In the afternoon meeting Haldeman said he thought that John Mitchell had not known about the break-in plan beforehand. I agreed. For one thing, Mitchell was just too smart to be involved in any such thing. I said that I thought Mitchell had been surprised by it. Haldeman observed that it was true, however, that the men who were caught were supposed to be a pretty competent bunch of people and had been doing other campaign-related things.
Haldeman told me what he had heard about the possible reasons for the break-in. Apparently the arrested men had gone in to repair some electronic equipment that had already been installed but was not working properly, and to take pictures of whatever they found inside. Later he mentioned they had expected to find some financial information about the Democrats.
In subsequent weeks and months I heard many other theories about the reason for the break-in and bugging of the DNC. One was that the men were trying to verify a tip that the Democrats were planning to disrupt our convention by printing counterfeit tickets for distribution to demonstrators; another was that they had been planning to photograph classified documents that were illegally held by the DNC. I heard so many different stories because I asked the same question so many times: Why bug the DNC?
In our conversation that afternoon Haldeman ran through some of the other information he had picked up during the day. Haldeman said that, as he understood it, McCord was going to say that he was working with the Cubans, who had been putting in the bug for their own political reasons. Haldeman told me that Howard Hunt had either disappeared or was in the process of doing so, but he would come back if wanted. Haldeman indicated that the appearance of Hunt’s name in the address books would be explained on the basis of his ties to the Cubans; he told me, as Colson had, that Hunt had been involved in the Bay of Pigs operation while he was in the CIA; in fact Haldeman had learned that one of the Cubans had been Hunt’s deputy for the operation. Haldeman said that our people were making an effort to keep the incident tied to the motive of Cuban nationalism. The problem, of course, was that now, through Hunt, ties to Colson and to the White House were being uncovered. The newspapers had reported that Hunt worked at the White House on projects involving international narcotics intelligence and the declassification of documents. Haldeman said that he was not sure exactly what else Hunt had done; he knew only that it had been based on his prior experience in intelligence. Later in the conversation, he mentioned that Hunt had been involved in the “Diem thing”—our effort to unearth the facts on President Kennedy’s involvement in the coup against President Diem in 1963, a coup that resulted in Diem’s death. I recalled that Colson had alluded to Hunt’s intelligence background.
Haldeman said that as far as the intelligence activities for the CRP were concerned, all of us—including Colson—had known that some were going on. But despite the Hunt connection, Haldeman said that he did not think that Colson had known specifically that the Watergate bugging project was under way. I said I thought he had, but then I said that that was just second-guessing him. Later in the conversation Haldeman, however, reassured me even more strongly about Colson: he said that a check had been made and that he was sure Colson was not involved.
Haldeman reported that my offices in the White House and the EOB had been swept for bugs, and none had been found. Of course, he reminded me, there was our own taping system.
Haldeman said he felt like the whole thing was a nightmare; something like this just doesn’t happen, he said. I agreed. Fortunately, he said, Mitchell had been several steps removed—or perhaps it was unfortunate, because if he hadn’t been so far removed it probably would never have happened. There was always the problem of circumstantial evidence, however, and there was clearly still going to be an effort to try to tie Mitchell in. Haldeman said half jokingly that maybe it would be better if we just said that yes, we were spying on the Democrats and that we had hired McCord to do it because we were scared to death that a crazy man was going to become President and sell the country out to the Communists!
I asked Haldeman how Howard Hunt was involved in the Watergate incident. He said that on the night of the break-in Hunt had been waiting across the street from the Watergate in the motel room from which the bugs were going to be monitored. Haldeman was not sure, however, about Hunt’s relationship to McCord or McCord’s to the Cubans.
I was still confused about just how Hunt’s name had come up, and Haldeman again ran through the story of the address books. He also told me that one of the Cubans had a check from Hunt for about $6.90, payable to Hunt’s country club.
I said that in a sense the involvement of the Cubans, McCord, and Hunt made it appear that it was in fact some kind of Cuban operation. Whatever the case, I saw that a Cuban explanation for the break-in would have two advantages for us: it would protect us from the political impact of the disclosure of the CRP’s involvement, and it would undercut the Democrats by calling attention to the fact that the Cuban community in the United States feared McGovern’s naïve policy toward Castro.
Haldeman mentioned in passing something about the wiretapping and concern about “Liddy’s budget.” He then returned to the problem of the Democrats’ depositions, which, he said, were clearly the toughest thing for us. I expressed my continuing bafflement over the origins of the whole thing. “The Democratic committee isn’t worth bugging,” I said to Haldeman as our conversation on the subject drew to a close.
June 20 had been a full day. I had had an hour session with Ehrlichman on busing and other domestic issues; made several phone calls to members of Congress and the staff; and held a long meeting with Al Haig. As far as Watergate was concerned, as I walked back to the Residence that night I felt confident. My primary concern had been whether anyone at the White House was involved, and Haldeman and Colson had reassured me on that score. Haldeman had been equally reassuring that Mitchell had had nothing to do with it. With these reassurances, I was ready to go on the offensive.
That evening I called John Mitchell. We talked for about four minutes and I recorded what he told me in a brief diary note I made later that night: “He is terribly chagrined that the activities of anybody attached to his committee should have been handled in such a manner, and he said that he only regretted that he had not policed all the people more effectively . . . in his own organization.”
On the phone Mitchell sounded so embarrassed by the whole thing that I was convinced more than ever that it had come as a complete surprise to him. He also sounded completely tired and worn out.
After talking with Mitchell, I called Haldeman. When both he and Colson had mentioned the Bay of Pigs that afternoon, they had stimulated my thinking, and I told him about my new idea for handling the public relations aspect of the Watergate incident. I suggested that if the Cuban explanation for the break-in actually caught on, I would call Rebozo and have him get the anti-McGovern Cubans in Miami to start a public bail fund for their arrested countrymen and make a big media issue out of it. If they used it to revive the Democrats’ inept handling of the Bay of Pigs and to attack McGovern’s foreign policy ideas, we might even make Watergate work in our favor.
I worked in the EOB office that night until nearly 11:30. I took some of the time to bring my diary up to date. After recounting the day’s events, I closed with this note: “I felt better today than I have really for months—relaxed and yet able to do more work than even we usually do with far more enthusiasm.”
Watergate was an annoying problem, but it was still just a minor one among many.
In our conversation on Wednesday morning, June 21, Haldeman told me that Gordon Liddy was “the guy who did this.” I asked who Liddy was, and Haldeman said he was the counsel for the finance committee at CRP, When I said I thought McCord was the man responsible for the break-in, Haldeman said no, it was Liddy; we didn’t know what McCord’s position was, but everyone seemed to think he would hang tight.
Ehrlichman had come up with the idea of having Liddy confess; he would say he did it because he wanted to be a hero
at the CRP. This would have several advantages: it would cut off the Democrats’ civil suit and minimize their ability to go on fishing expeditions in the depositions connected with it; it would divert some of the press and political attacks by establishing guilt at a low level instead of letting it be imputed to a high one; and finally, since all the arrested men felt that Liddy had been in charge, once Liddy admitted guilt it wouldn’t matter what else they thought because everything would tie back to Liddy. Then, Haldeman said, our people would make an appeal for compassion on the basis that Liddy was a poor misguided kid who read too many spy stories.
I said that after all this was not a hell of a lot of crime and in fact if someone asked me about Ziegler’s statement that it was a “third-rate burglary,” I was going to say no, it was only a “third-rate attempt at burglary.” Haldeman said the lawyers all felt that if Liddy and the arrested men entered a guilty plea they would get only fines and suspended sentences since apparently they were all first offenders.
I said I was for Ehrlichman’s plan. We had to assume the truth would come out sooner or later, so if Liddy was the man responsible, he should step up and shoulder the blame. My only reservation, I said, would be if this would involve John Mitchell—in that case I didn’t think we could do it. A day earlier Haldeman seemed certain Mitchell was not involved. Now he was not so reassuring. He had already told me that Mitchell was concerned about how far the FBI’s investigation was going and thought that someone should go directly to the FBI and get it turned off. Haldeman said, too, that Ehrlichman was afraid that Mitchell might be involved. When Haldeman had all but put the question directly to Mitchell when they had talked earlier that morning, he had received no answer; so he could not be sure whether Mitchell was involved or not. He indicated that Mitchell had seemed a little apprehensive about Ehrlichman’s plan because of Liddy’s instability and what might happen when Liddy was really put under pressure. In any case, he said, Ehrlichman had just developed the plan that morning, and everyone was going to think about it before anything was done.
I still believed that Mitchell was innocent; I was sure he would never have ordered anything like this. He was just too smart and, besides, he had always disdained campaign intelligence-gathering. But there were two nagging possibilities: I might be wrong and Mitchell might have had some involvement; and even if he had not actually been involved, if we weren’t careful he might become so circumstantially entangled that neither he nor we would ever be able to explain the truth. Either way, I hoped that Liddy would not draw him in. I said that taking a rap was done quite often. Haldeman said that we could take care of Liddy and I agreed that we could help him; I was willing to help with money for someone who had thought he was helping me win the election.
I never personally confronted Mitchell with the direct question of whether he had been involved in or had known about the planning of the Watergate break-in. He was one of my closest friends, and he had issued a public denial. I would never challenge what he had said; I felt that if there were something he thought I should know, he would have told me. And I suppose there was something else, too, something I expressed rhetorically months later: “Suppose you call Mitchell. . . and Mitchell says, ‘Yes, I did it,’ ” I said to Haldeman. “Then what do we say?”
We also talked about the White House side of the problem that morning. I said that I was concerned about what I thought was a bad rap the White House was getting because of the fact that Hunt had worked for Colson. I asked again about whether Haldeman thought Colson was involved, and Haldeman said that as nearly as anyone could be convinced of anything, he was convinced Colson was not.
Haldeman said that what he considered to be the real problem for the White House had nothing to do with the Watergate break-in itself, but concerned what he called “other involvements”—things that an investigative fishing expedition into the break-in could uncover and exploit politically. That was what made the Democrats’ civil suit the biggest problem for the White House. Hunt had done a lot of unrelated things for Colson that could be uncovered in the kind of freewheeling legal depositions the Democrats clearly had in mind. I knew that Colson’s major project in the last several months had been ITT; I asked Haldeman what he meant—the declassification of papers, or ITT? Haldeman identified Hunt as the man who had gone to Denver and talked to Dita Beard during the ITT investigation. He said there were apparently other “fringe bits and pieces” that would come out if Hunt was called. At one point he said that this was why it was important for us not to overdefend Colson and for Colson not to overreact: he was clean on the bugging, but vulnerable on his other connections with Hunt. Haldeman said that Hunt’s political connection was the reason it was felt he should disappear. He also said that this was another reason for getting to the FBI: as of now there was nothing that put Hunt into the case except his name in the address books.
At the end of our discussion I came back to the frustrating situation concerning the break-in. I told Haldeman that it seemed that the Democrats had been doing this kind of thing to us for years and they never got caught. Haldeman agreed that the Democrats always seemed to get off easier. He said the press just never went after them the way they went after us. Later in the day, I said that every time the Democrats accused us of bugging we should charge that we were being bugged and maybe even plant a bug and find it ourselves!
When I saw Colson that afternoon, we talked about the morning’s press coverage of the break-in, and about the McGovern campaign. Thinking ahead to my press conference scheduled for the next day, I came back to the break-in and observed that taking it at its worst we could at least knock down strongly the idea that the White House was involved. “We didn’t know a goddamn thing about it,” I said. The conversation ranged over several other topics and then came back to Watergate. I asked Colson what he thought about the plan to have Liddy take the rap and then just cut our losses. He said that he would be for anything that would cut our losses and get us out of it. But, he added, he was deliberately staying out of the whole thing so that he could make an honest affidavit that he knew nothing about it.
Colson again defended his friend Howard Hunt, calling him “a dedicated patriot.” He just could not believe that Hunt had engineered the Watergate break-in.
On the morning of Thursday, June 22, I reviewed the briefing material for my press conference that afternoon. Ziegler and Buchanan had written me a memo warning that the reporters were pushing to escalate the break-in story and would try to force me to make a comment that would keep the story alive: Nixon Concerned or Nixon Calls for Investigation was the kind of headline they were after. It would be important for me to strike the right balance in what I said about the break-in; showing too little concern would cause as bad a news story as showing too much. There was not much more for me to say. Mitchell had already said that such activities could not be condoned and that he was surprised by them; and Ziegler had already issued a statement on Colson’s behalf denying Colson’s involvement.
When I saw Haldeman, I predicted that the main Watergate question at the press conference would be whether there was any White House involvement. I knew that the reporters would pounce on any modifiers or qualifiers in my answer, so I thought I should just state unequivocally that there was no involvement whatever. Haldeman said he thought that on the direct basis of White House involvement, we were absolutely clean.
He said that the day’s Watergate news was all good. For one thing, the Democrats had made a legal mistake by filing a class action suit against the CRP. The Democratic judge who would have heard the case had been replaced by a Republican judge. When the lawyer for the Democrats, Edward Bennett Williams, had insistently demanded immediate depositions, the judge had said that he would meet with him after the weekend to make decisions about the timing.
Further good news was the fact that the FBI still had no case on Howard Hunt. We knew that he had been at the scene, but they did not. Haldeman said that the FBI had no warrant out for him and therefore d
id not care whether he had disappeared. The final good news was that the FBI could not trace the hundred-dollar bills that the break-in crew had been carrying the night they were arrested. This was good news, because the money was another route by which the break-in could be tied to the CRP. The FBI had got only as far as a Miami bank, and Haldeman said that they would evidently have to go through a South American country in order to trace it finally.
As of June 22, then, the situation provided at least some grounds for hope. The Cuban explanation for the break-in was still holding, and the issue was thoroughly confused. Haldeman said there would continue to be an effort to crank up the Cuban story. He observed that because of what we knew we tended to read too much into what we saw—things that others could not see.
I said that the main thing was what the networks would be doing if they thought they had something on the White House or the CRP. The Cubans were not much of a story, but the networks, I said, would “play it to beat hell” if they thought they had something on us.
Haldeman said that it was being arranged that some members of the Cuban community would start to say how scared they were of McGovern. They were also getting out the fact that two of the arrested men were registered Democrats. He said that there was even some thought of having Liddy leave the country. The FBI was not after him now, and he could come back if something on him surfaced—for instance, if some of the men in jail decided to talk. In the meantime, Haldeman said, McCord would stay in jail and keep an eye on the others. Later that afternoon I called Ron Ziegler into my office and asked him what he thought I should say about the bugging incident. Then I looked up over my glasses and asked, “Were you there?”
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