40. PPPPUS:RN, 1970, 345; Simon, In His Own Image, 99–101; Evans and Novak, Nixon, 165–72. Safire, Before the Fall, 269–71, has an interesting account of the President’s reaction, crediting him with adding the inflammatory language about the Senate. On June 30, 1987, President Reagan’s Chief of Staff and Attorney General met with four senators to discuss a list of possible nominees for a Supreme Court vacancy.
41. Dole to Nixon, April 14, 1970, FG-51, Supreme Court, NCF, NP; Nixon to Haldeman, April 13, 1970, NPF, Box 2, NP; Stewart Interview, April 18, 1970, Fred Graham MS, LC.
42. Jerald F. terHorst, Gerald Ford and the Future of the Presidency (New York, 1974), 123–25; Nomination of Gerald R. Ford to be Vice President, Hearings, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 93 Cong., 1 Sess. (November 15–26, 1973), 619; Becker Interview, December 5, 1985, and Becker to Author, March 28, 1986; Harlow to William Timmons, June 2, 1970, Executive FG-51, Supreme Court, NCF, NP; Murphy, Fortas, 579; Athan G. Theoharis and John Stuart Cox, The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (Philadelphia, 1988), 406; Hoover to Mitchell, August 17, 1970, Douglas Impeachment, FBI Files.
43. Congressional Record (April 15, 1970), 116:11912–17; Legal Materials on Impeachment, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 91 Cong., 2 Sess. (August 11, 1970).
44. Krogh to Ehrlichman, September 24, 1971, Young Papers, Box 17, NP; questionnaire dated October 13, 1971, in FG-51, Supreme Court, NCF, NP. John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power (New York, 1982), 122–39, discussed Supreme Court appointments and stated that the President wanted Ehrlichman to supervise nominations—to take on “the added burden of being Mitchell’s keeper,” as Ehrlichman sarcastically stated. Given the way the Nixon White House worked, Ehrlichman had Krogh devise a plan that Ehrlichman probably then presented to the President—as if it were Nixon’s own idea.
45. Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Pat Nixon: The Untold Story (New York, 1986), 132.
46. Buchanan to Nixon, September 29, 1971, Garment to Nixon, September 30, 1971, Kleindienst to Lawrence Walsh, September 29, 1971, FG-51, Supreme Court, NCF, NP.
47. Dent to Mitchell, June 17, 1969, Dent Papers, Box 1, NP; Nixon to Ehrlichman, June 18, 1969, NPF, Box 1, NP; Simon, In His Own Image, 237; Ehrlichman Notes, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 15, NP; Mitchell Interview, February 9, 1988.
48. Bayh to Nixon, November 4, 1971, FG-51/A, Supreme Court, NCF, NP; William Rehnquist, “The Making of a Supreme Court Justice,” Harvard Law Record, October 8, 1959, 29:10; Ehrlichman Notes, December 18, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 13, NP. During Rehnquist’s 1986 Chief Justice confirmation hearings, senators learned that Rehnquist had proposed a constitutional amendment to validate “freedom of choice” and antibusing schemes to skirt desegregation. He also had denounced the proposed Equal Rights Amendment on the grounds that it would “hasten the dissolution of the family.” NYT, September 9, 19, 1986.
49. Ehrlichman Notes, November 22, 1972, Box 13, NP; March 6, 1973, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 14, NP. Burger remained as Chief Justice until 1986, when he decided—or was prevailed upon—to retire. The Reagan Administration found more government service for him as head of the Bicentennial Commission for the Constitution.
50. Louis Fisher, Constitutional Conflicts Between the President and Congress (Princeton, NJ, 1985), 26; also see Theodore J. Lowi, The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled (Ithaca, NY, 1985).
51. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston, 1982), 88–89; Ehrlichman Notes, March 16, 1973, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 13, NP.
52. Nixon, Memoirs, 1:511.
53. See Safire, Before the Fall, 212–20, for an account of the Lincoln Memorial incident.
54. Nixon to Haldeman, March 2, 1970, NPF, Box 2, NP; Congressional Quarterly Almanac (1969), 25:177–78; ibid. (1970), 26:970.
55. Butterfield to the Cabinet, May 7, 1970, Dent Papers, Box 4, NP.
56. Fisher, Constitutional Conflicts, 157.
57. Nixon to Colson and Haldeman, January 28, 1972, NPF, Box 3, NP; Ehrlichman Notes, December 2, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 13, NP.
58. Congressional Quarterly Almanac (1973), 29:908.
59. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston, 1973), 207; Fisher, Conflicts Between Congress and the Presidency, 115.
60. Nixon to Haldeman, March 12, 1973, NPF, Box 4, NP. Some months later, Treasury Secretary George Shultz indicated his reluctance to carry out such a program. Shultz to Rose Mary Woods, August 16, 1973, NPF, Box 186, NP. Ehrlichman Notes, January 4, 5, 1973, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 14, NP. Nixon, Memoirs, 2:275.
VII: MEDIA WARS
1. William Safire, Before the Fall (New York, 1975), 466; Ehrlichman Notes, March 16, 1973, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 13, NP; Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises (New York, 1962), 69.
2. Herbert G. Klein, Making it Perfectly Clear (New York, 1980), 39–42, 213.
3. Nixon to Haldeman, November 30, 1970, Nixon Papers, Box 2, NP.
4. Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday: The U-2 Affair (New York, 1986), 342; Ron Ziegler and Larry Higby to Nixon and Haldeman, March 14, 1970, Nixon Papers, Box 185, NP; Nixon to Haldeman, March 2, 1970 (two memoranda), NPF, Box 2, NP; Nixon to Haldeman, April 14, 1972, ibid., Box 3; Nixon to Herb Kaplow, July 16, 1972, Nixon Papers, Box 10, NP; Transcript, telephone conversation, Haldeman and James Shepley, January 18, 1971, Haldeman Papers, Box 177, NP.
5. Nixon to Haldeman, January 14, 1971, June 15, 1971, April 14, 1972, NPF, Box 3, NP; Haldeman Notes, September 25, 1971, Haldeman Papers, Box 44, NP.
6. Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (Boston, 1983), 97–102; Nixon to Peter Flanigan, September 22, 1969, NPF, Box 1, NP.
7. Rowland Evans, Jr. and Robert D. Novak, Nixon in the White House (New York, 1971), 409; Ehrlichman Notes, December 8, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 13, NP; William J. Small, Political Power and the Press (New York, 1972), 90–91.
8. Jules Witcover, The Resurrection of Richard Nixon (New York, 1971), 151–52; Timothy Crouse, The Boys on the Bus (New York, 1973), 192, 195; Hart Interview, September 11, 1986; Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913–1962 (New York, 1987), 671–74.
9. Joseph C. Spear, Presidents and the Press: The Nixon Legacy (Cambridge, 1984), 89; Nixon to Haldeman, March 1, 1971, NPF, Box 3, NP.
10. Nixon to Ehrlichman, January 25, 1969, February 4, 1969, February 5, 1969; to Haldeman, February 13, 1969, November 24, 1969; to Ehrlichman, March 11, 1969, NPF, Box 1, NP; Nixon to Haldeman, March 2, 1970, NPF, Box 2, NP.
11. Stanley Karnow, “The Chinese Sayings of President Richard Nixon,” WP, February 29, 1972; Spear, Presidents and the Press, 99–100; NYT, September 10, 1987, for Nixon’s attempt to explain the context of his remarks.
12. Haldeman to Krogh, July 1, 1970, Haldeman Papers, Box 273, NP; Samuel Kernell and Samuel Popkin, Chief of Staff: Twenty-five Years of Managing the Presidency (Berkeley, CA, 1986), 83.
13. Nixon to Haldeman, January 31, 1970, NPF, Box 2, NP; Nixon to Ehrlichman, March 11, 1969, NPF, Box 1, NP; Klein, Making It Perfectly Clear, 126.
14. Robert C. Hilderbrand, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson: The Complete Press Conferences, 1913–1919, vol. 50 (Princeton, 1985), 3, 5, ix–x, xiii.
15. Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The New Deal Years, 1933–1937 (New York, 1986), 35, 43–46, 186–87.
16. Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S Truman, 1945–1948 (New York, 1977), 118–19, 132–33, 163, 165, 175–76.
17. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President (New York, 1984), 52–54.
18. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston, 1965), 716–19.
19. Nixon to Haldeman, January 14, 1971, NPF, Box 3, NP; Nixon to Buchanan, August 23, 1973, NPF, Box 6, NP.
20. Spear, Presidents and the Press, 83–84.
21. Nixon to Ehrlichman, June 16, 1969, NPF, Box 1, NP; Safire, Before the Fall, 353; Spear, Presidents and the Press, 154.
22. Robert H. Ferrell and Howard H
. Quint (eds.), The Talkative President: The Off-the-Record Press Conferences of Calvin Coolidge (Amherst, 1964), 28.
23. Nixon to Haldeman, October 1, 1969, November 24, 1969, NPF, Box 1, January 6, 1970, January 31, 1970, March 2, 1970, NPF, Box 2, NP. The “friendlies list” is dated January 6, 1971: Strachan Papers, Box 3, NP. See Klein, Making It Perfectly Clear, 125–28, for a Higby/Haldeman memo to Klein, September 16, 1970, that directly used remarks contained in the President’s memos to Haldeman. The homosexual story was discovered by a scholar researching FBI files: WP, December 23, 1987.
24. Jeb Stuart Magruder, An American Life: One Man’s Road to Watergate (New York, 1974), 1–56, 97, 90. The memo is published in SSC, Final Report, 267–68.
25. Safire, Before the Fall, 352; Klein, Making It Perfectly Clear, 169–73.
26. Evans and Novak, Nixon, 315–17; Klein, Making It Perfectly Clear, 171–73, Spear, Presidents and the Press, 120–21; Safire, Before the Fall, 353; Haldeman to Nixon, December 1, 1970, Haldeman Papers, Box 48, NP; Price to Nixon, November 13, 1970, NPF, Box 185, NP; Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Pat Nixon: The Untold Story (New York, 1986), 277; Colson to Haldeman, May 20, 1971, Colson Papers, Box 2, NP; Broadcasting, November 20, 1972, 8:2.
27. Spear, Presidents and the Press, 116–17; Klein, Making It Perfectly Clear, 172–75.
28. Spear, Presidents and the Press, 140–43; Klein, Making It Perfectly Clear, 335; Nixon to Haldeman, March 8, 1970, Haldeman Papers, Box 48, NP.
29. Ziegler to Schorr, August 14, 1972, J. Edgar Hoover to Senator Sam Ervin, January 27, 1972, Dean Papers, Box 65, NP; Bob Haynes to Ehrlichman [?], December 17, 1971, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 26, NP; TT, the President and Ziegler, June 4, 1973, HJC, Statement of Information, 9:203–04 (commenting about the March 13, 1973, tape recording); Daniel Schorr, Clearing the Air (Boston, 1977), 80–87.
30. Nixon to Haldeman, March 10, 1973, NPF, Box 4, NP. Shakespeare to Hart, October 16, 1972, Hart to Shakespeare, October 18, 1972, Shakespeare to Hart, November 1, 1972, Salant to Shakespeare, October 19, 1972, Internal Revenue Service to Hart, October 16, 1972. (Materials courtesy of John Hart.) Also Hart Interviews, September 11, 18, 1986. Joe McGinniss, The Selling of the President (paperback ed., New York, 1970), 42–43, 56, discusses Shakespeare’s 1968 comments. Frank Stanton, President of CBS, and Shakespeare had a friendly relationship. Stanton to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 28, 1972, USIA Files.
31. John J. O’Connor, “The TV Antitrust Suits,” NYT, April 17, 1972; Broadcasting, April 17, 1972, 82:21; U.S. v. National Broadcasting Company, et al., U.S. District Court, Central District of California, November 26, 1974; Broadcasting, December 16, 1974, 87:24; ibid. May 12, 1980, 98:29; Klein, Making It Perfectly Clear, 215–16. Hollander Telephone Interview, August 7, 1986. Hollander was a longtime lawyer in the Anti-Trust Division and had served through numerous administrations.
32. Ehrlichman Notes, October 16, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 13, NP; Spear, Presidents and the Press, 150–51.
33. Safire, Before the Fall, 341; Nixon to Haldeman, November 15, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 179, NP; Nixon to Gary Hart, May 11, 1987, in NYT, July 15, 1987.
VIII: “WE SHOULD COME UP WITH … IMAGINATIVE DIRTY TRICKS.” THE WATERGATE BREAK-IN
1. The FBI’s Watergate investigation records contain over 16,000 pages. I have used the Washington Field Office’s first week-reports to follow the Bureau’s activity and the unfolding of salient facts. Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda (New York, 1984), offers the best account of the break-in and a careful reading of the FBI record. The newspaper accounts clearly indicate that reporters had almost immediate access to the FBI reports. The Post’s reporting is ably summarized in Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All The President’s Men (New York, 1974).
2. President’s Daily Diary, NP; Dent Interviews, September 24, October 31, 1986; Jaworski Oral History, Texas Collection, Baylor University, 2:441–43; WP, June 18, 1972.
3. Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (paperback ed., New York, 1979), 2:113; Keating to Gray, June 19, 1972, Gray to Keating, June 22, 1972, FBI Watergate Papers.
4. TT, the President and Colson, June 20, 1972, WP, May 1, 1977; TT, the President and Colson, January 8, 1973 (4:05 P.M.–5:34 P.M.), US v. M, NA. Magruder had a transcript of a tapped telephone call between someone at CREEP and someone else at Democratic headquarters. It is likely that Nixon heard of this. Jeb Stuart Magruder, An American Life (New York, 1974), 229.
5. TT, the President, Haldeman, and Mitchell, June 30, 1971, HJC, Statement of Information, 2:514–16; TT, Dictabelt of President’s recollections of telephone conversation with Mitchell, June 20, 1972, HJC Transcript, William Dixon Collection, SUNY–Buffalo Law Library; Harry Dent, The Prodigal South Returns to Power (New York, 1978), 242. Former Cabinet member George Romney said in 1984 that Martha Mitchell had persuaded John Mitchell to resign because she had learned that CREEP was spending money to help McGovern win the primaries. People, August 6, 1984.
6. James J. Kilpatrick, Washington Star, May 14, 1974; Butterfield Testimony, July 2, 1974, HJC, Testimony of Witnesses, 1:52–53.
7. Nixon to Buchanan, June 10, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 162, NP; Haldeman Background Memo (summarizing notes of meeting with Nixon), October 15, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 48, NP; Ray Price to Ehrlichman, July 25, 1972 (Nixon comment on draft evaders) Haldeman Papers, Box 48, NP; Haldeman Notes (special-interest groups), July 21, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 46, NP.
8. Nixon to Mitchell, February 15, 1972, NPF, Box 12, NP; Haldeman Memo, Haldeman Papers, Box 112, NP. Haldeman’s notes for his meetings with the President during the campaign are in Boxes 46 and 47. His separate files on the campaign remain closed.
9. Dent Interviews, September 24, October 31, 1986; Mitchell Interview, December 30, 1987.
10. Haldeman Memos, June 10, June 20, July 24, July 26, July 24, September 14, June 25, July 26, August 17, September 16, November 6, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 112, NP; Haldeman Notes, September 19, October 15, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 46, NP; Ehrlichman Notes, July 5, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 6, NP. Also see Haldeman Papers, Box 179 for “Presidential Tape Copy of Memos” that link Nixon’s instructions to Haldeman’s memos. For the President’s attention to details, see Haldeman Notes, August 23, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 46, NP; Ehrlichman Notes, July 5, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 12, NP. Nixon, Memoirs, 2:213.
11. Ehrlichman Notes, July 26, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 6, NP; Nixon, Memoirs, 2:144.
12. Nixon to Haldeman and Colson, June 6, 1972, Colson Papers, Box 19, NP.
13. Haldeman Notes, July 10, August 17, September 6, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 46, NP; Ehrlichman Notes, July 6, July 11, July 20, 1972, Ehrlichman Notes, Box 12, NP; TT, Telephone Conversation, Shultz and Ehrlichman, August 25, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 28, NP. Nixon to Connally, July 24, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 162, NP.
14. Haldeman Notes, July 20, August 16, September 11, October 29, October 30, November 1, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 46, NP; Ehrlichman Notes (re Rose Mary Woods and Baker), August 7, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 12, NP; Haldeman Notes, August 16, 1972, Box 46, NP. Theodore White had thanked Nixon for contributing to his book on the 1968 campaign and pledged full support to the President. White to Nixon, June 27, 1969, NPF, Box 188, NP.
15. Joseph C. Spear, Presidents and the Press: The Nixon Legacy (Cambridge, MA, 1984), 178–183, 186; Timothy Crouse, The Boys on the Bus (paperback ed., New York, 1974), 272–73, 238–39, 270–71.
16. Haldeman Memo, October 5, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 112, NP.
17. Haldeman Notes, August 11, October 28, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 46, NP; Spear, Presidents and the Press, 179, 149–50; Broadcasting, October 30, 1972.
18. Nixon, Memoirs, 2:292; 1:614–15.
19. Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1973, October 19, 1962; WP, August 20, 1973.
20. The Senate Select Committee hearings exposed these operations. The best summary can be found in J. Anthony Lukas, Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years
(New York, 1976), Chs. 5 and 6. Gordon Strachan Interview, June 18, 1973, SSC Executive Records, NA.
21. SSC, Final Report, 240–45.
22. Donald Freed, “Gemstone—the Bottom Line,” in Steve Weissman (ed.), Big Brother and the Holding Company (Palo Alto, CA, 1974), 91–105.
23. Arthur Kinoy, Rights on Trial (Cambridge, MA, 1983), Ch. 1; see Chapter V, supra.
24. Helms Interview, July 14, 1988; H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power (New York, 1978), 109, 25–27. Baker’s questions to Director Helms are in SSC, Hearings, 8:3266ff.
25. Nixon to Haldeman, May 18, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 162, NP.
26. Haldeman, Ends of Power, 109, 133–35, 144–47, 159–60, 126.
27. Hougan, Secret Agenda, 10–11, 18–19, 168–78, 211–12, 117–19, 220–23, 264. J. Anthony Lukas dissected and analyzed Hougan’s assumptions and hypotheses in a lengthy review: NYT Book Review, November 11, 1984, 7. When Charles Colson pled guilty on June 3, 1974, he charged that the CIA had “deliberately planted stories” accusing him of criminal involvement.
28. Helms Interview, July 14, 1988; Vernon A. Walters, Silent Missions (New York, 1978), 588–89; Colby Interview, October 9, 1987; William Colby, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA (New York, 1978), 321–28; Silbert Telephone Interview, September 30, 1988. Helms was unhappy with Walters’s implication that he himself had led the way in blocking White House efforts to have the CIA continue to hamper the FBI investigation when, in fact, he operated under clear orders from Helms. Dean corroborated this in SSC, Hearings, 3:945–49. Ironically, Mitchell, whom Nixon, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman had designated as the “fall guy,” believed that the CIA had some role in undermining the Administration in the Watergate affair. Mitchell Interview, December 30, 1987. See Chapter IX, infra, for a discussion of the CIA role in the cover-up.
29. Colson Papers, Box 97, NP; Haldeman, Ends of Power, 19–20, 153–56; NYT, January 24, 1972; Haldeman Notes, July 31, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 46, NP; Ehrlichman Notes, August 7, 30, 1972, Ehrlichman Papers, Box 13, NP; Nixon to Haldeman, January 14, 1971, NPF, Box 3, NP; Haldeman to Dean, January 18, 1971, Haldeman Papers, Box 196, NP; John Dean, Blind Ambition (New York, 1976), 66; Lukas, Nightmare (1988 reprint), vii; Magruder Telephone Interview, December 16, 1987.
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