The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It
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27 Haldeman, The Ends of Power, 299.
28 Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1982), 108–9. Kissinger wrote that on the evening of May 2, 1973, he received a call from Rose Woods saying Nixon wanted to bring Haig back as chief of staff for a few weeks, but the president was worried about Kissinger’s reaction to having his former subordinate technically becoming his superior. Rose said Henry should not cause any problem, because Nixon needed a chief of staff. Kissinger says he was not happy with the arrangement but knew Nixon needed someone in the post, and he recognized that Haig could handle it. Haig also called Kissinger and told him he would not take the post if Henry had a problem. And finally, after Nixon had used others to deal with Kissinger and gotten it all in order, Nixon called Henry himself to explain that making Haig chief of staff was really his plan to increase Kissinger’s influence at the White House.
29 Conversation No. 912-2.
30 Conversation No. 912-3.
31 Conversation No. 912-7.
32 Conversation No. 912-18.
33 Conversation No. 433-67.
34 Conversation No. 913-1.
35 Conversation No. 913-3.
36 Conversation Nos. 913-8 and 433-73.
37 Conversation No. 45-162.
38 Meanwhile, friendly reporters told me—when I did on-the-record interviews—about the incredibly vicious whisper campaign the White House had launched to discredit me. A few that were floated but never printed, because they were too outrageously false: I had been kicked out of college for cheating or bad grades; I had deserted my first wife and son; I had been fired from a law firm for unethical conduct; I had participated in orgies; and I was so terrified of prison I might commit suicide—to mention only a few.
39 Conversation No. 45-164.
40 Conversation No. 45-166.
41 Conversation No. 914-8.
42 Conversation. No. 432-24.
43 Conversation No. 434-9.
44 Conversation No. 45-185.
45 Conversation No. 120-3.
46 Conversation No. 915-9.
47 I knew the way the White House worked, so I had no doubt the effort to discredit me was coming from the top. I quickly learned that it was Al Haig and John Ehrlichman doing much of the nasty work and getting their loyal followers to do their bidding. They were claiming I was a notorious liar who had deceived the president and my colleagues regarding Watergate. The efforts were twofold: hopefully, to block my testimony, in which I would merely spread false stories about my former colleagues, or to discredit it. We also learned that the Department of Justice might litigate the validity of the congressional immunity statute during the thirty-day automatic waiting period they had invoked, another way to prevent me from testifying before Congress. For these reasons I issued a statement on May 10, 1973, charging that there were “ongoing effort(s) to limit or prevent my testimony” concerning Watergate. More specifically, I stated: “Efforts have been made to prevent me from obtaining relevant information and records; attempts have been made to influence the handling of my testimony by the prosecutors; restrictions have been placed on the scope of my testimony as it relates to the White House; and blatant efforts have been made to publicly intimidate me. Finally, I am, of course, aware of the efforts to discredit me personally in the hope of discrediting my testimony.” I closed the statement by noting, “The news stories quoting unidentified sources and speculating on the nature of my testimony” did not come from me, nor were they authorized by me, not to mention that they were “neither complete nor accurate.” Indeed, I had not leaked anything, as I later testified under oath, and everything I provided the news media I did on the record, and that was very little. Bob McCandless would tell me thirty years later, in 2002, that he simply lied to Charlie and me about what he was doing to keep us unaware and unsullied.
48 Conversation No. 45-199.
49 Conversation No. 45-201.
50 Conversation No. 915-12.
51 Partial transcript of a telephone conversation between Robert Cushman and John Ehrlichman, July 7, 1971. Statement of Information, Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, Book VII-Part 2 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974), 727.
52 Conversation No. 45-193.
53 According to the Presidential Daily Diary, from 4:18 to 4:20 P.M. the president talked with Haldeman, on May 10, 1973, See www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/documents/PDD/1973/099%20May%201-15%201973.pdf.
54 Conversation No. 45-212.
55 This meeting was revealed the next afternoon when Nixon said, “Bob, as I told you yesterday, and I want you to know how much that meeting meant to me in the Lincoln Room last night, I’ve kind of reached a [point], where you kind of reach low spots sometimes in life.” See Conversation No. 916-19. This meeting in not on the president’s PDD log and appears to have occurred after Nixon returned from watching a movie alone in the White House theater, the Hitchcock thriller Notorious.
56 But Haldeman later wrote, after his resignation, “Nixon and Haig both called me to discuss their strategy, in which I, as it turned out, would later play a major role. They expected Dean to testify to Nixon’s March 21 statements about raising money to pay off Howard Hunt. I said, that because I had been at that same Oval Office meeting, I would testify (unstated: falsely, which was known to Nixon but not Haig) that the overall thrust of the meeting was Nixon’s intention to ‘probe’ Dean to find out what really happened. As to the raising money for Hunt, I felt Nixon had at one point said that would be wrong.” Haldeman, The Ends of Power, 299–300. (Emphasis added.) Haldeman wrote that statement while in federal prison, after having been convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice and perjury for his testimony before the Senate when he said the president stated “There is no problem raising a million dollars, we can do that, but it would be wrong.” His statement that he “felt” is very soft compared with his hard testimony before the Senate, in which he claimed that he was “absolutely positive.” As the government pointed out, Nixon had made no such statement during our March 21 conversation; rather, he kept saying that he thought Hunt should be taken care of. Haldeman’s notes, which he said he reviewed before testifying, do not have Nixon saying it would be wrong regarding raising and paying the money; he made that statement after I told him it would be impossible for him to grant clemency. See counts 8 and 9, Indictment, and closing argument of James Neal, U.S. v. Mitchell et al. (December 20, 1974) 11,695–11,699; see also, U.S. v. Haldeman, et al. 559 F.2d 31 (1976).
May 11 to 22, 1973
1 Vernon A. Walters, Silent Missions (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1978), 605.
2 See, e.g., http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ellsberg/judgerules.html.
3 National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Conversation No. 916-16.
4 Max Holland, Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat (Kansas City, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012), 145–48.
5 Conversation No. 916-19.
6 Conversation No. 46-3.
7 Conversation No. 46-17.
8 Conversation No. 434-37.
9 Nixon made the following calls on Friday May 11, 1973, to Haig: Conversation No. 165-2 (5:35 to 5:57 P.M.), Conversation No. 165-4 (6:35 to 6:47 P.M.) and Conversation No. 165-8 (7:08 to 7:27 P.M.); on Saturday May 12, 1973: Conversation No. 165-10 (10:11–10:49 A.M.), Conversation No. 165-19 (12:37–12:54 P.M.), Conversation No. 165-21 (12:59–1:03 P.M.), Conversation No. 165-23 (2:04–2:10 P.M.), Conversation No. 165-29 (2:27–2:35 A.M.), Conversation No. 165-31 (5:17–5:44 P.M.), Conversation No. 165-33 (6:48–6:56 P.M.); and Sunday May 13, 1973: Conversation No. 165-40 (10:09–10:43 A.M.).
10 Conversation No. 165-4.
11 Conversation No. 165-8.
12 Conversation No. 165-10.
13 Conversation No. 165-19.
14 Conversation No. 165-23.
15 Conversation No. 165-31.
16 Conversation No. 46-21. Note: It is not clear why the cal
l to Ziegler is on a White House telephone recording, when Nixon was at Camp David.
17 Conversation No. 165-36.
18 Conversation No. 165-38.
19 Conversation No. 917-2.
20 Conversation No. 917-5.
21 Conversation No. 917-6.
22 Conversation Nos. 46-27 and 917-28.
23 Conversation Nos. 436-2 and 46-31. See also “Ruckelshaus’ Statement on Wiretaps,” The Washington Post, May 15, 1973, A-10.
24 E.g., Joseph Kraft, “The Long Shadow of Scandal” The Washington Post, May 15, 1973, A-21; William Claiborne, “Kissinger Sought Security Leak Plug: Missing FBI Records Found,” The Washington Post, May 15, 1973, A-1; R. W. Apple, Jr., “Kissinger Viewed Summary of Taps,” New York Times, May 15, 1973, 22; and John M. Crewdson, “Week-Long Hunt: Pentagon Papers Trial Ended in Part Over Lost Material,” New York Times, May 15, 1973, 1.
25 Conversation No. 46-31.
26 Conversation No. 917-44.
27 George Lardner, Jr., “Four Names On List for Prosecutor,” The Washington Post, May 15, 1973, A-1; George Lardner, Jr., “Probe Job Declined by Top Choice,” The Washington Post, May 16, 1973, A-1.
28 Conversation No. 436-18.
29 See Conversation No. 46-32 (Haig, 7:12–7:13 P.M.), Conversation No. 46-33 (Garment, 7:19–7:26 P.M.), Conversation No. 46-34 (Garment, 7:27–8:15 P.M.), Conversation No. 46-41 (Ziegler, 9:01–9:03 P.M.), Conversation No. 46-43 (Ziegler, 9:15–9:22 P.M.), Conversation No. 46-49 (Garment, 9:40–9:46 P.M.), Conversation No. 46-50 (Higby, 9:47–9:53 P.M.) and Conversation No. 46-51 (Herb Klein, 9:55–10:02 P.M.).
30 Conversation No. 918-6.
31 Conversation No. 918-14.
32 Petersen, paraphrasing the ruling of Supreme Court justice Byron White, in Murphy v. Waterfront Commission, 378 US 52 (1964), addresses the problem of state versus federal immunity. He said: “It becomes a much more difficult problem when you’re in the same jurisdiction, the federal jurisdiction.” He noted, “If you anticipate that Congress granted X immunity and it was in a televised hearing and all over the front page, and then the prosecutor tries to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that his evidence overlapping was independently arrived at. It’s a tremendous—” At this point Nixon cut Petersen off, asking if I had immunity from the Senate, but Petersen did not know, explaining that, if I did, all they could do was hold it up for thirty days. What Charlie Shaffer was doing in insisting I get immunity from the Senate (regardless of my willingness to testify without it) was to protect my options by giving me full constitutional protection. Shaffer was building for me the case that Oliver North would have a decade and a half later. See U.S. v. North, 910 F2d 843 (1990). Oliver North sought to, and did, beat the rap. That was not my goal. Charlie laid out my options before I decided to plead guilty to my involvement in the cover-up conspiracy. I did not fully appreciate Charlie’s genius at the time, but he had a far stronger case than North, and I’m sure would have enjoyed writing new law. I rejected the option for several reasons, all of almost equal importance: (1) It would have been an expensive and time-consuming undertaking, and given the climate of the time, I did not think anyone involved in Watergate could get a dispassionate judicial ruling. (2) Had I gone this route I would have delayed the prosecution of Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Mitchell, if not have allowed them to walk free, since I was the key witness against them. To protect themselves these men had all lied about virtually everything, and dishonestly blamed me, while shoveling false and misleading information to discredit me. No way I was going to give them and their dishonesty a pass. (3) I truly wanted to end Watergate and get on with my life, and I felt the only way to do it was a full and honest accounting of the facts. Had I decided to fight the government, rather than assist, that would not have happened. When all was said and done, I had no regrets for the decision I made to plead guilty, for I was guilty. I had not gone to the White House to get involved in a criminal conspiracy, but that was what had happened.
33 Conversation No. 918-15.
34 Conversation No. 919-7.
35 White House press briefing No. 1740, 12:22 P.M., EDT, at the White House with Ron Ziegler, May 16, 1973.
36 Conversation No. 46-75.
37 Conversation No. 46-77.
38 Conversation No. 919-15.
39 Conversation No. 919-32.
40 See, e.g., Conversation No. 920-3 (Haig and Buzhardt, 4:55–5:22 P.M.), Conversation No. 920-4 (Haig, 5:22–5:25 P.M.), Conversation No. 920-6 (Ziegler, 5:25–5:31 P.M.), Conversation No. 920-9 (Buzhardt, 5:39–5:53 P.M.), Conversation No. 920-11 (Haig, Ziegler and Buzhardt, 5:53–6:11 P.M.), Conversation No. 920-13 (Haig and Buzhardt, 8:45–9:33 P.M.) and Conversation. No. 46-88 (Ziegler, 9:53–9:59 P.M.).
41 Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “Vast GOP Undercover Operation Originated 1969: Watergate Was Part of Elaborate Undercover Campaign,” The Washington Post, May 17, 1973, A-1. See also Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974), 316–19.
42 Conversation No. 921-8.
43 Conversation No. 921-13.
44 The reason I placed a copy of the 1970 proposed intelligence plans, which Nixon had approved but Hoover had rejected, in a safe-deposit box was because when I broke rank I was not sure anyone would believe that the Nixon White House operated outside the law, and this was document proof. This plan called for electronic surveillance (illegal), spies, overt mail covers (legal but controversial pictures of envelopes), covert mail covers (illegal opening and copying of both an envelope and its contents) and surreptitious entries (illegal burglaries).
45 Conversation No. 438-15.
46 Conversation No. 46-105.
47 Conversation No. 46-107.
48 Conversation No. 46-109.
49 Conversation No. 46-111.
50 Conversation No. 46-113.
51 Conversation No. 922-7.
52 Conversation No. 922-14.
53 Conversation No. 437-11.
54 Conversation No. 437-19.
55 Conversation No. 437-26.
56 Conversation No. 46-116.
57 Conversation No. 923-2.
58 Conversation No. 923-5.
59 Conversation No. 167-4.
60 Conversation No. 167-6.
61 Conversation No. 167-7.
62 Conversation No. 167-10.
63 Conversation No. 167-25.
64 Conversation No. 167-27.
65 Conversation No. 167-29.
66 Conversation No. 46-120.
67 Conversation No. 924-2.
68 This number would appear to include people at the reelection committee who otherwise might have reentered the Nixon administration in the second term.
69 Bud Krogh would later tell me, and testify under oath, that after the Ellsberg break-in they realized they had a serious problem with Liddy and had to get him out of the White House as soon as possible. When the opportunity at the reelection committee arose, Krogh and Ehrlichman thought it perfect, and a place where Liddy could not get in trouble. As Krogh later wrote, after he cleared Liddy going to the CRP with Ehrlichman, who spoke with Mitchell, Liddy went to the CRP. Krogh says, “I called Magruder and told him that Liddy would require close supervision. I did not go into any details, which I regret, but I did indicate that close monitoring of Liddy’s activities would be important.” Egil “Bud” Krogh with Matthew Krogh, Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons from the White House (New York: Public Affairs, 2007), 120.
70 Conversation No. 439-2.
71 Conversation No. 46-123.
72 See, e.g. Conversation No. 439-11 (Haig, 12:40–1:10 P.M.), Conversation No. 439-19 (Haig and Ziegler, 3:40–4:25 P.M.), Conversation No. 439-21 (Ziegler and Buzhardt, 4:26–4:40 P.M.), Conversation No. 439-22 (Haig and Ziegler, 4:55–5:25 P.M.), Conversation No. 46-132 (Ziegler, 5:28–5:29 P.M.), Conversation No. 439-29 (Buzhardt, 5:40–5:55 P.M.).
73 Conversation No. 439-21.
74 Conversation No. 46-135.
&n
bsp; 75 Conversation No. 925-3.
76 Conversation No. 46-138.
77 Conversation No. 438-27.
78 Conversation No. 440-3.
79 For the May 22, 1973, statement (along with related presidential documents): www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3855.
80 John W. Dean, Blind Ambition: The White House Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), 294–95.
81 Nixon’s claim that he “took no part in” the cover-up is clearly more limited than his being “aware of,” but once he entered the cover-up conspiracy, he never truly left it, so he was actually taking part from that time. The earliest clear example of his taking part is found in his conversations with Haldeman on June 23, 1973, in which he authorized the use of the CIA to cut off the FBI’s investigation in Conversation No. 741-2 and Conversation No. 343-36. But Nixon was also very aware of, and taking part in, a cover-up when approving (thus suborning) Magruder’s perjury in the mid-July Conversation No. 747-14, Conversation No. 348-10, Conversation No. 748-7, Conversation No. 349-12 and Conversation No. 197-17. The House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry spelled out in Article I of their bill of impeachment nine distinctive ploys Nixon had personally relied upon to cover up. But this matter is not even debatable, for Nixon admitted in his memoir that he had been involved in the cover up. See Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 850–51.
82 Nixon tendered inchoate offers of clemency to Magruder in Conversation No. 428-19 and me in Conversation No. 38-37, and then to Haig for Haldeman and Ehrlichman in Conversation No. 922–7, but as used here he is referring to the original seven Watergate defendants, and he clearly gave Colson an offer to pass along to Howard Hunt on January 5 and 8, 1973, in Conversation Nos. 394-3 and 394-7, and Conversation No. 394-21, and he certainly understood what he had done in Conversation No. 424-10 when talking with Haldeman; see also Haldeman, Diaries, 594.
83 On August 1, 1972, Haldeman told Nixon that taking care of the Watergate defendants was “a costly exercise” and Nixon told him that that was what money was for, and he raised the issue of bribery in passing, in Conversation No. 758-11. On December 10, 1972, Nixon discussed with Haldeman whether Dorothy Hunt was carrying “payoff” money, in Conversation No. 384-4. On March 2, 1973, Haldeman discussed the role of Tom Pappas in providing cash for Mitchell to use with the Watergate defendants, and on March 7, 1973, when Nixon met with Pappas (Conversation No. 871-5). And following my March 21, 1973, conversation with Nixon, he asked Rose Mary Woods how much cash she had in a secret fund, in Conversation No. 886-18, because he was looking for the $1 million to pay the Watergate defendants.