The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (92 page)

Shortly after nine o’clock that morning Steve Bull, at Haig’s instruction, had prepared the tapes for Nixon to listen to in his EOB office. Having never been through the tapes before, Bull initially found it difficult to locate particular conversations, since they simply went from day to day, reel to reel, recording whatever was said with no markers to indicate when one conversation ended and the next began. Because of this, it took Bull almost an hour to find the first conversation and queue it up for the president.
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From late morning to early afternoon, the president listened to the conversations in the order in which Bull was able to locate them: starting with February 28, followed by three on March 1, and then the February 27 discussion.
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When Nixon finished with these he took a brief break for cottage cheese and pineapple and told one of the EOB secretaries that he would be working late into the evening: “Be sure they know at the house.” Bull told the president he would start queuing up reels for March outside the president’s office on another machine, which would speed up the process. When the president learned that all of the March telephone conversations with me were on a single six-hour reel, he asked Bull to listen to that tape and make summary notes of it, as well as of the two conversations with me on March 14 and the one on March 15. The president told Bull he did not want to listen to the March 21 conversation, nor to the one on April 15 and the two on April 16, for he could still recall them.

Because the president eventually started wearing a headset, and some of his EOB exchanges with Bull are inaudible, it is not clear exactly which conversations he ultimately listened to and when, but it appears that during the afternoon of June 4 he proceeded through the following conversations with me: March 6, 7, 8, 13, 16 and 17. It appears that he assigned to Bull a number of my telephone conversationsand ignored the rest.
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Nixon apparently decided to pass over any conversation where either Haldeman or Ehrlichman was present, even if only during part of the conversation, on the
theory that they would refute anything I might claim that could present a potential problem for him, or he was continuing to stick to his line that as of March 21, he himself was running an investigation into Watergate, so any information he acquired was then information he later acted upon. Needless to say, because Nixon approached these recorded conversations with the assumption that only he—or possibly Haldeman—would ever learn of their content, not to mention their existence, he would use what he could of them to his advantage. In fact, he began doing so as he listened to them, using select material he heard to reassure Haig and Ziegler of his innocence, and to underscore that press reports of my knowledge of what we had discussed were greatly exaggerated or, more likely, a bluff on my part.

When the president called Haig at five o’clock, during one of his breaks from listening, he said, “This is the hardest work I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve really been at it for seven hours now, so [I’m going to] work the rest of the evening though. Just for my own satisfaction.”
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Haig asked how it was going, and Nixon reported, “I’ll tell you this: Based on what I’ve seen so far, that it’s a damn fraud, the whole thing”—referring to my knowing anything that would cause Nixon himself any problem. He continued, “But it may be something a little later, that, you know what I mean. I’m only up to the fifteenth of March.” Nixon said there were several occasions on which I told him that no one in the White House was involved, “but nevertheless, we can’t use this.” Nixon added, “And he was talking about, ah, he threw in Strachan’s name. This was about the thirteenth [of March]. But he didn’t expand on it.” He noted, “At the time it made no impression on me. I mean, it didn’t even ring any bells, you know what I mean. But on the other hand, looking back, I suppose Dean could say I mentioned the fact that Gordon Strachan had some information or was involved.” The president was unconcerned, however, for Haldeman could take care of it.

At 9:39
P.M.
the president called Haig again, “I just spent nine hours on this crap, and boy, I got to go to bed.”
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But the effort had been worth it: “The whole damned Dean thing is a fraud. I can see where he may have been involved, but I wasn’t involved. And I’ve listened to stuff till I’m sick.” Nixon noted that he had obviously not listened to the four telephone calls with me that were not recorded, nor could he assign those to Steve Bull. They turned to other business, but the conversation ended with Haig reporting that Cox was “running a dogfight,” seeking information, giving Buzhardt “an ultimatum today.” “Isn’t that great?” Nixon responded sarcastically. “But what
Buzhardt said he’s doing is posturing himself to quit. He’s going to resign,” Haig advised. That was fine by Nixon: “Okay, we got Richardson confirmed, so we’ll just have Petersen do it.”

Back at the residence, and with a drink in hand, Nixon called Haldeman shortly after ten o’clock.
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“I thought you should know that starting at nine-thirty this morning, I have been working until just now. I listened to every tape,” he said, exaggerating his undertaking. “You know, the thing that you did, and boy, I know the agony that you went through. And I listened to every damn thing, and Bob, the son of a bitch is bluffing.” “Well, sure,” Haldeman agreed.

Nixon told Haldeman, “Just for your private information,” that Buzhardt had gone through my files and found no memoranda of conversations. The president further reported that he learned from listening to our conversations that I had not mentioned the $350,000 returned from the White House to the CRP until March 21. But he did give Haldeman a bit more of what he had discovered than what he had told Haig: “[Dean] did mention the Krogh thing”—referring to the Ellsberg break-in—“on about the seventeenth [of March], but only in passing, as if it weren’t a big thing, or so forth.” Nixon noted that I had said, however, that I did not believe anyone at the White House had advance knowledge of the Watergate break-in (as I later testified, and find remains accurate to this day). The president returned to his long hours of listening: “I did nothing else. Just damn near broke me down. But you know how tough it is to listen to that stuff.” “Oh, it’s nerve-racking,” Haldeman said, and added, “and then, of course, I was trying to make notes, which you probably were, too.” Nixon reported, “I made notes all the way through.”

Nixon explained that he had not listened to March 21, “because I figured you ought to be the witness on that.” He suggested that he had listened to March 22, but had made no notes on it, “figuring that you, Ehrlichman and I were there, you know, and you would make notes on that. Nixon noted as they spoke that “the stuff in the EOB doesn’t come through.” “Oh, really,” Haldeman said, indicating he had not listened to any of the EOB tapes. They continued to discuss the conversations Nixon had listened to and the reason they could never be released, because of matters like his opinions of the members of the Supreme Court. After eight hours of listening to our conversations, Nixon now had a slightly revised view of me: “Some way or other I think his lawyer is the one that’s moving out here. I don’t think Dean,
strangely enough, is—” “I think you’re right,” Haldeman interrupted. “I think his lawyer is out really [slandering],” Nixon began. “I mean, making flamboyant charges and so forth, and they won’t stand up. But let’s let him get out on a little limb, a little bit more.” Nixon asked Haldeman to call Ziegler to tell him the good news, and had no sooner hung up than he had a further thought, and called Haldeman back: “Sorry to bother you again, but the one thing, which, of course, is a sticky point is with, regarding to the twenty-first, and if you’d give some thought with regard to how you would preempt that sometime, I think it would be very good.” Haldeman agreed to do so, and said he had a couple of ideas, but did not have his notes at the moment.

When speaking with Fred Buzhardt in his EOB office in the late afternoon, the president said that John Connally had advised him to stop talking about Watergate, and he planned to do so.
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Buzhardt reported that in order to protect White House–related materials from subpoenas, Colson, Haldeman and Ehrlichman had returned them to him. The Colson material dealt with his dealings with the plumbers (for which he would have been indicted had he not made a deal with the Watergate special prosecutor). The Haldeman and Ehrlichman material consisted of “tapes of conversations with various people,” but Buzhardt assured the president that none of them were with him.

Still concerned about his conversation with Tom Pappas about raising money for the Watergate defendants, the president spoke with Rose Woods about the matter early on the morning of June 6.
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She told him she had not yet been able to speak with Pappas, as he was in Greece, but she had left word with “his girl.” Nixon explained the situation again, in language almost identical to that which he had used when first raising this problem, and then more pointedly told her, “I don’t want to have anything indicating that I was thanking him for raising money for the Watergate defendants. I think he’s smart enough to know that, but you know, you just never know.”

Haig told the president that morning how delighted he was that former Republican congressman, and Nixon’s first secretary of defense, Melvin
Laird, was joining the White House staff, an appointment Haig had been instrumental in bringing about.
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Former senior congressional relations aide Bryce Harlow was also rejoining the Nixon White House. Laird was taking charge of domestic policy, Ehrlichman’s operation, and Harlow was merely formalizing an informal relationship. Nixon also met with the new addition to his legal staff, Charles Alan Wright, whose consultancy was announced with the Laird and Harlow appointments that morning.
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During a discussion of Watergate with Haig, Buzhardt and Charles Wright about their assessments of where matters stood, Nixon did acknowledge that Haldeman and Ehrlichman had “collected money in the beginning for the defense attorney,” although their “motives were proper, right?” When no one responded Nixon conceded: “I think what you might say, in fairness, maybe they were trying to see that nothing blew the election. That makes sense. But I don’t think that it was obstruction of justice.” Surely Wright understood what Nixon could not grasp: Obstruction is obstruction, regardless of motive. Buzhardt also reminded the group that Archibald Cox’s charter, given to him by Attorney General Richardson, stated “that he’ll have jurisdiction over all allegations against the president.” To Buzhardt that was “about as stupid a thing as could be,” for he told Nixon the courts did not have jurisdiction over him. Charles Wright had no comment.

When talking with Buzhardt that afternoon, Nixon learned that Buzhardt and Wright were going to visit with Cox and offered these instructions: “I want you to say, quite candidly, ‘Mr. Cox, it’s all over town that you’re out to get the president. Now if that is the case, we want you to know we’re ready to fight.”
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He told Buzhardt to “play a tough game.” Late that afternoon of June 6, Buzhardt met with the president in his EOB office to report on his meeting with Cox.
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It had not gone well, although Buzhardt characterized it as “civil.” Buzhardt said that Cox had made it clear at the outset that “he would like to have access to all the documents” that might be relevant. Buzhardt said he told Cox, “He would not have access to the [president’s] files.” This matter was left unresolved, but Cox said he wanted a copy of the one-page memo prepared by Henry Petersen, which he believed “was a summary of the evidence that they had at that time against Haldeman and Ehrlichman.” Nixon did not seem to have a problem with this information.

Buzhardt reported that Petersen had told Cox that Nixon had offered to let him listen to “a tape of a conversation with Dean that you had on the evening of Sunday, April the fifteenth” and added, “We did not comment on
that.” “I haven’t got a tape,” Nixon protested twice. “So it was a misunderstanding on his part?” Buzhardt asked. “I have—in fact, I haven’t any notes on that,” Nixon conceded, avoiding the question. He then falsely claimed that there was nothing in that conversation other than my telling Nixon that “Henry had given him grand jury reports. Now Henry vigorously denies, of course. I don’t think it makes any difference.” Buzhardt continued, saying that Cox wanted Haldeman and Ehrlichman’s Dictabelts relating to these matters, but Nixon said there were none.
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When Buzhardt reminded him that Ehrlichman had turned over his, Nixon said that since they had nothing to do with him, “I don’t care about that.” Cox also wanted a listing of all the president’s meetings with me, Ehrlichman, Haldeman and Mitchell from June 17, 1972, on, which, Buzhardt said, would take a lot of time to prepare. Cox asked for a list of the president’s meetings from the present back to March 15, 1973. Nixon incorrectly stated that he had not met with Ehrlichman since April 30, and had had approximately ten to fifteen meetings with Haldeman, adding, “But all on transition” and none of them relating to Watergate. When Cox asked for an inventory of Nixon’s files, Buzhardt told him he did not think Cox had any jurisdiction to investigate the president. Buzhardt warned Nixon that he fully expected a head-on confrontation with Cox, who would serve them with a subpoena, but that Cox was assembling his research before sending it.

When meeting with Haig in the morning, the president was still thinking about Cox, and he mentioned that they should start considering that “it may be in our interest to get him out of there” and let the Justice Department “go ahead.”
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Nixon had a lengthy late-afternoon conversation with Buzhardt, who said he was meeting with Henry Petersen the following day, news that prompted Nixon to say he thought he remembered telling Petersen he had “taped” his conversation with me on April 15, but he had misspoken: He had used a Dictabelt, which is what he must have meant when he mentioned it at the time.
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Throughout this conversation Buzhardt asked a number of questions, but Nixon at best gave vague or inaccurate responses, sometimes
clearly intentionally and at others because he apparently did not have the answer. Buzhardt, meanwhile, made a number of absurd statements, at one point claiming that Charlie Shaffer had told Jack Miller, the attorney who represented Dick Moore (and after he left office, Richard Nixon), and who Shaffer and I both spoke with, that I was “most worried about Richard Moore,” despite the fact that I knew that Moore had a truly terrible memory. Even Nixon dismissed this notion, explaining, “The problem with Dick Moore, if I know him, I don’t think he ever made any notes, and I don’t know how good his memory is.” Nonetheless, Buzhardt kept pushing this notion.
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