The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (53 page)

Haldeman noted, “Going to jail for Jeb will be very, very, very difficult.” The conversation continued to circle the issues, and it was decided only that Haldeman should meet with Mitchell and Magruder. Haldeman called Mitchell from the president’s telephone, which was recorded.
¹⁰
Magruder was with Mitchell in New York City, and they agreed to meet the next afternoon. Mitchell raised one issue: Bart Porter, whom Magruder had recruited to corroborate his false testimony, was supposed to get a job at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which was being held up. Mitchell asked Haldeman to see what he could do, and Haldeman reassured him, “Okay, I’ll take care of it.”

Later that afternoon Nixon met with Bill Rogers in his EOB office to discuss Watergate.
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Haldeman had briefed Rogers, and Nixon asked for his judgment. “Well, Mr. President, I think you and I are probably in the same position. I think neither of us really know a lot about it.” “Well, we know the facts,” Nixon reminded him, and he assured Rogers he had “personally questioned” Haldeman, Ehrlichman and me. The president said he was looking at his options, “but none of them good.” Rogers saw few concerns for the White House regarding the break-in itself but recognized that the real issue was “the aftermath”: “They took some real chances, probably unknowingly, chances which could be construed as obstruction of justice.” Nixon agreed that that was the problem. Rogers was not sure what he would recommend, for “no course will be attractive.” He did not like the idea of a commission or panel, or of the president’s talking with Judge Sirica about a special prosecutor.

The president conceded that I had never actually conducted an investigation for him, or questioned people on the White House staff, but rather
that I had sought out and discovered information informally. And as for the congressional investigation: “A committee of Congress is a double weapon. It destroys a man’s reputation in public. And if it turns its files over to the Department of Justice for prosecution, they will prosecute the poor bastards. We did it to two people. I did it to Hiss. We did it to the Five Percenters.” Nixon wanted to argue that the proper place for a criminal action was in the judicial system and the grand jury, unlike he had done with Alger Hiss and his congressional investigation of Hiss’s perjury, with which Rogers agreed.

When Rogers departed, the president asked Haldeman to return.
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Haldeman said he had spoken with me at Camp David, and I had reported my conversation with Mitchell, who had told me to “stiffen up”; he warned that if my testimony contradicted his false statements before the grand jury, or elsewhere, no one would believe me: It would be my word against Mitchell’s and Magruder’s. While it was not a threatening warning, I had said to Haldeman, Mitchell was in effect telling me to lie, which he reported to the president, who had no comment.

Haldeman had not yet spoken to Colson, so the president instructed Haldeman to call him immediately.

Haldeman shared some of the suggestions that had been made to the president to take action on Watergate.
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Colson felt they were all an overreaction to McCord’s letter and his hearsay. He did not like the idea of a commission to investigate Watergate “under any circumstances, and God, I would not appoint a special prosecutor. I’d never make that offer to Sirica, because he’d take you up on that immediately.” Colson did not want to discuss on the telephone his adamant opposition to a special prosecutor, and Haldeman suggested he come to Haldeman’s office immediately.

Haldeman met with Colson from 5:15 to 5:45
P.M.
and then returned to Nixon’s EOB office.
¹⁴
Paraphrasing Colson from his notes, Haldeman reported, “The problem is that there is a very clear case for conspiracy to commit perjury, and a very clear case for conspiracy to obstruct justice. Both those cases can be made, and they can be sustained, and if you put in a special prosecutor, or go to a Warren Commission, you would ensure indictment and almost certainly ensure convictions on those counts for a number of people.” Colson also expressed concern about “a runaway grand jury,” adding that “the best thing we’ve done up until now was the superb handling of the grand jury.” Haldeman continued: “And he says the problem on the obstruction thing is that everyone in the White House, maybe not everyone,
but a hell of a lot of people are participants in one way or another. And here’s what he said: except himself.” Colson’s recommendation was that the president obtain an experienced criminal trial attorney. He believed the president should give the impression of cooperation but remain firm and not give up anything.”

After going over Colson’s key points with Haldeman, even Nixon recognized his conversations were going nowhere, and in a weary let’s-be-honest moment, he observed, “Well, I have [done a] full circle today,” all of his ideas having now been shot down. Nixon wanted a better understanding of who had criminal exposure in the cover-up. He realized it touched Colson, and told Haldeman, “It might touch you. It might touch Ehrlichman, correct?” Haldeman said nothing. “And it might touch Dean.” Haldeman observed that if it touched me, it would then go to others. “Strachan?” the president wondered. “Well, yeah, I guess so,” Haldeman agreed. “Who else?” the president asked, “Outside of the White House, do you think it hits Mitchell?” Haldeman did, and added, “And LaRue, and Mardian, and Parkinson, and O’Brien.”

“Those, too?” the president asked with surprise, and then added, “I just know Dean is going to have to end up taking the rap. He won’t do it, will he?” Haldeman responded, “Well, he’s part of [the thing].” When the president speculated about others, Haldeman said: “I’m not sure the rest of us are involved. I sure as hell don’t think I am on the basis of the money.” Nixon asked about Colson’s involvement with the money for the Watergate defendants. “Colson, I don’t know whether he was,” Haldeman said, and added, “Ehrlichman is, in the sense of getting involved in the operations thing.” Like Haldeman, the president was thinking of his personal exposure and admitted, “Yeah, but I had Colson, who turned over a promise of the clemency thing. Well, what do you think that does? He’s concerned about the clemency thing. That is the point here. Or is he [hung]?” When Haldeman agreed it was the clemency matter that concerned Colson, the president continued, “And the perjury, the perjury involving—” Haldeman interrupted, “That all hangs on Magruder.” “Magruder is the only person that has committed perjury,” Nixon confirmed, but before Haldeman could fully answer, Nixon began opining once again that the cover-up was worse than the crime, and he wondered whether to let it all hang out, as Ehrlichman had once suggested, or whether in the end we would get hung anyway. Haldeman responded that Colson did not think they should let it all hang out but rather assume the worst, live with it, and not get bogged down worrying about it.
The president brought the conversation back to Colson and said, “With Colson, I’ve got to let you know that I never promised anybody, that nobody promised them clemency.”
*

When the president broached the subject of the calls in Congress to “get rid of Haldeman and Ehrlichman,” Haldeman quickly added, “and Dean,” noting that Nixon had already gotten rid of Colson. Nixon asked Haldeman for his “feeling on that,” and Haldeman urged caution, explaining, “The danger of throwing any baby to the wolves is, you always just make the wolves more hungry and prove to them that you’ve got some more babies.”

As this conversation wound down, they returned to Colson’s recommendation that they get a criminal lawyer on staff or assigned as a special counsel to the White House. It was a recommendation I had first made to Ehrlichman on June 19, 1972, which no one had ever raised with the president. But Nixon did not want a special criminal counsel: “I’ve already spent an enormous amount of time on it, worrying about the son of a bitch, and I won’t be able to do anything about it. What I need to do is to rely on other people to go talk to the special counsel, you know?”

When summoned to Nixon’s EOB office at 8:45
A.M.
, Haldeman had already been meeting with John Mitchell for a half hour; thus, their conversation was very brief.
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“I don’t want to be in the position to ask [Mitchell] what the hell happened,” Nixon said and, apparently still thinking about Haldeman’s conversation with Colson, wanted Haldeman to raise the obstruction of justice and perjury matters with Mitchell. Haldeman asked Nixon if he had read the Jules Witcover story that morning in
The Washington Post
“on the front page. He surveyed everybody he could find, across the country, in the way of the Republican state chairmen and Senate campaign committee leaders and the ticket sellers for the dinners and all that, and all those people say, absolutely no problem. Nobody has any interest in Watergate. He talked to the pollsters, like Oliver Quayle, who says nobody gives a damn about the Watergate. And [pollster] Sindlinger says, during the election it was only about 10 percent, the highest it ever got. Now Watergate’s 2 or 3 percent. He said, we just can’t find anybody who’s interested.”

Nixon said his only concern was any appearance that the White House was not cooperating. As far as public relations were concerned, “John Ehrlichman’s reactions are not good,” so he wanted Haldeman to take the lead regarding Watergate. “I’m not looking for something that is sort of a big play in order to settle this thing. That isn’t going to settle it. They’re going to be crapping on and on for a long time. But I’m looking for something that this time, and once and for all, the president can get out and have press conferences and say, we are cooperating.” As this conversation proceeded, he said, “We’ve got to get out some sort of Dean report. I just think we have to, don’t you think so?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Haldeman replied. “I am not sure we do. I used to think we did.” Haldeman felt that I had been tainted by Gray’s and McCord’s false charges, and the president had already said he had the Dean report.

With that Haldeman returned to his meeting with Mitchell; they were later joined by Magruder. When they broke for lunch, Haldeman called me at Camp David requesting that I return, as Mitchell and Magruder wanted to meet with me. I told Haldeman that I did not wish to have such a meeting, but he insisted. As I later testified, this was a clear sign to me that Haldeman was not going to come forward and help end this problem but rather was beginning to protect himself. For this reason I decided to stop my efforts to write a report that would cause no one any serious problem.
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Four decades later, when I listened to Haldeman’s report to the president of his meetings that day with Mitchell, Magruder and me, I learned that my sixth sense had been correct, but Haldeman had been more subtle. Mitchell and Magruder, in an effort to get me to lie to support their false testimony, claimed I had invented that testimony and had agreed to support it, if necessary. Although they apparently convinced Haldeman of this account (as evidenced by his later report to Nixon), they later dropped the story when I refused to support their perjury, which I had not even been aware of.

As I was en route from Camp David, Haldeman returned to the president’s EOB Office where, as he seated himself, said, “It gets so dull,” referring to Watergate. “Round and round on the same old thing.” But he did have some new information: Mitchell had pressed Magruder, before their meeting, to tell him what, in fact, had occurred. Reconstructing from his notes, Haldeman summarized the report: Magruder had said, “The whole intelligence plan was hatched here at the White House by Hunt, Liddy and Colson. And Colson called Jeb twice to tell him to get going on this thing, and he specifically referred to the Larry O’Brien information, was hard on that. And
Jeb says Hunt and Liddy were in Colson’s office, and LaRue was in Jeb’s office on that phone call.”

When the president asked about Larry O’Brien, Haldeman responded, “Well, that is what they’re bugging the Watergate for.” The president wanted to know why O’Brien, and Haldeman said, “Information regarding the Florida convention stuff, down there.”
*
Nixon interrupted with a question: “Well, that would be Colson. Right?”

“Liddy,” Haldeman answered, then added, “Colson or Liddy. Liddy was in Colson’s office when that took place,” confirming earlier reports to the president. Magruder had also told Mitchell that “Gordon Strachan probably had a lot of direct dealings with Liddy.” Haldeman confirmed, “We know that he had some,” but he did not elaborate, and continued, “[Magruder] says a copy of the output of the Watergate project, what happened there, is, this guy Baldwin made notes of what was gathered, the facts, and he wrote those up, gave them to McCord. [Then] McCord gave them to Liddy. And Liddy made two copies. One copy was delivered to Magruder. And one copy was delivered to the White House.”

“By Liddy?” the president asked. Haldeman again confirmed, and then clarified, “This is what Magruder said, that Liddy [did it]; he doesn’t think that McCord knows this. Because McCord doesn’t know what happened after Liddy. But [Mitchell] said Jeb got a copy, and the White House got a copy. And [Magruder] doesn’t know where the White House copy went, whether it went to Strachan or Colson. He felt sure it went to Strachan, and maybe, or probably, it went to Colson. And Gordon Strachan told [Magruder] that I had approved the plan. [Magruder] told Mitchell that the president had approved it.” With disgust in his voice, Nixon said, “Well, he’s a liar.” During this conversation Mitchell gave ambiguous information regarding his own role in approving Liddy’s operation, although in their subsequent conversation later that day, he would soon clarify it.

Haldeman continued his Mitchell report: “[Magruder] says that there were four people in the White House who had full knowledge of the Watergate operation: Colson; Dick Howard, who worked for Colson; Gordon Strachan; and Haldeman. How does he think that those four people had knowledge of that? He said Colson had knowledge because of the phone call.”