J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (120 page)

As proof Sullivan wasn’t bluffing, just four days after he mailed the letter the lead story on the front page of the
New York Times
bore this headline:

FBI IS SAID TO HAVE CUT
DIRECT LIAISON WITH CIA

Hoover Move in Quarrel 1 ½ Years Ago
Causes Concern among Intelligence
Officials about Coping with Spies

The director looked old and tired when he got off the plane in Daytona Beach, Florida. Coming down the ramp, he stumbled and, had someone not caught his arm, would have fallen.

A former aide was among those who met him. Hoover had seemed to shrink with age, he observed. He was also pale and withdrawn, agitated, his hands constantly moving. “He was either wringing them or tapping them—things he didn’t use to do.”
²⁶

He was taken directly to the funeral home. Frank Baughman, his oldest, and once his closest, friend was dead, of cancer.

Upon retirement, Baughman had hit the bottle. Alcoholism was a problem common to many ex-agents. Once the Bureau had dominated their lives, leaving them little time for their families or outside pursuits. Now retired, they felt cut adrift, out of it. Though occasionally Baughman testified as an expert ballistics witness in a criminal trial, most of the excitement, and camaraderie, was in the past. The highlight of each month was the arrival of
The Grapevine,
the gossipy publication of the Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. Sometimes the obituaries ran to half a dozen pages.

Only a small number of people attended the funeral, and among them only two were former agents. The truth was that Baughman had few friends, because he bored people. Once a great raconteur—his tales peppered with language as salty as Edgar’s was proper—he’d turned repetitious, never failing to mention, for example, how proud he was that the director had been the best man at his wedding. Over the years his attitude toward Hoover had calcified into near-idolatry. The director’s Christmas card, almost the only contact they had, would remain on the mantel months after the holiday season. Yet, with all his trips to Florida, Hoover had never once looked him up.

The funeral was open casket. Once a ruddy, robust man, with a big potbelly—he’d retired before it became a cardinal sin to have one—Baughman had been left skeletal by his cancer. The director paused only briefly before the coffin. Whatever thoughts he may have had, he didn’t share. “He looked,” the former aide noted, “the way he always did when he was in public: irritated, put upon, as if his being here was a great imposition. No, there was no emotion. I’ve never known Mr. Hoover to really care about anything or anybody, except maybe his dogs. He was a very cold man.”
²⁷

Hoover later mentioned the funeral to Ed Tamm. He was amazed at something he had learned, Hoover said. For as long as they had known each other, Frank Baughman had deceived him: he’d been younger than he’d claimed. He’d lied to get into the Army, even lied to meet the Bureau’s entrance requirements. Hoover found this fact quite astonishing. It was his only known comment on his friend’s death.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s fate was now in the hands of one of his ex-agents. Early in October 1971, Bud Krogh called in G. Gordon Liddy. The president needs advice on what to do about Hoover, he told him. Liddy immediately set to work drawing up a list of options.

Since it was a “given” that Hoover should be replaced, the first question was timing. There were several arguments against waiting until 1972, Liddy noted in his memorandum. Both the Berrigan and the Ellsberg trials were scheduled for then; removing Hoover could affect their outcome. More compelling was the argument that 1972 was an election year and that the “issue-starved Democrats” could be expected to exploit the Senate confirmation hearings on Hoover’s successor “to the point of irresponsibility.” This left the remaining months of 1971.

Liddy then cited the “Arguments Against Immediate Removal.” As he saw it, there were only a few. First: “Hoover could resist and make good his threat against the President. I am unaware of the nature of the threat and, therefore, cannot comment on the acceptability of the risk involved.”
^*
Second was the political effect: “Removal of Hoover will not gain the President any votes on
the left,” Liddy observed realistically. “The anti-Nixon bias of the left is visceral, not rational. On the other hand, some of the right could be alienated if the successor named is not acceptable.” Unaware that Nixon had someone “ready to move into the job,” Liddy then discussed the problems of choosing a successor acceptable to both the Left and the Right.

There was no question that Liddy himself favored Hoover’s immediate removal. He listed nine “arguments for”:

“1. Sullivan, and possibly others, are talking to the press. The information is accurate, substantive and damaging. I think we must assume that there will be no let-up of truly damaging disclosures…

“2. There will be no upheaval in the FBI should Hoover be removed immediately. The vast majority of agents would approve. A few old cronies, such as Clyde Tolson, could be expected to resign in a huff…

“3. Immediate removal would guarantee that the President would appoint the next Director of the FBI, something akin in importance to a Supreme Court appointment opportunity.

“4. The Hoover incumbency would be undercut as a factor in the forthcoming Berrigan and Ellsberg trials.

“5. The matter would be over and done with now and removed as a potential issue for the 1972 campaign.

“6. Inaction, plus further disclosures in the press, could lead to charges that the President knew, or ought to have known, of the serious deterioration of the FBI, and failed to act out of concern for his re-election.

“7. Short term, a prompt removal could enhance the President’s image as an action oriented President and confound his critics.

“8. Long term, the action could be compared legitimately to the resolute stand taken by President Truman in the Douglas MacArthur case which, unpopular at the time, is now viewed as a plus in his presidency.

“9. The country is, in my judgment, ready for the change.”

Now came the ticklish part, “Methods.” Liddy could conceive of only three possibilities:

“1. The most desirable method would be for Hoover to ask the President to find a successor as the ‘unfounded’ personal attacks upon [him] are, in his judgment, harmful to the national interest in general and to his beloved FBI in particular. This might be brought about through a Mitchell-Hoover conversation.

“2. A second amicable method would be for the President himself to express the above sentiments to Hoover. He might well cooperate on that basis, were things handled adroitly.

“3. The President could simply announce that on January 1, 1972, he will not take the affirmative action of seeking to exempt Mr. Hoover for another year from the mandatory retirement provisions of the law, stating that he cannot in good conscience do so as neither he nor the country has the right to expect so much of one man, and that he wishes to announce whom he shall
nominate as a successor now so that there should be not the slightest element of partisan politics involved in the changeover.”

Ironically, Liddy had chosen to scuttle Hoover by a technique he’d learned while in the FBI itself. The model for his memorandum was straight out of the FBI Manual and was a carryover from John Edgar Hoover’s debating days: arguments, pro and con; comments; recommendations.

Liddy had just one each of the last:

“Comment: Hoover is in his 55th year with the Department of Justice. Even his secretary dates from the first world war. There is no dishonor, express or implied, in asking a man in such circumstances to give up the burden of office.

“Recommendation: After weighing all of the foregoing, I believe it to be in the best interest of the Nation, the President, the FBI and Mr. Hoover, that the Director retire before the end of 1971.”
²⁸

The response to Liddy’s recommendation was almost immediate. Krogh called first: “The President says it’s the best memo he’s seen in years and wants it used eventually as a model of how to write a memo for the President.” Ehrlichman then called: “Gordon, I thought you’d like to know your memo on Hoover came back with A +’s all over it. Good job.”
^*
29

G. Gordon Liddy’s memorandum—subject: The Directorship of the FBI—was dated October 22, 1971. It’s possible that J. Edgar Hoover, through one of his White House contacts, saw an early draft. Or maybe he simply sensed what was coming—few were more sensitive to the winds of change in Washington, though the FBI director often seemed impervious to the storms that raged in other parts of the country—for on October 20, 1971, Hoover embarked on the most difficult task he’d faced during his nearly half century in office: he began destroying his most secret files.

Richard Nixon accepted Liddy’s second option, reluctantly, John Mitchell having declined to exercise the first option, the suggestion that
he
persuade Hoover to resign. After all, the FBI director did work for him, the president argued. But the attorney general countered, “Mr. President, both you and I know that Edgar Hoover isn’t about to listen to anyone other than the President of the United States when it comes to this question.”
³¹

With the aid of Ehrlichman and Mitchell, the president psyched himself up for the confrontation. He would never desert “an old and loyal friend, just because he was coming under attack,” Nixon noted, but he was bothered that “Hoover’s increasingly erratic conduct was showing signs of impairing the morale of the FBI.” There was also, he admitted, a political concern: “I could
not be sure that I would be re-elected for a second term. I was aware of what could happen to the FBI in the hands of a politically motivated opposition party, and the last thing I wanted to do was to give the Democrats a chance to appoint a new Director who would unquestioningly carry out their bidding against Republicans for the next four or eight years.”
³²

A breakfast meeting was scheduled. The president prepared for it as if for a summit conference. The scenario called for Nixon to praise Hoover effusively, reminisce about their long friendship, and then diplomatically suggest that the FBI director retire now, with honors, while still at the peak of his career.

It may have read well as a talking paper, but it didn’t play that way.

First Hoover arrived looking not tired or harassed or under siege but as alert, decisive, and articulate as Nixon had ever seen him. It was obvious to the president that the FBI director “was trying to demonstrate that despite his age he was still physically, mentally, and emotionally equipped to carry on.”

Nixon approached “the subject” by commiserating with Hoover over the recent criticism. “You shouldn’t let things like that get you down, Edgar,” he observed. “Lyndon told me that he couldn’t have been President without your advice and assistance, and as you know, I have the same respect for you as well as a deep personal affection that goes back nearly twenty-five years.” Having said this, Nixon then pointed out, as gently and subtly as he could, that in the years ahead the situation was going to get worse rather than better, and that it would be a tragedy if he ended his career under attack “instead of in the glow of national recognition he so rightly deserved.”

In words very similar to those he used with Kleindienst following the Boggs speech, Hoover responded, “More than anything else, I want to see
you
re-elected in 1972. If you feel that my staying on as head of the Bureau hurts your chances for re-election, just let me know. As far as the present attacks are concerned, and the ones that are planned for the future, they don’t make any difference to me. I think you know that the tougher the attacks get, the tougher I get.”

By now it was obvious to the president that the FBI director was not going to take the initiative and offer to resign: “He would submit his resignation only if I specifically requested it.” Realizing this, Nixon backed off: “I decided not to do so. My personal feelings played a part in my decision, but equally important was my conclusion that Hoover’s resignation before the election would raise more political problems than it would solve.”

This is the “official” version of the Nixon-Hoover breakfast meeting, as recounted some years later in the former president’s memoirs. There is, however, another version, one which Sanford Ungar heard from various Bureau officials while researching his book
FBI.
According to this account, the president did broach the subject of the director’s resignation, “but Hoover immediately resisted, making threats and veiled references to material about Nixon in the Director’s private files.”
³³

If true, “veiled references” were probably all that were needed, since it can
be presumed that Nixon was not eager for Hoover to spell out what those matters were, knowing his words would be recorded on tape. Nor, it appears likely, would Hoover have been inclined to be too specific, for the same reason.

To date, former President Richard Nixon has, through various legal stratagems and appeals, succeeded in keeping the transcripts of over four thousand hours of the White House tape recordings from being made public. Both the July and the October 1971 meetings at which he tried to fire J. Edgar Hoover are among the transcripts which have been suppressed.

Again, the FBI director left the Oval Office with his status seemingly unchanged. Not only had he not been fired; he’d even managed to secure the president’s permission to expand the Bureau’s foreign liaison program.

But there was no celebration. Hoover had been given a temporary reprieve. And that was all it was, he knew. He was now living on borrowed time.
^*

It was after his meeting with Nixon that J. Edgar Hoover decided to destroy his most sensitive files.

That decision was the culmination of a month heavy with betrayals and loss. October 1971 had begun with the firing of one of his most trusted aides and included the president’s attempt to fire him—two traumatic events which would have been severe emotional shocks for someone half his age.