The Arrogance of Power

by Anthony Summers

  8. See p. 177–.

  9. The tape in question is of a conversation between Nixon and Haldeman on June 23, 1972. (Conversation Number 343-036, monitored for author by researchers Julie Ziegler and Robert Lamb.)

  10. CIA Director Helms’s posture troubled Watergate prosecutors and has never been satisfactorily resolved. Walters did intervene at the FBI, and the bureau did suspend its Mexico interviews, although the CIA admitted it had no legitimate objection to the interviews’ going forward. Only some two weeks later, after the CIA had turned down an FBI request to put its concern in writing, did the Mexico probe resume. “I had no way of knowing I was being asked to lie,” Helms would later testify, claiming he and Walters had “held the line” against the White House appeal for help. He disputed having instructed Walters to ask the FBI not to let the investigation go beyond the five arrested burglars. Helms has yet to explain, however, a memo he wrote to Walters on June 28, 1972, stating: “We still adhere to the request that they confine themselves to the personalities already arrested or directly under suspicion and that they desist from expanding this investigation into other areas which may well eventually run afoul of our operations.” In a letter to the author in 2000, Helms said: “I have wracked my memory, but I find nothing which is clarifying.” His replies are not credible, for the episode is central to the CIA’s part in the Watergate scandal. (Helms’s posture: discussed best at Ben-Veniste and Frampton, op. cit., p. 72–; Wise, Police State, op. cit., p. 242–; memo: Richard Helms to Deputy Director, June 28, 1972, R, Bk. II, p. 459; “I have wracked”: Helms to author, Apr. 2, 2000.)

  11. Nixon acknowledged in his memoirs that he had talked with Colson “in sheer exasperation” of how “it would help if someone broke into our headquarters and did a lot of damage.” He also admitted that he had discussed with Haldeman the idea of responding to Democratic bugging accusations by charging “that we were bugged and maybe even plant a bug and find it ourselves.” The former president wrote as though he hoped readers would believe this was merely idle chat, but the extensive taped exchange with Colson on fabricating a break-in does not read that way. The journalist Ron Rosenbaum guessed, as early as 1982, that these passages in the memoirs were “preemptive pre-tape release” efforts by Nixon to explain away the compromising conversations. Sure enough, the phony break-in proposal did turn up in the tape release of November 1996. (Memoirs: MEM, pp. 637, 645; Rosenbaum: New Republic, June 23, 1982; 1996: WHT, July 1, 1972, AOP. p. 90; WP, Feb. 15, 1997.)

  12. RN wrote in his memoirs that Colson was “ecstatic” over the Lungren break-in and wanted to use it as propaganda, that Ehrlichman was leery of appearing to have “set it up,” and that he himself gave orders that it be investigated. (MEM, p. 713.)

  13. Strauss had been the target of CREEP eavesdropping as early as January 1972, when James McCord bugged a conversation about fund-raising on the Democrat’s car phone (Liddy, op. cit., p. 264.)

  14. The identity of Deep Throat remains a secret. Some have doubted that he even existed, including David Obst, the literary agent who acted for Woodward and Bernstein on their Watergate books. Obst told the author Deep Throat did not appear at all as a character in the first draft manuscript of All the President’s Men, and speculated that he was invented to make the book more viable as a movie. The author Don Wolfe, who worked on the film, said he heard Woodward telling director Alan Pakula that there was no one source behind the nickname. Both Woodward and Bernstein, however, have insisted in numerous interviews that Throat did exist and was one man with “a career in government.” Available clues, if accurate, suggest he was a smoker, a Scotch drinker, and a gossip. According to former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, he was given his famous name by the paper’s managing editor, Howard Simons—“deep” for deep background, the terms on which he offered information, and “Deep Throat” after the pornographic film of that title, which had opened in June 1972. Woodward and Bernstein apparently shared the true identity of their source with Bradlee, but with no one else. The two reporters have said they will be free to reveal the man’s name only after his death—and Bernstein indicated that he was still alive as recently as 1999. (Obst int.: David Obst; David Obst, Too Good to Be Forgotten, New York: John Wiley, 1998, p. 240–; Wolfe ints.: Don Wolfe; Woodward and Bernstein on Throat: int. Carl Bernstein, Time. May 3, 1976; “Watergate: The Secret Story,” CBS News Special Program, June 17, 1992, transcript, p. 13; Today, June 17, 1997, transcript, p. 5; WP, Oct. 1, 1997; Bradlee: Ben Bradlee, A Good Life, op. cit., pp. 333, 365; Meet the Press, June 15, 1997, transcript, p. 25–; alive 1999?: Hartford Courant, July 28, 1999.

  15. In contrast with the 1973 settlement, which permitted North Vietnamese troops to remain in the South, the cease-fire accord signed at Geneva provided for the Vietminh (Ho Chi Minh’s original movement) to withdraw from the South, and the French from the North, pending a nationwide election. (1973 agreement: ibid., pp. 663, 665; Kissinger, White House Years, op. cit., pp. 1347, 1391, 1469–; Nixon, Real Peace, op. cit., p. 284; Geneva: Karnow, op. cit., p. 220.)

  16. Beecher had filed a report in mid-December reporting that renewed bombing was being considered, but the story was shelved because Kissinger had told a somewhat different version of events to James Reston. (Hersh, Price of Power, op. cit., p. 622–.)

  17. See p. 295–for initial coverage of the Madman Theory. Former U.S. Army operations intelligence specialist Barry Toll, whose firsthand recollections are reported in chapter 33, said he learned from colleagues that—allegedly after drinking or using sedatives—Nixon issued orders for a nuclear strike during the Christmas 1972 offensive. Military chiefs ignored him, according to Toll. It is Toll who has quoted the CIA’s top Vietnam specialist, George Carver, as having made a similar allegation about Nixon’s conduct when North Korea shot down a U.S. plane in 1969 (See p. 372.)

  18. Connally, a leading Democrat, had served Nixon as treasury secretary in the second half of the first term. He founded Democrats for Nixon in 1972 and later became adviser to the president on domestic and foreign affairs.

  Chapter 32

  1. McCord did this in a letter to Judge Sirica, read aloud in court on March 23, 1973. It caused a sensation and was a huge fillip to the Senate probe. That McCord posed a serious danger to the White House had become most evident on December 28, 1972, when he wrote to John Caulfield that “if the Watergate operation is laid at CIA’s feet, where it does not belong, every tree in the forest will fall . . . if they want it to blow, they are on exactly the right course.” (Letter to Sirica: Emery, op. cit., p. 269–; “every tree”: R, Bk. III, p. 40.)

  2. On March 21, 1973, White House counsel Dean had the now-celebrated meeting with Nixon at which he told him that Watergate had become a “cancer on the presidency,” that money had been paid to the burglary defendants and much more would yet be needed. Nixon later said he found this “distressing” information. The tape of the conversation, however, shows no sign that it came as a surprise or that he found it alarming. (WHT, March 21, 1973, prepared by R, Rec. Grp. 460, WSPF, NA, and see Ben-Veniste and Frampton, op. cit., p. 200–; “distressing”: RN speech, Aug. 15, 1973, Drossman and Knappman, eds. op. cit., vol. 2, p. 42, and see Ben-Veniste and Frampton, op. cit., p. 201.)

  3. See p. 284–.

  4. Re: the Hoover allegation, see p. 314. In a 1996 interview former FBI Assistant Director Cartha DeLoach said Nixon’s plane was not bugged in 1968. “Johnson did not order any such thing,” he maintained, “and from the standpoint of electronics it was not possible to get anything from a bug on a plane.” The surveillance Johnson did demand, DeLoach said, had been limited to coverage of the South Vietnamese Embassy and of Anna Chennault and to follow-up checks on calls made by the Agnew entourage at Albuquerque. Why, then, would Hoover have told Nixon his plane was bugged by Johnson? DeLoach claimed in his 1995 memoir that the director had merely “embellished” the facts and he added that he later learned that Nixon himself knew the charge was false. In fact, the tapes reveal that Ha
ldeman, informed that the only surveillance the FBI had undertaken against the Republican campaign was to check phone records, informed Nixon of that fact. The next step, he suggested, was to “distort” the issue, and Nixon agreed with him. Until the end of his life Nixon, however, spoke as though he believed his plane had been bugged. (DeLoach: ints. of DeLoach 1996, shared with the author by Gus Russo, DeLoach, op. cit., p. 407; Haldeman discovered: WHT, March 22, 1973, conv. no. 422-020, WSPF, NA; RN to end of life: Crowley, Off the Record, op. cit., p. 17.)

  5. See p. 297–. In old age, according to a former National Archives specialist, Nixon went out of his way to block the release of records on the subject. Key phrases from the Haldeman diary entry on the Johnson threat were the only passages censored under the national security rubric when The Haldeman Diaries were published in 1994. The full text was released only in 1999, while this book was being written. (Archives specialist: “Watergate’s Final Victim: A Journey Through Archival Purgatory & Hell,” by Maarja Krusten, updated version of draft supplied to NA and attorneys in civil case 92-662-NHJ, supplied to the author by Ms. Krusten; censored: Jan. 12, 1973, entry, HD, p. 567, and see Stephen Ambrose, Introduction, HD, p. 11.)

  6. There has been an effort to discredit Dean in recent years, notably in the 1991 book Silent Coup, by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin. The authors’ theory was that Dean was personally responsible not only for ordering the DNC break-ins but also for the cover-up, including the attempt to use the CIA to prevent further FBI investigation. The authors asserted, too, that Dean had a special interest in “salacious political material” and ascribed to him a personal motive for promoting the break-in that led to the Watergate arrests. Dean and his wife, Maureen, sued the authors and publisher of Silent Coup for libel in a case that has been settled. A separate case brought by the Deans against Gordon Liddy was dismissed. The Senate Watergate Committee chief counsel Sam Dash, and Richard Ben-Veniste, assistant special prosecutor to the Watergate Task Force, both said in interviews for this book that they believed Dean’s original testimony remains as credible today on all principal points as it was in 1973. Dean’s memory was stunningly corroborated by the Nixon tapes. (1991 book: Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, Silent Coup, New York; St. Martin’s Press, 1991; Dean suits: Tampa Tribune, Feb. 25, 1998, Sept. 28, 1999; int. Kerrie Hook; Dean testimony credible: ints. Sam Dash and Richard Ben-Veniste.)

  7. The claim that Nixon made disparaging remarks about returning American POWs comes from the book Inside the White House by former longtime Washington Post reporter Ronald Kessler, citing an unnamed former Secret Service agent. Secret Service agents more often than not request anonymity, and the author’s conversations with Kessler led him to believe the information was authentic. (Ronald Kessler, Inside the White House, New York: Pocket, 1995, p. 64; int. and corr. Ronald Kessler.)

  8. When Ehrlichman referred to possible impeachment, the tape of April 25, 1973 indicates, Nixon merely said repeatedly: “That’s right.” Ehrlichman wrote in his memoirs: “The tapes show that after I left the room, Nixon dramatically recoiled from my remark. I guess that was the first time anyone used the word ‘impeachment’ in Nixon’s presence.” The author was unable to find a reference in the taped dialogue at which the president might have “recoiled.” (“The tapes show”: Ehrlichman, op. cit., p. 353; “That’s right”: WHT, Apr. 25, 1973, conv. 430-004, WSPF, NA, p. 27.)

  9. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for violating the Tenure of Office Act. He was acquitted by the Senate.

  10. A former member of the Executive Protection Service, the uniformed branch of the Secret Service, told the author that the president’s tapes were in fact insecure, that duplicate copies existed. The Secret Service had its own microphone, in multiple White House locations, as part of the protection system, and these made Nixon’s privacy additionally vulnerable. Former FBI Assistant Director William Sullivan, moreover, said in 1977 that senior FBI officials had long been aware Nixon was taping his conversations. Some Secret Service agents involved with the taping were also former FBI agents, and Hoover aides were able to gain access to the tapes. Some, Sullivan said, even borrowed them on occasion to play Nixon’s conversational faux pas at parties. If these assertions are correct, the recording system was never the top secret installation most sources have always assumed—with potential ramifications for the Watergate story. (Int. former EPS officer, who has requested anonymity: re: Sullivan, see Summers, Official & Confidential, op. cit., p. 407–.)

  11. The author was unable to question Dr. Hutschnecker on this point. While he had been astonishingly articulate when first interviewed, at age ninety-seven, he lost the power of speech after a subsequent accident.

  12. Russell had initially been hospitalized on May 18, 1973, shortly after writing to the Senate Watergate Committee to deny having any information that would help the investigation and three hours before James McCord began testifying. Russell was released from the hospital in June, but died on July 2 of what the death certificate described as “acute coronary occlusion.” There was no autopsy. Russell’s claim that he had been poisoned was made to his daughter shortly before his death. More intriguing than the manner of his death, for this author, is the fact that in the months between the Watergate arrests and his death Russell had far more money than usual. He made two bank deposits during that period, one for $4,750 and a second for $20,895. William Birely, Nixon’s stockbroker friend (see pp. 409 and 527 n. 19) had lent him a pleasant apartment and a car after Watergate and helped him invest his recent financial windfalls. Birely and McCord, who had continued to employ Russell, both attended his funeral. (Illness, death: Hougan, Agenda, op. cit., p. 306–; death certificate: in Jim Hougan Collection; Russell money: Best study is memo “Lou Russell Funds,” John Williams memo to Gordon Liddy, Oct. 22, 1996, seen by author; Birely, funeral: int. of William Birely by Jim Hougan, Hougan Collection; McCord, funeral: Hougan, Agenda, op. cit., p. 239.)

  13. Cox had been solicitor general during the Kennedy administration, but he was reportedly nonpartisan “to the point of prickliness” during the Watergate affair. His biographer points out that the Watergate scandal involved both pro- and anti-Nixon people with links to former Democratic administrations (Ken Gormley, Archibald Cox, Conscience of a Nation, Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1997, pp. 246, 266–.)

  14. See p. 250–.

  15. All, including Admiral Moorer, agreed that Nixon was not present at the meeting that night. Moorer and CIA Director Colby have maintained that messages from the president were relayed to the meeting by Kissinger. Helmut Sonnenfeldt, on the National Security Council staff, has said: “Nixon didn’t participate in most of these discussions and approved the recommendations early in the morning of the following day. I have always felt that decisions were made on the issues at hand rather than in terms of the President’s own personal considerations. That is perhaps a more dramatic example of the kind of problem that we had to deal with in the declining phase of the Nixon presidency.” (Moorer, Colby: Strober, eds., op. cit., p. 156–; Sonnenfeldt: ibid., and Miller Center, eds., op. cit., p. 325.)

  16. Speechwriter Raymond Price, who was present at the dinner, has denied Nixon was drunk. (eds. Strober, Nixon, op. cit., p. 494; Price, op. cit., p. 94–.)

  17. Reports of heavy drinking by Pat Nixon, first published in Woodward and Bernstein’s Final Days, aroused controversy. Her press aide, Helen McCain Smith, insisted that “liquor was never a problem.” In an article she wrote in response to Final Days, Julie Nixon emphasized how busy her mother was, “hardly the schedule of a reclusive heavy drinker. . . .” Helen Thomas, the veteran White House correspondent, who quoted the First Lady as claiming she did not drink or smoke, believed she simply avoided doing so in public. As cited earlier, one former Secret Service agent said she was at stages “almost an alcoholic,” so much so that friends arranged counseling. Former Secret Service agent Marty Venker, who was on the Nixon detail after the resignation, thought “she was more of a drinker than him at that
stage.” The columnist Nick Thimmesch, who had once been a Nixon aide, wrote in 1979: “The face she showed to the world was never quite the whole picture. . . . In private she enjoys her martinis or margaritas. She smokes, swears . . . rarely attends church services. . . .” (Final Days: Woodward and Bernstein, op. cit., p. 172–; “never”: UPI, June 13, 1976; Julie comments: Newsweek, May 24, 1976; Thomas: Dateline, op. cit., p. 160; “almost alcoholic”: Kessler, op. cit., p. 41; int., Ron Kessler; “she was more”: int. Marty Venker; Thimmesch: McCall’s, Apr. 1979.)

  Chapter 33

  1. Hillary Rodham, then just out of law school, had been recommended to Judiciary Committee Special Counsel John Doar by her former professor at Yale, Burke Marshall. Marshall had also recommended her husband-to-be, future President Bill Clinton, but he turned the committee job down. He was already planning to run for public office in Arkansas, where Nixon had a major following, and reportedly feared being identified with the impeachment. (Zeifman, op. cit., p. 11–; David Maraniss, First in His Class, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, p. 297.)

  2. As a legal technique, naming Nixon as an unindicted coconspirator meant that his conversations could be used in evidence against his former aides. Psychologically, in this case, it had far greater significance.

  3. Speechwriter Ray Price, at a dinner in California with Nixon on July 21, observed Kissinger’s deputy General Brent Scowcroft shuttling between Nixon, at the table, and a telephone. He thought Nixon “for that brief moment . . . again in his element.” Kissinger, however, gives an impression of a president paying less than sufficient attention. (Price, op. cit., p. 312.)