Finally, Election Day 1972. Oddly, the celebration of the President’s landslide seemed little more than a good excuse to drink with friends. The entire senior staff at the White House assembled droopy-eyed and hung over the next morning in the Roosevelt Room, a conference room about the same size as the Cabinet Room. I sat in a corner, one of the few people in the room who knew that the ax was about to fall. We rose to our feet to applaud when the President walked in, looking drawn and haggard, not particularly happy, acknowledging our tribute with a mechanical smile, motioning us to be seated.
“This is a great day,” he said flatly, standing with his hands on the back of a chair, “and I want to thank every one of you for your outstanding contributions to the best and most successful campaign I have ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of them. Pat and I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of our hearts.” Polite applause. The President offered more congratulatory remarks and then served up the heart of his message. “I was reading Disraeli the other night,” he said, “and Disraeli spoke of how his administration of the British government lost its spark after being reelected. The campaign took too much out of them, he said. They became a ‘burned-out volcano,’ fresh out of ideas and energy. Well, I thought about that, and I pledged to myself that no such thing will happen to this second administration. I am not a burned-out volcano, and the second administration will not become one, either. We are going to inject new vigor and new energy into the government. We have no choice but to do that. Our opportunity is too great. Our responsibility is too great. The American people have just spoken and given us a tremendous mandate, a vote of confidence and hope. We can build a generation of peace, with prosperity, in America, and we are going to get on with the job. Now Bob is going to talk to you about some of the specifics. I want to thank you all again.” The President smiled and departed, to another standing round of applause.
Bob moved to the head of the table and, never long for words, went straight to the point. “As the President indicated, some things are going to change around here. I want you all to send me a written description of the responsibilities your office now has, plus a description of the responsibilities you would like to have in the second administration, and the reasons you think you should have them. Now, don’t get carried away on the reasons you think you are qualified to handle everything. Make it simple. We can get your flowery reasons later, if we need them.” Bob laughed nervously at his joke, coughed when it didn’t go over, and composed himself for his important lines. “Now, the President and I are meeting with the Cabinet shortly. We are going to direct them to obtain written letters of resignation from all appointed sub-Cabinet officers in the government and submit them along with their own resignations. And the President has directed that everyone in this room also hand in a letter of resignation. This doesn’t mean that you won’t be asked to stay on, of course. We will review each situation individually. We just want to show we mean business.” And he departed for the Cabinet meeting.
All the President’s men and long-time servants had been fired at the post-landslide thank-you meeting. The news hit with a thud, leaving a few seconds of silence before the Roosevelt Room buzzed with shock, complaints and outrage. I slipped out. I was unaffected, secure on the inside.
Ehrlichman stopped me by the elevator. “Well, John, what are your plans for the future?” he asked. I was being tested to find out how much Haldeman had told me.
“Well, Bob’s left no doubt in my mind what my plans are,” I replied steadily. “I’m going to stay on until we put Watergate to bed.”
The eyebrows arched moderately as he nodded a slow affirmative. “I understand.”
I hurried back to my office for a strategy session with Fielding. Fred would have to prepare the memo Haldeman had demanded, because I was leaving that afternoon for a California vacation. We scanned the jurisdictional horizons in the White House and prepared a long laundry list of new functions we thought the counsel’s office should be awarded. We would not try to take over entire operations, just get a foot in the door everywhere to continue to build the counsel’s law firm in our pattern. Riding high from cover-up success, I was not bashful in our requests. We asked for the right to approve the appointment of general counsels to all government agencies and departments, so that we could put our own people in these crucial positions. We asked to be designated the official White House liaison office for all the regulatory agencies. We added a lot of clearance functions, legal powers, and perquisites. We were to get most of them.
As I was preparing to dash to the airport, a fearsome Watergate thought bubbled up. I called Haldeman. “Bob, I’ve been thinking about those resignations. There’s one guy we can’t afford to piss off. One guy we need, who’s been helpful, concerned, and who’s been watching out after our interests. And that’s Henry Petersen. I don’t think we should let Henry worry about his future.”
“Yeah,” said Haldeman. “I agree.”
“I’d like to call Henry and reassure him he’s all right.”
Haldeman assented readily.
When I called Petersen, he had just gotten his bad news from Kleindienst. “Jesus Christ, John!” he said. “Has the President gone crazy? He can’t just throw everybody out in the street like this! Waste everybody’s damn career. He’ll screw up the whole government. I tell you, he’ll regret this.”
“Henry, I just want you to know one thing,” I said soothingly. “You don’t have anything to worry about. I don’t know about everybody else, but I know you’re not going to lose your job.”
“Well, goddam, I’m glad to hear that.” I felt a breath of uncertain relief wafting through the line. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I just talked to the people over here. Things are all scrambled up here too. But you’re solid. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Thanks, John. But I still don’t like this. You’ve got a lot of good people upset over here. Is Dick going to get canned?”
“I don’t know about that. It’s too early to tell. I doubt it. But you’re the only one I’ve checked on.” I signed off. I had chalked up points with both Haldeman and Petersen.
Mo and I flew off to Palm Springs in a second attempt to mix a honeymoon with a little work. Donald Segretti had wound up his elusive travels hiding in the California desert, and I was to obtain a comprehensive report on his activities for Haldeman and Ehrlichman, who now wanted to surface Segretti in the afterglow of the election and then quickly bury him. Otherwise, I planned to bask in the sun for a couple of weeks and forget Watergate. The story had vanished from the newspapers, which were full of the historic landslide.
Segretti came from seclusion to our villa in the Eldorado, an exclusive Palm Springs country club. He was glad to see someone from “the outside world,” a bit sheepish about all the worry he had caused but puckish as always. “John, the best idea you had for me was the train trip across the country,” he reminisced. “I really enjoyed that. I looked out the window the whole way. But the worst was coming out here to the desert. I ended up in a sleeping bag every night, and every morning I would wake up with the dew soaked through the sleeping bag and all in my clothes. It was miserable. Ugh!” He scrunched up his nose in disgust and then broke into a grin. His ordeal had paid off, and now it was over.
Don and I sat in front of a tape recorder for several hours as I elicited, a description of his campaign activities and his relationship with Chapin, Strachan and Kalmbach. When we finished, he went off and Mo and I settled down to enjoy our honeymoon.
It didn’t last long. One of Ehrlichman’s assistants called soon after from Key Biscayne to say that Haldeman and Ehrlichman wanted to listen to the tape. Immediately. To Mo’s amazed disappointment, we found ourselves in Florida the next day.
Haldeman and Ehrlichman sat through a complete rendition of the recording. “It could have been a lot worse,” said Bob as I was packing up the equipment. “In fact, it’s not nearly as bad as I imagined. As far as I’m concerned, w
e could air that thing on CBS tonight and get it over with. Most people think that a lot worse things than that went on.”
Haldeman was looking on the bright side, but Ehrlichman was handling the case. “John, the President has decided Chapin has to go,” he said bluntly. “He doesn’t want this stuff hanging over his head in the second term, and as long as Dwight stays at the White House he’s a lightning rod for bad press.”
“I’m too close to Dwight to make an objective judgment,” Haldeman added painfully, appearing embarrassed not to support his man more forcefully.
I went back to my room, my mind stuck on the decision Ehrlichman and the President had made about Chapin. It seemed callous and unfair. No one, I knew, was more loyal personally to Richard Nixon than Chapin, who virtually worshiped the President. And no one would be more at a loss outside the White House. The high point in Chapin’s life had been making the arrangements for the China trip, and now he was on the way out. I had seen and been party to many callous decisions, but Chapin was different to me. He was a friend, and he had done only what was expected of him. His errors were minor. Somehow the decision to can him brought home a fact of life at the White House—everyone is expendable.
Mo accepted the demise of our second honeymoon stoically, and our spirits brightened when Haldeman arranged for us to ride back to Washington with the President aboard Air Force One. On the flight, the First Lady got down on all fours to play with the dogs, and the President himself came back and introduced himself to Mo. She was thrilled that the newly reelected leader of the Western world had taken the time to say nice things to her, and I was proud. The President cuffed me playfully, but a bit painfully, about the ears.
“We’re going to keep your husband damn busy,” he told Mo.
“I hope not too busy,” Mo remarked.
“You may wish you hadn’t married him,” the President teased.
She smiled. “I’m not worried.”
I wasn’t, either, flying at thirty-five thousand feet with the President. But I soon would be.
* A federal grand jury in Washington returned an eight-count indictment against the five men (Bernard L. Barker, Frank A. Sturgis, Virgilio R. Gonzalez, Eugenio R. Martinez and James W. McCord, Jr.) arrested at the Democratic headquarters on June 17, plus Hunt and Liddy. The charges included tapping telephones, planting electronic surveillance equipment, and theft of documents.
* William E. Timmons was the new chief of White House liaison with Congress.
* Representative Frank J. Brasco of New York.
* A Minneapolis businessman who had made large contributions to Hubert Humphrey’s past campaigns and a $25,000 contribution to the 1972 Nixon campaign. The Nixon contribution had passed through the bank account of Watergate conspirator Bernard Barker.
Chapter Six
CLOSING IN
Monday, November 13, six days after the election, I was back in my office, still a bit depressed about the vacation that had been cut short. The papers were busily forecasting Nixon’s second term—the negotiations that would be required to end the Vietnam War, détente with China and the Soviet Union. There were long profiles on the President’s career and cameos of the First Family. On the outside everything was glowing. I was forcing myself sourly through my mail when Chuck Colson called.
“John, can you come down right away? I’ve got something to tell you.” He sounded excited and happy. I hoped for some good news as I walked down the hall to his office.
He was leaning back in his chair with a big smile on his face. “Hiya, John. Come on in and sit down. I want to tell you about a conversation I just had with Howard Hunt.”
It was not a name I liked to hear. I sighed and raised my eyebrows. “You talked to Hunt?”
“Yeah, I really had to,” Chuck said, “because the poor guy’s been calling and I’ve been refusing his calls all this time, and I figured I had to talk to him now that the election’s over.”
“What did he have to say? I hope you didn’t promise him a job.”
Chuck ignored the parry. “Well, he had a lot to say, but I’ll tell you one thing he said. He said I had nothing to do with Watergate.” Chuck paused, the smile turned sheepish. “In fact, I felt I had to tape the conversation for my own protection, and I did. Holly’s typing it up right now, and I’m going to send it down to you, but you can hear it now if you want to.”
“Sure.”
I listened apprehensively. The tones were clear as the men exchanged pleasantries. Colson told Hunt straightaway that he didn’t know anything about Watergate, that he had stayed out of it at the White House so that he could be an enthusiastic, honest and favorable character witness at Hunt’s trial. “This way the less details I know of what’s going on in some ways the better.” Old hear-no-evil Colson, I thought, I can’t blame him. Hunt didn’t deny it. Chuck looked up with satisfaction. “Hear that?”
But Hunt was shrewder than that. He bore in on Colson, demanding a meeting. Chuck’s breathy voice sounded exasperated as he turned down the requests, but Hunt pressed on to say what was really bothering him.
HUNT: … Well, the reason I called you was to make, to get back to to the beginning here, is because commitments that were made to all of us at the onset have not been kept. And there’s a great deal of unease and concern on the part of the seven defendants and, I’m quite sure, me least of all. But there’s a great deal of financial expense that has not been covered and what we’ve been getting has been coming in very minor dribs and drabs. And Parkinson, who’s been the go-between with my attorney, doesn’t seem to be very effective. And we’re now reaching a point of which—
COLSON: Okay. Don’t tell me any more. Because I understand, and—
HUNT: These people have really got to—this is a long-haul thing and the stakes are very high. And I thought that you would want to know that this thing must not break apart for foolish reasons.
COLSON: Oh, no, everybody—
HUNT: While we get third-, fourth-hand reassurances, the “ready” is still not available. That’s the basic problem.
COLSON: Okay. You told me everything I need to know, and I can—the less I know really of what happened, the more, more help I can be to you.
HUNT: All right. Now, we’ve set a deadline now for close of business on the twenty-fifth of November for the resolution on the liquidation of everything that’s outstanding. And this, they’re now talking about promises from July and August. It has just been an apparent unconcern. Of course, we can understand some hesitancy prior to the election, but there doesn’t seem to be any of that now.…
Hunt continued to make demands, skirting Chuck’s protests. As he upped the ante, he destroyed the thin hope I’d clung to that Watergate would go away. It would get worse, I saw, and it could go on forever. I had suppressed this worry by my faith in the President’s immense powers. But Hunt was out there watching his life being destroyed, and he was going to cost the White House plenty. The bottom of my stomach fell out, as it does when I look down from the top of a skyscraper.
I had trouble concentrating on the rest of the tape. “Say no more,” Chuck kept telling Hunt, steering him back to safer subjects. Finally he got Hunt to say that Colson had “absolutely nothing to do with” Watergate.
Chuck lit his pipe, looking pleased. “Well, I guess this establishes once and for all that I had nothing to do with this crazy goddam break-in.”
I glanced at him. We had been on opposite ends of a seesaw during the last minutes, Chuck up, me down. As with everyone who was thinking, writing or worrying about Watergate, Chuck’s attention was riveted on what had happened before the break-in—who knew about it in advance, who authorized it and paid for it. I was worried about what had happened afterward, and I knew the tape was deadly. I looked at Colson gravely. “Chuck, I don’t think you ought to have that tape typed up.”
Colson’s smile vanished. We both knew Hunt was a time bomb. We had just heard the ticking. Chuck liked to pretend he knew nothing of the cove
r-up and had succeeded in keeping himself out as best he could. “I understand, John,” he said evenly. “Look, why don’t you just take the tape for now? It’s in your area. But don’t lose it, dammit, ’cause I want it back. I want this on record. Okay?”
“Sure, Chuck. I’ll get it back for you.” I was surprised. The tape exonerated him from one crime and implicated him in another. Neither of us could know that Colson could be indicted on the basis of that conversation with Hunt, and both of us still wanted to think of ourselves as mere messengers.
In my office, I stewed about how I would bring this unwelcome news to the attention of Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Mitchell. I stared at the Dictabelt record for a long time, turning it over in my hands, trying to figure out what to do with it. Finally I decided to make a copy for myself in case Chuck did ask for it back. I didn’t want anyone to hear it, even my secretary, so I made a crude copy by playing the belt onto a recording machine.
I arranged to meet Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and the next day I was in a White House limousine on my way to Camp David, where everybody was busily consumed with plans for the second term. Walter Minnick, a lawyer on Krogh’s staff, rode with me and described the reorganization that was being mapped out at Camp David. The executive branch would be controlled from the White House. Working for Ehrlichman, Minnick was trying to find a way to implement the plan without having to go to the Congress for approval. I was peeved, though not surprised, that Ehrlichman had excluded me from the legal work, but Minnick was assuming that I knew the details, and I did not disabuse him. The top Administration appointees were being helicoptered to Camp David, one after another, to be briefed about the President’s new tough terms of service. They could keep their jobs only if they agreed to live by the cardinal rule: the White House was to call all the shots.
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