Thanks also to the more than two hundred people who agreed to be interviewed for this book, including Bobby Baker, Bernard Barker, Ben Bradlee, Dwight Chapin, John Dean, Deke DeLoach, Tom Eagleton, Daniel Ellsberg, Lucianne Goldberg, Sy Hersh, Brit Hume, E. Howard Hunt, Marvin Kalb, Howard Kurtz, Melvin Laird, Robert Mahen, Frank Mankiewicz, Robert Mardian, George McGovern, Bill Moyers, Robert Novak, Dan Rather, and Earl Silbert.
Special appreciation goes to those who worked with me to unearth new primary source materials. Attorneys Meredith Fuchs and Kristin Adair of the nonprofit National Security Archive filed a lengthy legal petition on my behalf to declassify Justice Department records, one of dozens of formal appeals that I lodged with the federal government to release historical documents. Archivists Timothy Naftali, Martin McGann, Philip Metzger, Katherine Mollan, Mary Knill, Jean Kornblut, and Rob Reed cut through bureaucratic obstacles to expedite the release of paperwork. Michael Sweeney, Lara Jakes Jordan, and John Richards shared eight thousand pages of FBI files on Anderson and his boss Drew Pearson that they obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Daryl Gibson copied several thousand additional pages of documents, and dubbed dozens of hours of audiotapes from oral history interviews with Anderson and his staff that she recorded for his memoirs in the early 1990s; Dave Lippman patiently transcribed them for me. Tim Chambless provided helpful research notes and photos from his master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation on Anderson, and Tom Blanton, Bill Gaines, James Giglio, John Jenks, Corey G. Johnson, Mary Curry, and Donald Ritchie supplied other archival documents, most usefully Henry Kissinger’s secret phone transcripts. Anderson’s widow Olivia, son Kevin, and daughters Laurie Bruch, Cheri Loveless, and Tanya Neider—along with Anderson legmen Les Whitten, Dale Van Atta, James Grady, Jack Mitchell, Howard Rosenberg, and Marc Smolonsky—provided not only valuable paperwork but acute insight and analysis. And although I do not share their revisionist interpretation of Watergate, writers Len Colodny, Bob Gettlin, and James Rosen generously shared primary research documents, including their raw interview transcripts with key Nixon administration figures.
Transcribing Nixon’s White House tapes proved to be a particular challenge, but I was greatly helped over the years by graduate students at George Washington University who worked as my research assistants: Becky Jorgensen Yeager, Elbert Ventura, Jeremy Holden, Gerard Matthews, Dionella Martinez, and Jillian Badanes, who also tracked down photos for this book. Other students also conducted interviews or research that proved useful: Jacqueline Donohue, Marcie Kohenak, Amy Smith, Erin McCann, Abra Belke, Molly Davis, Joy R. Wolf, Vanessa Maltin, Ariel Morrison, Arden Anilan, Joe Sangiorgio, Dan Fearey, Krista Gaffney, Jennifer Lee, Meghan Riley, Niki Dasarathy, Jane Byrne Bornhorst, Deena Altman, and Andrea Mandell. I am grateful to all, including any whose names I may have inadvertently omitted.
I have been been blessed with patient friends and colleagues who read various versions of the book and offered astute suggestions for improvement: Marc Miller, Susan Edwards, David Greenberg, Debby Leff, Chris Hanson, Michael Zuckerman, Tara Connell, Matthew Dallek, Jack Shafer, Chris Sterling, E. J. Levy, Belle Adler, Stanley Kutler, Tom Bowers, Peter Coclanis, Walter Jackson, Chuck Stone, Peter Kornbluh, Jimmy Potash, Sally Scott, Eric Mandelbaum, Paul Morrison, and the late Phyllis Zinicola, who is missed by the many people who loved her. Two of my readers deserve special mention: Mark Nykanen unflaggingly edited numerous manuscript drafts, combining nuanced criticism with unstinting encouragement to refine both substance and style; and historian Margaret Blanchard, my dissertation advisor and academic mentor, first persuaded me to write this book and nursed it along in its infancy but tragically did not live long enough to see its publication.
Other colleagues and friends have been supportive in a myriad of ways: David Abrahamson, Ed Alwood, Douglas Anderson, Maurine Beasley, Chris Callahan, Jack Cloherty, Allen Dale, Jean Folkerts, Mike Freedman, Amos Gelb, Ted Glasser, Tom Goldstein, James Grimaldi, Kim Gross, Jane Hall, Brant Houston, Mike Hubbard, Mike Isikoff, David Cay Johnston, Carolyn Kitch, Kevin Klose, Marty Koughan, Tom Kunkel, Don Lehman, Chuck Lewis, Jerry Manheim, Lynn Marvin, Al May, David Mindich, Dan Moldea, Pat Phalen, Paula Poindexter, Bill Regardie, Rem Rieder, Yvette Rivera, Steve Roberts, Ricki Seidman, Mike Shanahan, Linda Steiner, Carl Stern, Michael Sullivan, Lee Thornton, Susan Tifft, Pat Washburn, and Steve Weinberg.
The Freedom Forum provided a generous fellowship that enabled me to begin my research and earn a doctoral degree while supporting a family; thanks to Charles Overby, Jerry Sass, Richard Cole, and Mary Kay Blake for making this life-changing opportunity possible. The financial assistance of George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, the Alicia Patterson Foundation, and the Lyndon Johnson Foundation provided necessary support, and I am appreciative to those who made it possible, including Margaret Engel, Lee Huebner, and the late John Hyde.
My literary agent, Alice Martell, has been a loyal champion of this book from the start, combining savvy pragmatism with uncompromising dedication and a wicked sense of humor. I have been equally lucky to have a renowned publisher. Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s Sarah Crichton has been a perceptive editor, experienced and wise, and has made this a better book in large ways and small. Her editorial assistant, Dan Piepenbring, handled the tedious work of acquiring necessary legal rights and steering the manuscript through production. Attorney Henry Kaufman vetted the content, Jeff Seroy and Kathy Daneman directed publicity, Amanda Schoonmaker subsidiary rights, and Ryan Chapman online marketing. John Glusman deserves credit for first seeing the potential in my manuscript proposal. And engineer John O’Leary enhanced the audio quality of Nixon’s White House tapes for the book’s website.
On a personal note, deepest appreciation to my loving family: my father, Alan, who first introduced me to the “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column and taught me the importance of fighting injustice; my mother, Felice, who set an example of compassion for the underdog; my sisters, Rachel, Suzie, and Sarah, and their families, whose unwavering devotion comes wrapped in dark hilarity; my beloved Grandma Bess, whose stories about her childhood brought home the delight that is history; the Sessions family, especially Kathy, Bob, and Julia Sessions, Teresa Kramer, and Carl and Laura Sessions Stepp, who have been supportive for more than two decades; and my children, Beth and Robbie, whom I utterly adore and truly are my unconditional pride and everlasting joy. I love you all.
Finally, a statement of disclosure: I worked for Jack Anderson as a barely paid student intern during the summers of 1973 and 1976. My personal contact with the columnist was minimal—I was too inexperienced and he was too busy for it to be otherwise—but I absorbed the spirit of joyful muckraking that permeated his office, and went on afterward to an investigative reporting career of my own. I hope this familiarity has not compromised my fairness, but that ultimately will be up to the reader to decide.
INDEX
The index that appeared in the print version of this title was intentionally removed from the eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
A
ABC; ABC News; ABC Radio
Abell, Tyler
Aberdeen (S. Dak.) American News
Abernathy, Ralph
Adams, Hank
Adams, Sherman
Agnew, Randy
Agnew, Spiro; Anderson’s attacks on; financial corruption of; news media attacked by; resignation of
AIDS
Ailes, Roger
Air West airlines
Alabama
Alabama, University of
Ali, Muhammad
Allende, Salvador
All the President’s Men (movie)
Alsop, Joseph
American Newspaper Women’s Club
Anderson, Agnes Mortensen
Anderson, Gordon
Anderson, Jack: Agnew and; in
arms-for-hostages cover-up; assassination planned for; attempt to pin Watergate break-in on; bugging by; business entanglements of; Carter targeted by; “Castle” headquarters of; Chappaquiddick scandal and; character and personality of; Chotiner’s temporary alliance with; CIA surveillance of; decline of; defiant, rebellious nature of; desire for limelight of; Donald Nixon and; downtown office of; Eagleton story and; early reporting jobs of; egocentrism of; fear generated by; final years of; friction with Pearson and; graft; hired as Pearson’s “legman”; homosexuality and; Hoover’s sex dossiers revealed; on Hoover’s sexuality; illness and death of; on India-Pakistan War of 1971; informants paid by; ITT-CIA and Allende overthrow plot exposed by; and ITT scandal; JFK relationship with; Jim Crow laws defied by; King wiretapping scandal and; libel issues and; mainstream media’s imitation of; marriage of, see Anderson, Olivia “Libby” Farley; McCarthy and; as Mormon; as Mormon missionary; move to Washington by; in Navy; nine children of; and 1968 Republican Convention; Nixon administration dirty tricks played on; Nixon administration subpoena of phone records of; Nixon administration surveillance of; on Nixon-Hughes relationship; Nixon-Mafia story of; Nixon’s feud with; on Nixon slush funds; on Nixon’s personality; Nixon targeted by; ostracism from elite Washington circles of; Parnell Thomas exposé of; Pearson’s death and succession by; popularity of; populist style of; positive press response to; posthumous rehabilitation of; on power; pseudonym of; Pulitzer Prize won by; push toward the fringe by; Radford as news source of; radio program of; Reagan homosexuality scandal; Reagan’s neutralizing of; salary of; similarities between Nixon and; sources protected by; Sturgis as friend of; temporary acceptance of, by Washington press corps; as unsophisticated; on Vietnam War; Wallace tax exposé by; wartime reporting of; and Watergate grand jury leaks; Watergate investigations by; Watergate opportunities missed by; in World War II
Anderson, Kevin
Anderson, Nils
Anderson, Olivia “Libby” Farley; FBI’s attempts to get Anderson’s files from
Anderson, Orlando
Anderson, Warren
“Anderson Papers”
Annenberg, Walter
anti-Semitism
Armstrong, Scott
Army, U.S.
Ashbrook, John
Associated Press
Austin American-Statesman
B
Baker, Bobby
Baker, Howard
Baker, Russell
Baldwin, James
Bangladesh
Bartlett, Charles
Batista, Fulgencio
Battaglia, Phil
Bay of Pigs invasion
Beard, Dita
Beatles
Beirut
Belafonte, Harry
Bell-McClure Syndicate
Bengalis
Bernstein, Carl
Black, Fred
Boston Globe
Brando, Marlon
Brezhnev, Leonid
Brindle, Jeff
Brinkley, David
Brookings Institution
Brooks, Jack
Brown, Edmund
Brown, Jerry
Bruch, Laurie Anderson
Buchanan, Patrick
Buchwald, Art
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Burr, Aaron
Bush, George H. W.
Bush, George W.; administration of
Buzhardt, Fred
Byrd, Harry, Jr.
Byrd, Robert
C
cable television
California; Nixon as gubernatorial candidate in; Nixon’s departure from; Reagan as governor of
Cambodia
Capone, Al
Carter, Jimmy
Case, Clifford
Castro, Fidel
Caulfield, Jack
Cavett, Dick
CBS Morning News
CBS News
Central America
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Anderson surveilled by; conspiracy to overthrow Allende by ITT and
Chambers, Whittaker
Chapin, Dwight
Chappaquiddick scandal
Checkers (Nixon’s cocker spaniel)
Cheney, Dick
Chicago, Ill.
Chicago Daily News
Chicago Tribune
Chile
China
Chotiner, Murray; Anderson’s temporary alliance with
Chou En-lai
Church, Frank
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, see Mormon Church
Civil Aeronautics Board
civil rights
Clark, Ramsey
Cleveland, Ohio
Clifford, George
Clinton, Bill; impeachment of
Cloherty, Jack
Cohen, Mickey
Cohen, Sheldon
Cohn, Roy
Colson, Charles; Anderson assassination plot and; as born-again Christian; ITT scandal and
Columbia University
Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP)
communism; accusations of, after World War II; and Chile; in China; in Romania; in Soviet Union; in Vietnam
Communist Party, U.S.
Congress, U.S.; Eightieth; see also House of Representatives, U.S.; Senate, U.S.
Connally, John
Constitution, U.S.; First Amendment to; Fifth Amendment to
Cook, Marlow
Corcoran, Thomas
Cottonwood, Utah
Coughlin, Charles
Cox, Archibald
Cronkite, Walter
Cuba
Cuban-Americans; proposed for Anderson assassination plot; as Watergate burglars
D
Dash, Sam
Davidson, Irving
Davis, Lanny
Davis, True
Dean, John; ITT scandals and; Watergate and
“Deep Throat” see Felt, W. Mark
Defense Department, U.S.
Defense Intelligence Agency
DeLoach, Deke
Democratic National Committee; Watergate break-in as targeting
Democratic National Convention of 1968
Democratic Party; FDR and; liberals in; Wallace in; wedge issues and; see also specific elections
Democrats, Anderson’s attacks on
Denton, Sally
Denver, Colo.
Denver Medical Association
Desai, Moraji
Deseret Morning News
Dietrich, Noah
Diplomat National Bank
Douglas, Helen Gahagan
Drudge, Matt
drugs
Dudman, Richard
Duke University Law School
“Dump Nixon” movement
E
Eagleton, Terry
Eagleton, Thomas
Eastern establishment
Eastland, James
Ehrlichman, John; Donald Nixon and; homosexual rumor about Haldeman and; Radford targeted by; Watergate and
Eisenhower, Dwight D.; in election of 1952; in election of 1956
Eisenhower, Julie Nixon
Eisenhower administration
elections: of 1946; of 1950; of 1952; of 1956; of 1960; of 1962; of 1964; of 1966; of 1968; of 1970; of 1972; of 1976
Poisoning The Press Page 57