“Sure. It went to Ehrlichman, then to the President. I guess one of them made the addition.”
“Thanks, Len. That’s what I figured.”
Fielding walked in, curious, like most people, about the no-immunity position. “What was that bit all about?” he asked.
“Well, Freddie, that’s a message to me from the leader of the Western world, who is in the clever hands of John Ehrlichman.”
“How so?”
“Well, the President thinks I won’t talk without immunity from prosecution. He thinks he can scare me back into the fold. But he’s wrong. I don’t have any choice now. It looks like the President is choosing his team, and it’s going to be me against the big guys. How would you like to be White House counsel?”
“That’s not funny.”
“I know. Listen, Fred, I’m not going to come in to the office tomorrow. I don’t want to be around here, and I haven’t been too much help to you anyway.”
I called Jane in, and together we gathered a boxful of Watergate press clippings. I needed the clippings to help trigger my memory. Charlie was urging me to begin preparing a detailed chronology of everything I knew—dates and statements I could swear to. The task intimidated me. As I drove home, I decided I would drink that night and begin in the morning.
The President’s statement renewed press interest in me, and my house was again staked out in full force. Reporters stayed near my door round the clock. A few had seen Mo leave a day earlier on a trip to Florida. I had devised an elaborate route to avoid the press corps and camera crews—I would slip in and out the back of the house, across a small alley running behind the row of town houses, and through Fred Fielding’s house.
I felt like a prisoner in my home the next day. My only link with the outside world was the telephone. Charlie and I spoke frequently. We were both in low spirits. In one particular call on April 18, he drove in another nail.
“John, I’ve just gotten a report from Glanzer,” he said. “It’s fourth-hand information, but it’s serious. The President just told Petersen that you told him you already have immunity. At least that’s what Petersen’s telling Glanzer. You didn’t say that, did you?”
“Hell, no, I didn’t. When am I supposed to have said that?”
“Sunday night, when you gave the P your little impeachment warning.”
“Goddammit, Charlie, the President’s lying. I didn’t tell him I had immunity. And I wouldn’t have told him so even if I did have it. Hell, I was being the good guy that night. I was telling the President I would face the music along with Haldeman and Ehrlichman.”
“That’s what I thought. But Glanzer says the P claims to have you on tape. He says he can prove you said you have immunity.”
“Shit! I thought he might be taping me that night. I even looked around for the recorder. I tell you what, Charlie. You send word back to Petersen to ask for that tape. I guarantee you he’ll never get it. But if he does, what the President says on there will burn Henry’s ears off.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Charlie. “I’ll pass it to Glanzer.”
“No matter what, I didn’t say that to the President, Charlie. Why do you think he would tell Petersen I did?”
“Well, I’ll tell you, John. My guess is that the President didn’t clear his no-immunity statement with Petersen. It probably pissed Petersen off, because it’s direct interference in the prosecutor’s business. It robs Petersen of a way to force testimony. I think the P was trying to justify his statement.”
“Maybe so. And he got to call me a liar in the process.”
“Yep. For a guy who you say is sometimes a little loose upstairs, he looks pretty clever to me.”
“I’ll tell you something, Charlie. I’ve been thinking that maybe I should go public with something. Maybe I should let them know I’m not going to take this lying down. What do you think about a little statement to the newspapers that I refuse to be the scapegoat?”
“I doubt if you want to do that, John. You’ll sure as hell burn your bridges if you do that. You could never get back in their good graces.”
“What the hell difference does that make? Look, in the last few days the President’s tried to make me confess, blocked my chances of getting immunity, and called me a liar. I’m not going to be his buddy again no matter what.”
“Okay, okay. I was just testing you. You’re the one who keeps hanging on to the idea that the P won’t screw you. You’re the one who keeps thinking the President deserves your loyalty.”
“I know, Charlie. I’ve been thinking about that too. You know, I’ve always kind of laughed at the people I’ve seen leaving the White House. No matter what they say, it always rips them up. They come back begging for mess privileges and invitations and stuff like that. They just can’t let go. Now I know how they feel. But I’ll tell you, Charlie, what I’m hanging on to is this: I still think the President’s interests and my interests lie in the same direction. Even if we don’t think much of each other personally. If he lines up against me with Haldeman and Ehrlichman, I think he’s in big trouble, and I know I will be. Now, I see only two reasons why he’s doing it. One is that Haldeman and Ehrlichman have him by the balls so tight that he doesn’t have any choice. If that’s true, nothing I do will make any difference. But the other possibility is that Ehrlichman and Haldeman have him convinced that he can run over me. If that’s the reason, maybe a little public notice might do some good.”
“Okay, John. I never like to have my clients in public, but maybe you’re right. Talk to McCandless about it. Just make sure you don’t say anything specific in there about your testimony. Be general, but pretend you’re mean and tough like me.” Charlie laughed. “I’m going to call old Seymour back just to hear his voice when I tell him to go after that tape.” *
I called Bob McCandless. He had come onto my legal team when Tom Hogan had been forced to drop out, and he was a good public-relations man. We worked over a number of drafts of a statement until we were both satisfied. I dictated it to Jane the next morning and instructed her to phone it to the wire services, the Washington Post, and the Washington Star. The message was in the last two sentences: “Finally, some may hope or think that I will become a scapegoat in the Watergate case. Anyone who believes this does not know me, know the true facts, nor understand our system of justice.” McCandless said it was a little stilted, but I told him I was still counsel to the President and I had my airs. The statement made headlines, and I received signals from the White House that it had made me a permanent persona non grata and the object of the nastiest possible epithets.
The next evening, April 20, I went home late from Charlie’s office. We had discussed the possibility of dealing with the Senate Watergate Committee, whose chief counsel, Sam Dash, was anxious to meet with me. Reporters were still all around my house, so I had to go home through Fred’s. He invited me to stop for a drink.
“Be careful what you say, because I’m worried that my phone might be bugged,” Fred said.
“Hell, I assume mine is bugged, and what they’re hearing they should find very thrilling. I just came from Charlie’s office, Fred. He’s concerned about my life, afraid someone might like to eliminate me from the scene. Can you believe that? Charlie doesn’t scare easy. He prosecuted Jimmy Hoffa.”
Fred looked incredulous. “Why would you fear for your life?”
“Because of what I know—” Fred pointed to the telephone, reminding me of his concern that his house was bugged. Our paranoia made us speak in hushed tones. “Freddie, do you have any idea where this thing might lead?”
Fred shook his head and reached for a piece of paper on a nearby table. I took a pen from my coat pocket and wrote the answer to our shared question: “Impeachment of the President.” I passed the note to Fred.
“Enough facts?” he wrote.
“Probably so.”
“Are you sure you want the historic responsibility for that?”
“No! But I know enough to cause it.
”
“So be it!” Fred wrote. We stared at each other for a moment as we sipped our drinks, and then we stared at the crumpled note, which Fred had ignited and put in the ashtray. We watched it burn.
With Mo still in Florida, and Charlie pushing me to remember more and more details, I began working late into the night. Saturday, April 21, I worked particularly late, drinking even more than my usual generous quantity of alcohol. I figured I’d sleep off a hangover, and believed the Scotch was loosening up my memory. That night I had recalled in detail most aspects of the cover-up that had been instituted to prevent the FBI from discovering the Ellsberg break-in. About 4 A.M. I went to bed, leaving my clothes heaped in the middle of the floor and piles of papers spread about on the easy chairs in our bedroom.
It seemed I had been asleep only minutes when the phone rang. With the shades drawn and the blackout draperies pulled, I had no idea it was eight in the morning. I tried to ignore the phone’s ring, but it didn’t stop. The phone was across the bedroom, buried under papers in one of the easy chairs. I rolled out of bed stark naked, made my way across the room, dug through the nest and picked up the phone.
“Yes,” I hissed in a tone that fit my mood.
“Mr. Dean, it’s the President. Please hold on,” the operator said before I could say anything. I felt awful: my head was pounding, my mouth tasted and smelled as bad as the brimming ashtray I noticed when I turned on the lamp.
“Good morning, John.” The President’s deep, familiar voice was chipper. “I’m just calling to wish you and your wife a happy Easter.” I was still dazed. The President calling me? To wish me happy Easter? I sat down and found a place for the phone in the pile of papers on the ottoman as he continued, “It’s a lovely day here in Florida for Easter services.”
“Oh, uh, fine. Happy Easter to you, too.” This was too confusing, particularly in the condition I was in. Days earlier he had been asking me to resign and I had refused. I had issued my scapegoat statement and had managed to piss off almost everybody in the White House. Now the President was calling me to wish me happy Easter? Given the way I felt after too little sleep, wondering if my pounding head was from an internal hemorrhage, the next thought that came to me seemed logical: I wondered if anyone had ever said to him, “Mr. President, I think you’re full of shit!”
The President must have sensed something in my mood; he stepped in to stroke. “John, I just want you to know you’re still my counsel.”
“Uh, well, uh, thank you, Mr. President.” He was looking for my loyalty charge, and he ignited it. He was being loyal to me, I certainly wanted to be loyal to him. As we talked, it seemed as if nothing had happened. He asked my advice. We talked about immunity laws. Then I added, thinking about his April 17 statement on immunity, “Mr. President, I think you should talk to Henry Petersen about obstruction of justice and the statement you issued. You should be very careful, sir.”
“Oh, I will,” he assured me, and the brief conversation ended as he talked of having to get ready to go to church. “Well, have a nice day, John.”
“Thank you, Mr. President, I hope you have a nice day, also.”
This was my last conversation with Richard Nixon. I climbed back into bed and thought about it. Was it really a stroking call, or did he still consider me his counsel? Then I felt ashamed of my thought about telling him he was full of shit; that was not the sort of thought one had about one’s President. A spark of hope was left to me: the President was really telling me that he knew I was right, that the cancer had to be cut, that he would do it.
This hope lasted only a couple of days. I called Len Garment again—he was my last link to the President—and urged him to take my arguments to Nixon without mentioning my name. Len said he agreed with me and would do so, but that the signs were adverse. Whatever else happened, it appeared that the President would try to make me responsible for the cover-up. A campaign to discredit me was gearing up.
Newspaper stories with the White House line began appearing. On Thursday, April 26, columnist Jack Anderson presented a comprehensive version to his readers in nearly six hundred newspapers. It was a thumbnail defense of the White House, a broadside against me and a foreshadowing of what was to come. Anderson spelled it out:
Our sources state flatly that Dean used his authority to obstruct the FBI and to keep incriminating evidence from the Justice Department. He even ordered Hunt out of the country. White House aide Charles Colson, according to one source, exploded: “Do you want to make the White House an accessory to a fugitive from justice?”
One of the President’s closest advisers, John Ehrlichman, wanted to put out a statement acknowledging Magruder’s role in the Watergate conspiracy. This was vigorously opposed by Clark MacGregor, who succeeded Mitchell as campaign chairman.
A few Presidential advisers, including Ehrlichman, and Colson, warned the President in February that the Watergate decisions must have been approved by Mitchell and Dean. Mr. Nixon replied that both had denied any involvement and asked for proof.
By mid-March, the President’s faith in Dean began to waver. He ordered Dean to Camp David to write a belated report on his Watergate investigation. After a few days at the Presidential retreat, Dean reported back to the President that he simply couldn’t write a report. Angrily, Mr. Nixon took Dean off the Watergate case.
Colson, meanwhile, took a lie detector test to prove his innocence. Dean was furious. “Now, we’re all going to have to take one,” he grumped.
Colson and Ehrlichman also put together information that (1) Dean had advance knowledge of the Watergate bugging; (2) Dean had ordered Hunt out of the country; and (3) Dean had authorized payments to the Watergate defendants to keep their mouths shut. On Friday, April 13th, Ehrlichman confronted Dean with the charges.
This view of reality was so contorted that I didn’t know where to begin to refute it. Ehrlichman and Colson had obviously cooked up the story and fed it to Anderson. I knew that both had lines into him and it was what I expected from Ehrlichman and Colson, a skillful job. But as jaded as I had become about politics, I was surprised that Jack Anderson, famous Nixon enemy and Watergate sleuth, was offering up the versions of two prime targets in the case without qualification. He offered no hint that Colson or Ehrlichman was his source and opened with a flourish: “The astonishing story can now be told how the Watergate cover-up suddenly tore apart at the stitches.” What a whore, I thought bitterly—he was taking all the sides, playing to power like everybody else in town.
A few days later, Charlie called to inform me that I had been subpoenaed to appear before a New York grand jury which was then investigating the dealings of John Mitchell and Maurice Stans with international swindler Robert Vesco. Charlie and I joked that I might be the first person ever summoned who was actually happy about it—the Vesco case would take my mind off Watergate. We left for New York full of black humor about how things could not get worse, but on Monday, April 30, they did. Jane called from my office while I was in the U.S. attorney’s office at the New York Federal Courthouse. The two prosecutors who were grilling me asked if I wanted to take the call privately. Not necessary, I said.
Jane sounded shaken. “John, there’s a story on the wire services that you’ve been fired. Fred says it’s true.”
“Thank you, Jane. Don’t you worry. You’ll be able to stay at the White House. I’ll call you later and talk to you about it. But don’t you worry.” I hung up and turned to the two prosecutors. Charlie had gone out to get us all lunch. “Well,” I told them, “I have just learned I’ve been fired by the President.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” one of them said sincerely. “Would you like to take a break for a while?”
“No, I’m fine. Let’s proceed.” And we did. They were surprised, both at what had happened and at my lack of reaction. I had expected it. But I did not expect the speech Nixon would give on television that night.
Charlie and I were staying at the Waldorf-Astoria, at his request, until I r
ealized I was paying the bills. It was our last stay at the Waldorf. When Charlie asked me what the President would say on television, I wanted to believe that somehow he would do the right thing. I should have known he could not. He felt the need now to cover up his own involvement in the cover-up.
I was psyching myself up for what I knew was ahead, beginning to want to dislike the President as I’d never been able to in the past. When he announced the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman, “the two finest public servants it has been my privilege to know,” I steeled myself. He removed Kleindienst with faint praise. Then he shoved a ten-word sentence into me, twisted it with a brief pause, and quickly stepped away so that all could see whom the President had stuck it to: “The counsel to the President, John Dean, has also resigned.”
“That’s what loyalty earns you, Charlie,” I said.
“Yeah, I see. You don’t have to wear that suit anymore,” my lawyer and now friend answered.
“I may not be able to afford any suit any longer,” I said miserably. “And I don’t even think I’ll be able to afford you, Charlie. I think I have just gone down the tube.”
“Cut it out, John,” Charlie rebuked me. “I don’t want to hear any talk about my fees. You know damn well I’m with you on this one, and we’re not licked yet. There’s one good thing about that statement. Haldeman and Ehrlichman went, too. Nobody’s going to believe that the President fired his two closest and most powerful aides unless there were some pretty heavy guns trained on them. I don’t care how many flowers he tossed them. The fact that he got rid of them is pretty damn strong evidence that you are telling the truth.”
“That may be, Charlie, but he’s thrown in with them on the cover-up. It’s still going on and I’m out there alone in the gutter.”
“Except for me,” Charlie insisted.
I called Mo. It had to be rough having your husband fired on national television. She was distressed, but not about the speech she had just heard.
“John, why didn’t you call Jane back? She’s frantically trying to reach you.”
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