I did. I had been going at it almost two hours when the phone rang. “It’s for you,” Charlie said. “You can take it outside.”
“That’s okay,” I said, assuming it was Mo. I reached for the phone.
“Mr. Dean, this is the White House operator. You have a call coming through from Air Force One.” Before I could recover enough to tell her to hold until I got to another phone, the Signal Corps operator was giving me the standard military reminder that the call was not on a secured line. Then Higby came on.
“John, this is Larry, do you read me?”
“That’s affirmative,” I answered in Air Force One lingo.
“Be in Wisdom’s office at sixteen hundred hours, for a meeting with Wisdom and Welcome.”
“Okay, Larry, I’ll be there.”
“Over and out.”
I stood at Charlie’s desk for a moment thinking about the call. It was a mixed blessing. I would surely be confronted by Ehrlichman (Wisdom) and Haldeman (Welcome) about my meeting with the prosecutors. That was ominous. On the other hand, that meeting would enable me to end this one before we got into the cover-up.
“That was a call from Air Force One,” I told the curious group. “Haldeman and Ehrlichman want to meet with me at four, so I think we should break this up for now. It’ll take me a while to drive all the way back to town.”
“Air Force One?” asked Glanzer. “They called you from the air?”
“Yeah.”
“How does that work?” he asked, seeming impressed as much by the technology as by the source of the call.
“Well, they send it over the Army’s ground-to-air channels and then route the signal through the White House switchboard,” I replied casually.
“Do they know we’re here?” Silbert asked.
“No, they don’t even know where I am.” I was thinking, however, that I should stop leaving my number with the switchboard, just in case. I didn’t want anyone to stumble on a record of my visits to Charlie.
We agreed to resume the next evening, and I arrived back at the White House just as Haldeman and Ehrlichman were coming in from Andrews Air Force Base. The three of us walked into Ehrlichman’s suite, chatting idly about the weather and President Thieu’s visit. All of us seemed to have inexhaustible reserves of outward calm, I thought. Haldeman must have reported my call instantly. I wondered if I had the guts to tell them I had just met with the prosecutors in spite of his wish to talk to me first. I hoped I could dodge the question if it arose.
Ehrlichman flicked on the lights in his office, picked up the Sunday New York Times and shook his head at the front-page story about how Colson had taken and passed a lie-detector test on Watergate.
“What do you think about Chuck taking a lie-detector test?” I asked.
“Not much,” Haldeman said sourly.
“Well,” added Ehrlichman, “I think Chuck’s more than a match for any lie-detector machine.”
“Maybe so,” I said, “but if this idea catches on, we might all have to take those tests.”
Ehrlichman tilted his head back and looked down at me over his glasses. “Maybe,” he intoned slowly. I took his response as a sign of unruffled displeasure at me for raising disquieting possibilities. Haldeman said nothing and flopped down in a chair, with one leg draped over the arm.
I decided to take the initiative in the conversation in an effort to keep them from grilling me about the prosecutors. “Well, I think you all ought to know that my lawyer’s been having these conversations with the prosecutors, and he says they’re primarily interested in what happened before June seventeenth.”
“Primarily?” asked Ehrlichman. “What does ‘primarily’ mean?”
“Well, they want to find out who authorized the break-in, and they’ll do anything to find out. I think they’re on the trail. One of the things my lawyer has already found out is that Liddy has apparently been doing some talking.”
“Really?” said Ehrlichman.
“Yeah. Apparently he’s been giving them some little explanations off the record, unbeknownst even to his lawyer. I don’t know what he’s said.”
“Very interesting,” Ehrlichman replied, nodding. His face went blank for an instant, registering surprise; then it returned to normal.
“What I mean by ‘primarily,’ John, is that my lawyer says the prosecutors are reviewing things like how we handled evidence of the break-in here at the White House. One of the areas I’m worried about, because it’s obviously very delicate, is this stuff from Hunt’s safe. You know, Gray has opened up that whole FBI area in his goddam hearings, and I don’t know how to handle that when they yank me down there.”
“What do you mean?” asked Ehrlichman.
“Well, they’re going to ask me why we delayed turning that stuff over to the FBI. You know, we’ve talked about this before. I didn’t really know what to do with some of that stuff. And I talked to you about it, and you told me to deep-six that stuff we finally gave to Gray.”
Ehrlichman nodded slowly. “Well, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” he said easily. “They don’t even know about that Gray meeting. I think you can handle it. You can tell them you were making an inventory. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
“Well, maybe so.” I backed off. “But you know, if Liddy is talking, he may well tell them I passed an order to him to have Hunt get out of the country. And that came out of our conversation when Chuck and I were sitting up here that first Monday. And you wanted to know where he was, and I didn’t know, and you thought it might be a good idea, since he wasn’t a felon or anything, for Hunt to take a powder.”
Ehrlichman began shaking his head slowly from side to side. “John, I just don’t remember that.” There was the slightest edge to his voice. I knew he was getting angry. “I’m sorry. I just don’t remember it that way.”
You bastard, I thought. You’ve been forgetting this stuff for several weeks. Self-protection had set in. Ehrlichman was busily forgetting; Haldeman was withdrawn. I paused and then shot back, “Well, anyway, John, if Liddy blows, he can hit us all. He knows about Ellsberg. He knows about the money. He knows about the whole cover-up.”
Haldeman sat up straight. I thought he was going to mediate. “John,” he said to me, “you haven’t told the prosecutors anything about the money, have you?”
“No, Bob,” I replied. I had not gotten into the cover-up with the prosecutors, of course, but I was relieved that Haldeman hadn’t asked whether I had talked with them at all. Ehrlichman and I parried defensively until the meeting broke up.
I went to Charlie’s office the next evening for my second meeting with the three prosecutors. Before they arrived, Charlie gave me a pep talk. I needed it, because we both knew that this session would probably cross the Rubicon into the cover-up. My courage rose and ebbed. I leaned on Charlie for support.
The prosecutors arrived. I took them up through my return from Manila and then skipped to the “Dean investigation,” the President’s August 29 announcement. “Uh, now, that announcement. There is a problem with that announcement,” I said. “I really didn’t make a report to the President, as such.” I stopped, glanced at Charlie’s no-bullshit scowl, and went on. “In fact, there was no report at all. I just picked up a lot of stuff through the summer, but I didn’t report anything to the President. I sure didn’t tell him about those meetings with Liddy, or what I picked up after them.”
“Now, stop a minute, John,” Glanzer interrupted. “I want to get the chronology on this. When did you pick what up? Why don’t you start on the day you got back from Manila and take it day by day?”
I sighed an assent and started through the rash of alarm meetings. I omitted Liddy’s mention of Strachan, without looking at Charlie. Then I sailed truthfully through Ehrlichman’s order to get Hunt out of the country; the tension in the room escalated dramatically at the mention of his name. I went on, picking up a little steam, and didn’t falter again until I got to the June 20 meeting in Mar
dian’s apartment. “… And Mardian told me Liddy said he expected his men to get some financial support. He said it was only fair.” I stopped as I saw Charlie scowl again. “Uh, he said Liddy said we owed support to the defendants.”
“And did you give them any?” Silbert asked.
“No, I didn’t give them any,” I said defensively. I looked at the floor. I didn’t even need to look at Charlie. “Uh, but I started passing messages back and forth, and uh, I helped get them some.” I started shifting back and forth in my chair. It was out.
“Who helped you give them money?” asked Silbert.
“Well, I had a lot of conversations. It didn’t get really bad until after the election, when Colson got this phone call from Hunt, who was demanding money. And I took the demands to Ehrlichman—” I stopped. “And Haldeman, and Mitchell. And they just shuttled me back and forth on who was going to be responsible for paying, and finally we got somebody to help us get some cash—”
“Wait, John,” Glanzer interrupted. “You’re way up in November. I want you to go step by step from June. How did this money thing come up? One day at a time. First, Mardian told you, and then what happened?”
I drew a long breath and went back through the June money meetings. When I finished relating, after many pauses, the first involvement of Kalmbach, and the approval from Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman, Charlie stopped me.
“That’s enough, John,” he said. He got up and stalked around. I sank back in my chair, thankful he was taking over for a moment. Charlie walked back and forth across the room a couple of times before saying anything. His timing was exquisite. Then he addressed the prosecutors, still on the move. “I want to stop here a minute to make sure you guys realize the dimensions of the case you are being handed. Now, don’t sit there like you know what’s going on, because you don’t. You’ve just seen a little peek in the tent. My man has already given you a start on an obstruction case against half the White House staff. When he finishes, you’re going to have enough targets to fill up this whole goddam room. You’ve gotten farther in the last fifteen minutes than you have in the last nine months. Now, I’m telling you my man is a witness, not a defendant. He’s going to come so clean you guys will wish you were taking divorce cases. And now you can see why we are insisting that you don’t report these conversations. They’ll go straight back to the White House, and all those men over there with burdened consciences will cover their tracks before you can get them in. My man is not going to hang out here alone. You owe him that. Now, are you ready for Part Two?”
The prosecutors nodded.
“Go ahead, John,” said Charlie, sitting back down. “Tell them about their FBI director.”
I was back on stage. It was a little easier now that the ice was broken. When my account dragged out late into the night, I called Mo to tell her I was being delayed.
There was no answer. Maybe she’s sleeping, I thought. Shortly after 1 A.M., I tried to reach her again. Still no answer. I called Fred Fielding, who usually stays up late, and asked him to look out the window of his house, behind mine, to see if the lights were on. They were, he reported. I called Mo. No answer after fifteen rings. I called Fielding again and asked him to see if Mo was home. He called back shortly and said the car was in the garage, but no one was answering the doorbell. I was very worried now. Charlie and the prosecutors offered to help. Our secret meetings and the gravity of my revelations had made us all paranoid. I told the group I had to get home as quickly as I could.
I rushed upstairs to find Mo seated in the middle of the bed, looking distraught.
“Is everything okay, sweetheart?” I asked.
“No, it isn’t,” she said curtly.
“What’s wrong?”
“You!”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said: you!” she repeated angrily, and began to cry. I tried to comfort her, but she would have no part of it. I implored her to tell me what was wrong, and she blasted me: “I know what you’re doing. You’re out fooling around.”
“What? You’ve got to be kidding!” I exclaimed in utter disbelief. I told her where I’d been. “Call Charlie yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“I don’t want to talk to Charlie.”
“Well, I’m going to call him now and tell him you’re all right. Why didn’t you answer the telephone?” She didn’t reply. With my own nerves at snapping point, I went downstairs, fixed a strong drink and called Charlie for sympathy. Then I sat back at the kitchen table thinking. I remembered once before when Mo had fallen into such a state of mind, feeling abandoned. She had threatened suicide, and one night she had locked herself in the bathroom, telling me she was going to slit her wrists. I believed her. I had broken the door down at what I figured was the split second that saved her life. Now her security was being threatened again. She was already depressed and getting more so daily. I had to consider the possibility that she was suicidal, and deal with it.
The next day, April 10, I had my last meeting with John Mitchell. I was in no condition for it, but I had no choice. Ehrlichman called me early in the morning. “John,” he said, “before you go see Mitchell, I wanted to let you know he’s been putting a lot of pressure on us not to let you testify. He thinks you can claim some sort of privilege against going to the grand jury, and he wants us to take a stand. Go to court if we have to. Now, we’ve been noncommittal on it. I think it would help if you told him about your duties as a citizen. Feel him out. See if you can move him toward the idea of accounting for his sins.”
I felt the squeeze. I was paying a heavy price for keeping one foot in the White House. Leaning on Mitchell had always been one of Ehrlichman’s ways of using me. “I’ll see what I can do, John,” I replied, “but I don’t think there’s much hope. Mitchell’s living in a kind of dream world right now. He thinks this whole thing’s going to disappear somehow. The incredible thing is that he hasn’t even retained a lawyer. He’s staring into about a dozen gun barrels, and he hasn’t talked to a lawyer yet. I doubt I can budge him.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Ehrlichman. “But see what you can find out and let me know.”
I called Shaffer. “Charlie, Mitchell has insisted on meeting with me, and I can only assume he’s going to make one more try to persuade me not to testify against him. I don’t want to see him, as you can imagine, but I can’t really say no to him. And these guys over here want me to tell him he’s sunk already. I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, you want Mitchell to fess up?”
“Shit, I don’t know anymore. A week ago I would have said yes, you know. That’s the pipe dream over here—that everything will be okay if Mitchell walks the plank. But now that I’ve had my little talks with those folks in your office, we’re beyond that.”
“I’ll tell you what to do,” said Charlie. “You sit right there and don’t do anything until I call you back. I’m going to talk this over with the boys at Justice.”
Charlie was back on the phone within thirty minutes. “They say go ahead, John, and I agree,” he reported. “But don’t tell him exactly how you’ll testify. I don’t want you to do that with anyone. Just feel him out. Don’t give in on anything. I think it would still be good for him to come forward. It wouldn’t hurt you any.”
“Okay, Charlie. I’m going.”
“Hold on a minute. The boys have a lovely proposition for you. They say you can earn a few points for the cause of justice by wearing a wire.”
“Doing what?”
“They’ve got a little hidden microphone they want to put up your sleeve to get Mitchell on tape.”
“That’s what I thought you meant,” I said angrily. “You can tell those guys to go fuck themselves! Jesus Christ, Charlie. It’s hard enough for me to turn on Mitchell. I’ll be damned if I’m going to set him up like some Mafia informant.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say. Don’t worry about it. Just make sure you write up a memo of everything that is said a
t the meeting.”
Mitchell greeted me at the door of his Washington law office at one o’clock. I was struck by how much better he looked than he had, certainly better than I expected under these circumstances. His normal rumpled gray suit had given way to a smart new one with the cut of a Wall Street lawyer’s. His previously chalky complexion had signs of ruddy color.
Mitchell led me over to the sofa and easy chairs in his office. To my surprise, I discovered I didn’t feel nearly as shaken by this meeting as I had felt during our last one. I realized that I had already reached bottom with Mitchell; he knew what to expect from me. There was pain in the air, but no electricity. I felt an air of honorable parting. Both of us, of course, were wearing our usual placid exteriors. We chatted amiably about the balmy weather in Washington as opposed to the lingering cold in New York, until Mitchell opened up the business.
“Any indication when you might be called before the grand jury?” he asked.
“No, not really. My lawyer has been talking with the prosecutors. Thanks to McCord, I’m a target of the grand jury. From what I’ve learned the grand jury is focusing on pre–June seventeenth, which puts me in a very tough spot. John, since I’m surely going to be called before the grand jury someday soon, and they’ll likely ask me whom I’ve discussed my testimony with, I don’t think it’s a very good idea for us to talk over testimony.”
“I agree,” he said. “Have you thought about what might happen if you go before the grand jury and how it might affect the President?”
“Well, I have no intention of getting into my dealings with the President.”
“No, I don’t mean that. I understand that.”
“Yeah, I have thought about my testimony and its implications, and I know it’s a problem and I don’t know exactly what to do. You know, John, when I was up at Camp David I thought about leaving the country. Just taking off. Taking the chicken-shit route and running as fast and as hard as I could so I wouldn’t be a problem for anyone.”
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