open question, and even years later Strachan hesitatingly responded to questions about his knowledge with “I don’t think so”–type answers, seemingly unsure himself. Strachan deposition, May 19, 1995, Deans v. St. Martin’s et al. It may be that Strachan never had copies of the wiretap synopses at the White House, because Magruder later testified he never allowed them to leave his office; he claims, rather, that Strachan saw them there. See Magruder, 2 SSC 797–98, 827. This claim is denied by Strachan. See Strachan, 6 SSC 2451–52. While Strachan denies knowledge of the Watergate bugging, he clearly admitted to Ehrlichman seeing what he believed to be the fruit, which is not easy to reconcile. Strachan also failed a polygraph examination administered by the FBI on his denial of advance knowledge of the break-in. See April 24, 1973, Silbert Memo, Watergate Special Prosecution Files, NARA. But this could also have been because of his uncertainty as to his knowledge.

  53 While this conversation is difficult to hear, there is no question for me regarding what was being discussed. Similarly, the archivists at NARA, when preparing the subject log for this conversation, clearly understood this part of the conversation related to what they categorized as the discussion “Delivery of G. Gordon Liddy reports.”

  54 Conversation No. 44-158.

  55 Conversation Nos. 895-8, 895-22, 895-23, 38-12 and 38-15.

  56 Conversation No. 427-1.

  57 Conversation Nos. 895-14, 38-9 and 38-14.

  58 Conversation No. 895-8.

  59 Conversation No. 895-14.

  60 Conversation No. 895-22.

  61 Conversation Nos. 427-1.

  62 Conversation No. 38-9.

  63 Conversation No. 38-12.

  64 Liddy later reported that he had learned Greenspun had information in his safe that could defeat the presidential campaign of Senator Edmund Muskie, so they planned such an operation. But since his plans for the reelection committee had not been approved, he sought to do the undertaking with the Howard Hughes organization. Liddy and Hunt met with Hughes’s people but could not get the funding from them either, so the plan was abandoned. See G. Gordon Liddy, Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 204–5.

  65 Conversation No. 38-14.

  66 Conversation No. 38-15.

  April 14 to 30, 1973

  1 National Archives amd Records Administration (NARA), Conversation No. 46-113.

  2 Conversation No. 428-19.

  3 The “Chicago Seven” were seven defendants—Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines and Lee Weiner—who were charged with conspiracy, inciting a riot and related offenses arising out of their anti–Vietnam War protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. In February 1970 five of the seven were found guilty of inciting a riot, but on appeal, all the convictions were overturned, and Nixon’s Department of Justice decided not to retry them.

  4 The “Scottsboro Boys,” as they are typically called, were nine black teenage boys who were falsely accused of rape and tried and convicted by an all-white jury, with eight of them given death sentences, in Scottsboro, Alabama. The Communist Party tried to assist them in appealing the verdicts in a long and sordid travesty of justice. This sad story has been recounted in books, movies, documentaries and a Broadway musical. Only in November 2013 did Alabama grant a posthumous pardon to the last of these men, who had been framed and brutalized by Southern justice. Shadows and echoes of this horrific past still exist.

  5 Ehrlichman provided a very surface analysis of the rift that actually started during the 1968 presidential campaign, when both were candidate Nixon’s senior advisers. In fact, Ehrlichman did not think Mitchell was very smart, and Mitchell thought Ehrlichman arrogant and full of himself, the kind of staff man who used his proximity to Nixon to undercut Mitchell’s recommendations to push his own ideas, particularly after he became attorney general in January 1969. Mitchell was far more politically conservative than Ehrlichman, who fell on the moderate to progressive side of many issues. By the time Watergate occurred in June 1972, they could barely speak to each. I attended countless meetings during which Mitchell refused to speak directly to Ehrlichman; rather, he would do so by asking Haldeman or me a question in Ehrlichman’s presence to convey information. Privately each man blamed the other for Watergate. Mitchell blamed Ehrlichman for sending a loose cannon like Liddy to the campaign operation without warning them he was a screwball, if not a psychopath. Ehrlichman blamed Mitchell for allowing Watergate to occur on his watch as head of the campaign. But dating it to Haynsworth and Carswell worked nicely for Ehrlichman, because Nixon too felt Mitchell had done a bad job in recommending these judges as candidates for the high Court, and the White House had taken charge of the Supreme Court selection process. This strained relationship was a key reason for my becoming the intermediary among all these parties as the cover-up unfolded, for I had never taken sides. See John W. Dean, The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court (New York: Free Press, 2001).

  6 Nixon’s memory was wrong, as Adams’s memoir clearly establishes. Note: Adams writes that the decision was left to him, and made by him. See Sherman Adams, First Hand Report: The Story of the Eisenhower Administration (Charleston, SC: reprint, BiblioBazaar, 2011), 447–48.

  7 See Dean Senate testimony, 3 Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (SSC) 1013, 1312.

  8 As his numbering system indicates, Ehrlichman recorded hundreds of telephone calls, but less than one hundred survived with his departure from the White House. He had some sort of special setup to record both Magruder and Mitchell when he met with them on April 14, 1973. While there has never been a transcript prepared on these meetings, I am told that the cassette with the recorded conversations has survived and resides either in the Watergate special prosecutor’s files at NARA, in College Park, MD, or at the Nixon library.

  9 Conversation No. 896-4(a).

  10 Conversation No. 896-5.

  11 Haldeman wrote in his diary for March 28, 1973, when I told him that Mitchell had finally admitted to me that he had signed off on Liddy’s plans, he noted: “Mitchell and Magruder both told him [Dean] that they had both signed off on the project, which Mitchell told me, also.” H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1993), 618.

  12 Mitchell makes very clear, as set forth in the transcript of Ehrlichman’s secretly recorded session with him, why yours truly and others became involved in the Watergate cover-up after the arrests at the DNC. When discussing my motive, they had the following exchange, which addressed not only my motives but Mitchell’s:

  MITCHELL: Well, certainly there wasn’t any corrupt motive.

  EHRLICHMAN: [Unintelligible].

  MITCHELL: Poor John [Dean] is the guy that just got caught in the middle of this thing.

  EHRLICHMAN: Sure, and that’s what I said.

  MITCHELL: Like, ah, like so many others
that were first of all trying to keep the lid on it until after the election.

  EHRLICHMAN: Yeah.

  MITCHELL: And, in addition to that, to keep the lid on all the other things that, uh, were going on over here, uh, that—

  EHRLICHMAN: Well, the, ah—

  MITCHELL: —would have been worse, I think, than the Watergate business.

  Ehrlichman transcript of April 14, 1973, meeting, Statement of Information, Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, Book IV Part 2 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974), 729.

  13 Almost everyone on the list that Charlie Shaffer and I drew up was named either as an indicted or unindicted coconspirator in violation of the statutes cited on the list. By the time both Haldeman and Ehrlichman started testifying before the Senate Watergate committee they were unable to recall having ever seen my list or its contents. Haldeman, for example, was asked by Sam Dash: “By the way, did Mr. Dean ever show you, in April, a list of persons who would be involved in the Watergate which included your name on it?” Haldeman responded, “I certainly do not recall that at all.” 8 SSC 3058. Ehrlichman similarly denied having seen the list. 7 SSC 2857.

  I note this because it is representative of the amnesia that overcame these men soon after departing the White House, and it was typical of the fact that no point of my testimony, however minor, would be too inconsequential for them to either deny or not recall. While I have ignored countless similar examples, this was the kind of petty lying that caused me to lose all respect for these former colleagues, who went way beyond any call of duty in their efforts to destroy me. But I have intentionally resisted gathering their later false statements in my recounting of what occurred, and as it in fact unfolded.

  14 Conversation No. 428-28.

  15 Jeb appears to have gone to some length to exaggerate my role in response to Charlie’s telephone call, but as often happened with Magruder’s testimony, when he placed his interpretation or spin on events, it was far from accurate. With time this all got sorted out, however. For example, Jeb was unaware of the fact that, after hearing of Liddy’s plans, I had tried to turn them off at the White House rather than, as he thought, promote them. In fact, Liddy was being pushed out of the White House by Bud Krogh and John Ehrlichman, because they thought (incorrectly) he would not cause problems at the reelection committee. When Jeb created his bogus testimony, it was a finished product when he enlisted me to support it, which I had never agreed to do. He did have—but was unaware of—the support of Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and the president for it, of which they were well aware, as the July and August 1972 conversations reveal. Jeb’s perception of the truth and the hard reality of a situation were often at odds.

  16 G. Gordon Liddy, Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 237. Note: Liddy wrote that Magruder called him to his office on June 12, 1972, and instructed him to go back into the DNC. This conflicts with all of Magruder’s contemporaneous explanations, at a time when he had no motive to lie, and with the testimony he gave when he agreed to assist the government.

  17 Conversation No. 38-31.

  18 When Ehrlichman later understood this, he omitted the key fact that Kalmbach was involved in order to keep the Watergate defendants on the reservation; rather, he would claim it was to raise attorney fees. Senate testimony of John Ehrlichman, 6 SSC 2569. Also, Ehrlichman later denied that Kalmbach had asked him if he had to be involved in this project, notwithstanding the fact Ehrlichman had told him it was of the upmost importance. See count twelve U.S. v. Mitchell et al. indictment,.

  19 Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 821–24. The April 14, 1973, entry noted the irony of the White House correspondents awarding the “libelous” Washington Post coverage of Watergate their top prize at the time he had discovered the significance of Watergate “for the first time.” He recorded that he had mentioned to Ehrlichman the idea of “Haldeman and Dean taking a leave of absence.” But Ehrlichman thought that would not work “because as it turns out Dean has ways he could implicate both Haldeman and Ehrlichman, [and] it would be in effect [Dean] admitting his guilt.” Nixon noted Magruder’s going to the U.S. attorney had been “a terrible load lifted off him.” And added that Colson was now “a major target of the U.S. Attorney, [but if] Dean cracks, Colson will have had it.” The president recorded that he had learned both Colson and Mitchell had been interested in “material on O’Brien.” The president recorded that while Haldeman did not want to resign, he had mentioned it as potentially necessary, but he was inclined to circle the wagons around Haldeman to protect him, because he was only tangentially involved. He found Kleindienst was “the strange actor” in his disengagement from it all. The only good news for his diary was the forthcoming Gallup poll that showed he had 60 percent approval and 33 percent disapproval ratings.

  20 Archibald Cox interview of Henry Petersen, May 29, 1973, NARA, Records of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. See www.archives.gov/research/investigations/watergate/index.html.

  21 Conversation No. 38-34.

  22 Conversation No. 38-37.

  23 Haynes Johnson and Jules Witcover, “‘New Majority’ Growing Disillusioned With Nixon,” The Washington Post, April 15, 1973, A-1.

  24 Ehrlichman was correct that I never made such a statement. It was not necessary. Together we had listened to Hunt’s recorded conversation with Colson shortly after the election, in early November 1972, and I had told him of Hunt’s demands for money in mid-March 1973. Hunt made it very clear if he and the others were not paid, they were going to talk, not only about Watergate but about the break-in at Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office.

  25 Conversation No. 428-36.

  26 Nixon, RN, 826.

  27 Nixon wrote of this period in his memoir that he understood the payment of money to the defendants had become the biggest problem: “When it came to the question of motive the real answer lay in each man’s mind and each man’s conscience.” Thus, if everyone said the payments were for humanitarian purposes, Nixon believed there would be no obstruction of justice. Not only would such a spin of the facts have been a lie, but it still would have been an obstruction of justice. Take Ehrlichman’s claim that he was concerned that Hunt would write an article. Why would Ehrlichman care if he wrote an article other than that it would have incriminated Ehrlichman in criminal activity. It was an absurd contention. When Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman attempted this defense against the criminal charges against them, it failed. See U.S. v. Haldeman, et al., 559 F.2d 31 (1976), in which the matter of Haldeman’s, Ehrlichman’s and Mitchell’s criminal intents was litigated at length. In fact, the jury did not buy the claim that these defendants acted for humanitarian reasons. See also Nixon, RN, 825, and Philip A. Lacovara, “Relevance of Defendants’ ‘Good’ Motives for Engaging in Burglary, Warrantless Electronic Surveillance and Cover-up Activities,” Memorandum by the Counsel to the Special Prosecutor, September 19, 1973. This memo, and the underlying material by Robert L. Palmer, noted that good motive is no defense for violations of the prohibitions of a statute. As for good motive negating specific intent, the memo specifically addressed the same situation as Nixon. When, as Ehrlichman outlined to the president, there was a dual motive, the bad motive was sufficient under the law for conviction.

  28 I reject the claim by the White House that the Secret Service had not anticipated that the office would be used over the weekend so they did not change the tape reel. A second machine began recording when the first ended, and they switched back and forth. While the Watergate special prosecutors could not prove that Haldeman disposed of the tape, all the evidence certainly points in that direction. The box with the recording that was available for the April 15, 1973, EOB conversations is marked “Part 1.” But Part 2 disappeared. The hearings undertaken by the Watergate special prosecutor in October and November 1973 show one person with unique access and motive
to simply toss the recording in the trash: Bob Haldeman. Haldeman was given some twenty-two boxes of tapes on two occasions. The first time, in late April 1973, was before there was any real record keeping noting which ones he was given. And on a second occasion, during July 10 and 11, 1973, just before the existence of the system was revealed on July 16, 1973, the Secret Service records indicate he was given another batch that included “the EOB from April 11 through April 16, 1973.” Recording keeping was so loose and sloppy (until discovery of the missing tapes in October 1973) that it would have been unnoticed had Haldeman simply disposed of the reel that ended during the president’s conversation with Kleindienst on April 15, 1973. See Hearings on Missing Nixon Tapes, U.S. District Court for the Distict of Columbia, November 8–9, 1973.

  29 Conversation No. 38-42.

  30 Nixon, RN, 827.

  31 Ibid.

  32 April 15, 1973, Haldeman notes, Nixon library, NARA.

  33 Nixon, RN, 828.

  34 Because it was speculative, I did not include it in the first draft of my testimony for the Senate. But when reading my draft I added it, because I believed it highly likely when I learned the president was claiming he had recorded our conversation and that I had told him I had been granted immunity, which I had not. My testimony, however, caused Senate Watergate committee minority counsel Don Sanders to ask Alex Butterfield on July 13, 1973, after I had testified if it was possible, as I believed, that Nixon had recorded me. Butterfield’s honest answer changed the entire dimension of the Watergate investigation, which became a fight by the prosecutors for the tapes to determine if I was telling the truth, and Nixon was involved, or whether Nixon was telling the truth, that he knew nothing of the cover-up until March 21, 1973, when I told him.