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

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The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It Page 108

by John W. Dean


  * That argument is outlined in the prologue.

  * See Part IV, here. Note: The November 1973 tapes hearing indicates that Bull obtained the April 15, 1973, conversation with me at that time.

  * See Part I, here.

  * See www.cbsnews.com/videos/who-erased-18-minutes-of-nixon-watergate-tapes/.

  * See Part I, here.

  * I have asked other Nixon historians familiar with his behavior and recorded conversations in other areas, such as the war in Vietnam and the planning for his China initiative, if he was similarly obsessive when discussing other matters, and I was told that to some degree he was but, from what I can gather, not as obsessive as he became with Watergate.

  * Notwithstanding that he was highly knowledgeable and intimately involved in virtually all decisions about how to portray the White House’s relationship to the Watergate scandal as it unfolded over some twenty-six months, Ziegler was never the focus of any investigation or prosecution, and he gave only a few general interviews when it was all over. Ziegler never wrote the book he once contemplated and never provided the Nixon library with an oral history; his White House files are little more than the product of the White House Press Office. Ziegler died of a heart attack on February 10, 2003, at age sixty-three.

  * See Appendix A.

  Table of Contents

  Also by John Dean

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Contents

  Preface

  List of Principal Characters

  Prologue

  PART I: COVERING UP | June 20 to July 1, 1972

  June 20, 1972 (Tuesday) | Before and After the 18½-Minute Gap

  June 21, 1972 (Wednesday) | Creating the Cover-up Scenario

  June 22, 1972 (Thursday) | First Watergate-Related Press Conference

  June 23, 1972 (Friday) | Firing the “Smoking Gun”

  June 24 to July 1, 1972 | Martha’s Breakdown, John’s Resignation and Another Scenario

  PART II: CONTAINING | July 1972 Through December 1972

  July 6 to July 18, 1972 | The Call from Gray and a Walk on the Beach

  July 19 to August 16, 1972 | Concern over Magruder’s Testimony

  August 17 to September 15, 1972 | Investigations, Indictment and the President Meets with His White House Counsel

  Late September Through October 1972 | Segretti Merges with Watergate

  November 1 to December 30, 1972 | Reelection, Reorganization, a Dean Report Considered, Chapin’s Departure and Dorothy Hunt’s Death

  PART III: UNRAVELING | January to March 23, 1973

  January 1973 | Keeping Magruder Happy, Giving Hunt Assurances, and the Watergate Break-in Trial

  February 3 to 23, 1973 | Senate Watergate Committee and Gray’s Nomination

  February 27 to March 15, 1973 | Nixon Discovers His White House Counsel, and Gray Puts Me in the Spotlight

  March 16 to 20, 1973 | Return of the Dean Report, the Ellsberg Break-in and Hunt’s Blackmail

  March 21 to 23, 1973 | A Cancer on the Presidency and Nixon’s Response

  PART IV: THE NIXON DEFENSE | March 23 to July 16, 1973

  March 23 to April 13, 1973 | Options and Indecision

  April 14 to 30, 1973 | Pricking the Boil and Cleaning House

  May 1 to 10, 1973 | New Team, Tough Tactics and Rough New Issues

  May 11 to 22, 1973 | A Preemptive Defense Statement

  May 23 to July 16, 1973 | Discrediting Dean and the Beginning of the End

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Appendix A | Break-in at the Democratic National Committee

  Appendix B | The 18½-Minute Gap

  Notes

  Index

 

 

 


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