RN

by Richard Nixon

  My extensive diary notes from June 21 to June 30 are predominantly about foreign policy, domestic issues, campaign planning, and personal and family observations. On June 30, the night before I left for California, I dictated a brief reflection about where we stood on Watergate:

  Diary

  The major problem on the Watergate is simply to clean the thing up by having whoever was responsible admit what happened. Certainly I am satisfied that nobody in the White House had any knowledge or approved any such activity, and that Mitchell was not aware of it as well.

  It was in these days at the end of June and the beginning of July 1972 that I took the first steps down the road that eventually led to the end of my presidency. I did nothing to discourage the various stories that were being considered to explain the break-in, and I approved efforts to encourage the CIA to intervene and limit the FBI investigation. Later my actions and inactions during this period would appear to many as part of a widespread and conscious cover-up. I did not see them as such. I was handling in a pragmatic way what I perceived as an annoying and strictly political problem. I was looking for a way to deal with Watergate that would minimize the damage to me, my friends, and my campaign, while giving the least advantage to my political opposition. I saw Watergate as politics pure and simple. We were going to play it tough. I never doubted that that was exactly how the other side would have played it.

  I would have preferred to tell the story of these days as they really happened, with Watergate discussions of thirty and forty minutes interspersed among hours of conversations, deliberations, and decision-making on the whole range of interesting, boring, important, and insignificant matters that fill the days of a President. Instead perspective has been sacrificed to clarity, and several complex dimensions have been reduced to a single comprehensible one. Yet all the discussions about Watergate that took place during the week after the break-in totaled no more than a small fraction of the more than seventy-five hours I spent in the office and working at home. I have sometimes wondered whether, if we had only spent more time on the problem at the outset, we might have handled it less stupidly.

  Martha Mitchell was vivacious and pretty in a flamboyant, self-amused way. She was flirtatious, determined to be outrageous, and bound to dominate any room she entered. When I first met her I thought that she might indeed be “the only fun that poor man has,” as she later described herself. The man was her husband, who kept a watchful eye to protect her, smiled at her antics, and never seemed to let anything ruffle his calm exterior.

  After the election, when Mitchell resisted my request that he come to Washington as Attorney General, I was sure that concern about Martha was behind his reticence. Finally I broached the matter directly with him. I said that I thought Washington might be just what Martha needed. The limelight and attention surrounding his position would give her confidence and do her good. He was skeptical, but in the end he agreed.

  I was both right and wrong in my judgment. Martha blossomed like a sweep of azaleas in Washington. She was excellent news copy, and she cultivated a reputation for saying exactly what she thought by saying exactly what she thought. Before long she was a national celebrity. Her lively originality made her much sought after for television shows and party fund-raisers. At one point she had a phenomenally high 76 percent national recognition factor in the Gallup poll. Her constituency consisted of those who actually liked her opinions, those who liked the fact that she spoke out, and those who enjoyed the fact that she must be causing embarrassment to Mitchell and me. I knew she was not always in complete control of herself, and sometimes that worried me. But I kept such worries to myself because I did not ever want Mitchell to feel uncomfortable with me because of her.

  Although Martha enjoyed great popularity and success in Washington, her troubles remained, and she was frustrated and tormented by emotional problems she could neither understand nor control. As early as March 1971 Bebe Rebozo had confidentially raised with me the fact that Mitchell was having increasing difficulty with Martha. One day at Key Biscayne, I asked Rebozo why Mitchell put up with her. He said that he had once asked Mitchell the same question, and he had replied simply, “Because I love her.”

  In the past there had been long bouts of crying and hysterics. Now, with Watergate, there was talk of suicide.

  John Mitchell had been exhausted and drained by the ITT attack. Now he was trying to run a presidential campaign amidst the worries and distractions of the Watergate publicity. In the two weeks after the break-in, Martha began a new series of phone calls to the press, saying that she had given her husband ultimatums to get out of politics and insisting that she was a “political prisoner.” She drew added suspicion to Mitchell when she said, “I love my husband very much but I’m not going to stand for all those dirty things that go on.”

  “He can’t cope with this,” Haldeman told me. Billy Graham called Rose Woods to see if there was anything he could do to help. But we did nothing because we knew that Mitchell would have resented it. He would say that it was his problem, and he must deal with it himself. Only once in a low moment did he break down and confide to Haldeman, “You and the President don’t realize how much time I have to spend keeping her on an even keel—or how much it’s affected my ability to run the campaign.”

  I felt that some members of the press deliberately exploited Martha Mitchell during this period. Months later it would become clear to all that her wild claims that she had a manual containing procedures for the Watergate break-in and that she herself knew all the details were simply ploys to get attention. But even at the time it was obvious to those who came into contact with her that she had very serious emotional problems. Nonetheless, many reporters encouraged her to further excesses, primarily, I felt, because they thought that by doing so they were tightening the screws on Mitchell. By the end of June I was reluctantly beginning to think that Mitchell would have to leave the campaign.

  I considered John Mitchell to be one of my few close personal friends. I believed that I owed my election as President in 1968 largely to his strength as a counselor and his skill as a manager. I had referred to him as one of the few indispensable men, and that was how I felt about him. The thought of losing his help was bad enough. The thought of his having to resign under pressure amid a barrage of controversy and negative publicity was very hard for me to accept. But the combination of having to fend off Watergate publicity and having to take care of Martha would inevitably distract him too much from important campaign tasks.

  I had no illusions that Mitchell’s departure would put an end to our Watergate problems. It would take much more than that. On June 26, when Haldeman and I were discussing this, he ventured that the only way to put an end to Watergate would be to hang the blame directly on Mitchell. “I won’t do that to him. To hell with it,” I said, “I’d rather lose the election.”

  Even as I had begun to think that Mitchell would have to resign, Mitchell was coming to the same conclusion himself. In personal terms, he saw that there was no other choice, and in typical Mitchell style, instead of bringing us a problem to solve, he came to us with a solution. On June 29 he met with Haldeman and told him that Martha’s condition was very serious. She could not cope with the criticism he was getting on Watergate, and he was afraid she would harm herself. Later, when I asked Haldeman if Martha was aware of the real Watergate problem, he said no. Mitchell had commented, however, that Martha was smart, and she recognized that her public complaints would give him a reason to ease out of the front line of the controversy by resigning.

  I had lunch with Mitchell in my EOB office on June 30. It was a painful session. He looked worn out and his hand shook so much that he had to put his soup spoon down after the first taste. Later in the afternoon I asked former Minnesota Congressman Clark MacGregor if he would take over the campaign, and he agreed. I felt that MacGregor would infuse new life and spirit into the CRP. He had a rare ability to charge people up, and he would do an effective job of reorganization. W
e also decided to follow up on our earlier plan to send Fred Malek over to shake things up. “We’ll clean that son of a bitch up,” I told Haldeman, “and we’ll run this campaign.”

  We made the announcement of Mitchell’s resignation and MacGregor’s appointment on July 1.

  Several weeks later on two different occasions I dictated about John Mitchell and the Watergate break-in.

  Diary

  Here I think we have had a slip-up due to the fact that Mitchell was so obsessed with the problems he had with Martha. Whether it was getting the organization at 1701 [Pennsylvania Avenue, the CRP headquarters] honed down, or whether it was watching over things like this we just didn’t have the discipline we should have had and that we would have had had he been able to pay attention to business.

  I am continually amazed whenever I am with John Mitchell about his vast knowledge of people over the country and also in all kinds of fields.

  Mitchell has particular knowledge about all kinds of fishing, how the tides operate in various parts of the East Coast, as well as, of course, a wide knowledge of every kind of food and how it is prepared—in addition to having already the deserved reputation for knowing more about more political figures in both parties than perhaps any man in the United States.

  Without Martha, I am sure that the Watergate thing would never have happened.

  THE GRAY PHONE CALL

  When I arrived in California on July 1 for an eighteen-day stay, I faced an unusually busy period. Al Haig and Sir Robert Thompson returned from Vietnam with a firsthand assessment of the situation there, and Kissinger and I were working on the strategy for his upcoming meeting with the North Vietnamese, the first since the May 8 bombing and mining. There was also a great deal of campaign planning to be done following Mitchell’s departure. On July 6 I had a long meeting with MacGregor and Malek to discuss campaign organization and management. This day was to turn out to be memorable for a completely unexpected reason, and that night I recounted the events that would later assume such importance:

  Diary

  Today we got some of the disturbing news with regard to the developments in the Watergate case, almost by accident.

  When I saw the account in the Times of the FBI’s action on the hijacking case in which they killed two hijackers, and unfortunately a passenger as well, on Pacific Southwest Airlines, I called the new Director [Pat Gray] and told him to congratulate the men for me and also to give my congratulations to the Pan Am captain and the police sergeant or retired policeman who had been responsible for the spectacular killing of the hijacker in Vietnam at Saigon Airport.

  When I had passed on the message, he proceeded to tell me that he was greatly concerned about the Watergate case and that Walters had come in to see him today indicating that the CIA had no interest in the matter and that pursuing the investigation would not be an embarrassment to the CIA.

  He said that he and Walters both felt that some people either at the White House or at the committee were trying to cover up things which would be a mortal blow to me—rather than assisting in the investigation.

  When Ehrlichman came in he was astounded to find out that I had had this conversation. He then told me that the problem was that the unraveling of the case would not be particularly embarrassing as far as this instant matter was concerned, but that it would involve the activities which were perfectly legitimate but which would be hard to explain in investigating the Ellsberg case, the Bay of Pigs, and the other matters where we had an imperative need to get the facts.

  From my conversation with Haldeman on June 23 I had understood that Gray had wanted help from Walters in controlling an investigation that he agreed was getting out of hand. On June 30 Haldeman had told me that Gray wanted to limit the investigation but was under pressure from the U.S. Attorney’s office. But now Gray was telling me, and in the most vivid language, that he was upset about what he saw as attempts on the part of the White House to frustrate the FBI’s inquiry. I was suddenly confronted with the one thing that I had most wanted to avoid: White House involvement in Watergate. I told Gray emphatically to go ahead with his full investigation.

  Diary

  Certainly the best thing to do is to have the investigation pursued to its normal conclusion. In any event, we have to live with this one and hope to bring it to a conclusion without too much rubbing off on the presidency before the election. It is one of those cases where subordinates in a campaign, with the very best of motives, go off on some kick which inevitably embarrasses the top man. In this instance, however, how we handle it may make the difference as to how we come out.

  In any event, as I emphasized to Ehrlichman and Haldeman, we must do nothing to indicate to Pat Gray or to the CIA that the White House is trying to suppress the investigation. On the other hand, we must cooperate with the investigation all the way along the line.

  I told Ehrlichman to be sure that both Helms at the CIA and Gray at the FBI knew that I wanted a full investigation and that we were not attempting to suppress anything. I said we should also be sure to level with Clark MacGregor so he did not make statements he would have to retract later.

  “Let’s take the heat,” I told Ehrlichman. “It won’t be that bad.”

  The first mention I recall of Jeb Magruder’s possible involvement in the Watergate break-in came while I was in California, when Ehrlichman told me that Magruder was going to be questioned in the investigation. Magruder had been brought into the White House by Haldeman in 1969 and was considered one of Haldeman’s protégés, and it would be a personal blow to Haldeman if Magruder were drawn into the Watergate web. I dictated in my diary that night, “Haldeman is naturally very ‘tender,’ as Ehrlichman pointed out, with regard to Magruder. I feel just as deeply about it as he does.” Magruder had left the White House staff in May 1971 to help set up the CRP, where he was assigned to handle the managerial details for Mitchell. Magruder had been Liddy’s immediate superior and had been responsible for authorizing money for him.

  Ehrlichman thought that Magruder might have to take the Fifth Amendment because even if the prosecutors could not establish any direct involvement in the planning and execution of the bugging, his relationship to Liddy was such that they might be able to draw him in as part of a conspiracy.

  On Saturday afternoon, July 8, Ehrlichman and I went for a walk on the beach. It was a beautiful California day, and we could see the surfers bobbing on their boards in the water far down the coast. As we walked along the conversation turned to Magruder.

  Diary

  I told John Ehrlichman in a long walk on the beach that under the circumstances the question is whether Magruder is going to be better off in the event that he anticipates what will happen and voluntarily indicates what his role was and takes responsibility for the action, or whether he will face the fact that he will be questioned on such matters and then be forced at a later time to resign. I strongly urged the first course in his own interests.

  Ehrlichman reflected on Gray’s phone call and suggested that Gray and Walters might have failed to cooperate in limiting the FBI investigation because they felt that someone on the White House staff—perhaps Colson—was responsible for Watergate and was trying to put me on the spot in order to protect himself. Not knowing that in fact there was no White House involvement, Ehrlichman said, Gray and Walters probably thought that they were serving my interests by insisting on a wide-ranging investigation.

  We discussed the subject of clemency. Watergate was a political shenanigan, and Magruder, Hunt, Liddy, and the five defendants were apparently first offenders. Three years earlier the NBC television producer caught illegally bugging the Democrats had been let off with a light fine and a suspended sentence. The political climate that was being built up around Watergate made it unlikely that there would be such even-handed treatment for anyone involved in the DNC bugging.

  Ehrlichman and I agreed that there should be no commitments of any kind on clemency at this time.

  In a later conversation
with Ehrlichman I suggested that if felonies were committed by demonstrators in this campaign, as they had been in the past, and the participants were booked and charged, I might grant a general political pardon after the election that would encompass both the Watergate bugging and the felonies committed by the opposition. This would not, however, include felonies that involved the use of violence, bombing, or physical injury. I did not consider those to be in the same minor league with the Watergate bugging.

  There was certainly a precedent for pardons of political offenses. When Harry Truman became President, dozens of his fellow Democratic workers in the Kansas City Pendergast machine had been convicted of vote fraud in the 1936 elections. Truman began pardoning them before he had been in office a month. By the end of his first year in the White House, he had pardoned fifteen people and restored them to full participation in future political activity.

  My discussions with Ehrlichman were in no sense an authorization or a promise of clemency or pardons. Any decision would have to be made later. I summarized it at one point in my diary: if there were equivalent offenses on both sides, “that will provide the necessary basis we will need for pardoning the individuals involved in this caper in the event they are convicted.”

  Diary

  Everyone agrees that this incident was so clumsily handled that it probably doesn’t deserve the criminal penalty that such incidents would ordinarily bring, but in any event, with the political implications involved, we have to be prepared to deal with it firmly before the election. After the election, of course, it will be very difficult to handle it in any other way than an even-handed way, and I hope that such an opportunity presents itself.