Some of my staff and advisers felt that Ervin was a lucky choice for us. They thought that the media would be hard pressed to make much of a hero out of someone whose voting record many liberals viewed as downright segregationist. But I knew that Ervin, for all his affected distraction and homely manner, was a sharp, resourceful, and intensely partisan political animal. As I noted in my diary, I saw Mansfield’s move as a purposeful ploy in the congressional campaign to put the presidency on the defensive: “An indication of the fact that we are going to have a very hard four years is Mansfield’s announcement that he wants Ervin’s committee to investigate Watergate. Mansfield is going to be deeply and bitterly partisan without question. The Democrats actually are starting four years early for their run for the White House.”
WATERGATE RECURS
At the time of my re-election I had known that for almost five months we had done everything we could to minimize the impact of the Watergate break-in. John Dean, who had ended up with the day-to-day responsibility in this area, had parried the problems of the Democrats’ civil suit depositions, the Patman hearings, the GAO investigations, and the various exposés by the press. He had followed the grand jury and the progress of the FBI investigations in order to keep us from being surprised by anything that emerged from them; he had counseled people who were called to testify; and he had urged officials of the Justice Department to be sensitive to the political ramifications of the case and not to veer off into unrelated areas. I thought that he had acted like a smart political lawyer handling a volatile political case.
As certain as I was that we had done everything we could to contain the scandal, I was equally as confident that we had not tried to cover it up. For one thing, there was no question that the FBI’s investigation had been extensive. Mitchell and Colson had both been questioned; even Magruder, about whom we all had suspicions, had testified before the grand jury three times and, however narrowly, had pulled through. Despite the tremendous political sensitivity of the whole case, I had not put personal pressure on the Justice Department, as I was sure other administrations would have done. After all this, there was no evidence that anyone in the White House had been involved in the Watergate break-in.
I could sense that a cloud of suspicion still hung over the White House, but I attributed that to all the election-eve publicity about Segretti and to McGovern’s charges of corruption. I felt sure that it was just a public relations problem that only needed a public relations solution.
I decided after the election that both Chuck Colson and Dwight Chapin should leave the White House. Colson was a lightning rod for criticism for political reasons quite apart from Watergate and Ehrlichman in particular urged that he leave as soon as possible. I thought that his departure would help reduce our political vulnerability and give us a fresh start. Colson was naturally concerned that if he left the White House it would look as if he were guilty of something, and our solution was to announce that he would be leaving but to postpone his actual departure until March. I analyzed the decision on November 13, and again on November 18.
Diary
There are risks involved as we know because of the attacks to which Colson will be exposed. However, I do not want to leave the impression that he is leaving under fire because it is an unfair rap for him and also would be an inaccurate way to interpret my actions for getting in a new team as we start the hew administration.
Colson is probably right on the issue—I think he is actually clean on Watergate and Segretti—but in the minds of most people he has become the issue. It is a very sad commentary that an individual can be bruised and battered and maligned and libeled and then becomes expendable. But in politics I fear that is the case.
Of course John Ehrlichman would go further than most. We would have lost half the staff by this time had he had his way because of course he is a stickler for getting rid of anybody who has even the appearance of wrongdoing. I would never take this approach because of the human equation.
I believe that where it is the appearance of evil, that an individual should be given a chance to clean the record, to defend himself. The consequences of backing off of people when they come under attack could simply encourage the piranha fish to go to work with a vengeance and leave nothing but the skeleton.
Dwight Chapin’s case was even more painful for me. He had been with me since the beginning of my bid for the presidency in 1967. He was young and bright, and he had his whole career ahead of him. But his association with Segretti had made it impossible for him to stay in the White House. My feelings were complicated even more by the knowledge that it was I who had insisted to Haldeman and others on the staff that in this campaign we were finally in a position to have someone doing to the opposition what they had done to us. They knew that this time I wanted the leading Democrats annoyed, harassed, and embarrassed—as I had been in the past. Segretti just turned out to have been the wrong choice for that role.
When John Dean had made his initial report concerning Segretti in early November, he had described Segretti’s activities as standard political mischief, and I had observed in my diary that “I was glad to note from talking with Haldeman today, after his talk with Dean, that the Segretti group were not involved in anything other than the Dick Tuck kind of games even though they were perhaps better organized than some of the Dick Tuck operations, although if anything less effective.”
But in mid-November, after we had Dean interview Segretti so that we would know exactly what he had done and what Chapin’s vulnerability might be, we had learned then that all his activities had not been so innocent as we had originally thought.
Segretti had hired a plane to fly over Miami during the Democratic convention trailing a sign that read: “PEACE POT PROMISCUITY VOTE McGOVERN.” Pretending to be one of the organizers, he ordered 200 pizzas and flowers and entertainment for a big Muskie dinner in Washington. On April Fool’s Day he printed flyers inviting people to an open house with free lunch and drinks at Humphrey’s headquarters in Milwaukee. He paid people to carry “Kennedy for President” signs outside Muskie meetings. All of this was in the realm of standard political fare. But he crossed the boundaries of pranks when he sent out phony letters on stationery from different Democratic campaign offices claiming that two of the Democratic candidates had records of sexual impropriety and that another had a history of mental instability.
I felt that an element of double standard was at work in the media’s treatment of Chapin and Segretti. I remembered, for example, that little was written about the vicious anti-Catholic mailers that were sent to heavily Catholic precincts in Wisconsin during the 1960 primary between Humphrey and Kennedy. The letters, postmarked from Minnesota, were designed to look as if they came from Humphrey supporters. A magazine investigation later traced the letters to a friend of Bobby Kennedy’s.
I felt too that the Post’s stories about Segretti were exaggerated and unfair. As it turned out, the reporters who uncovered the story had not been above dirty tricks of their own in using private sources to obtain access to Segretti’s telephone bills and confidential credit information. As John Dean would say to me a few months later, “The intent when Segretti was hired was nothing evil, nothing vicious, nothing bad, nothing. Not espionage, not sabotage. It was pranksterism that got out of hand.” Even so, Chapin was irreparably damaged. I believed that it was in his own interest that he leave rather than endure the press assault that was sure to come if he remained in the White House. He was able to get a good job in private industry, but the experience was still sad and painful. As I indicated in my diary, “Chapin took it like a man, and is going to be well placed and will do a superb job. On the Segretti thing, the decision to let it all hang out is, of course, right. I think also the decision to have Chapin leave is the right thing to do. As I have pointed out to Haldeman, time is a great healer.”
In mid-November I was still looking for some kind of positive action that would put us out in front and leave Watergate, at last, behind us. On
November 22 I read Haldeman and Ehrlichman a letter from one of our supporters who had written to the White House urging me to clean things up. “This theory that it’s just going to go away won’t work,” I said. “It looks like I’m trying to hide something.” At the same time a number of conservative columnists had begun to criticize us because of our failure to dispel the residue of suspicion. “Our friends,” I dictated one night, “are even harder on us than the other side: conservatives are held up to a higher standard.”
I said that we should get out some kind of public statement highlighting the findings of the FBI and grand jury investigations: that there was no White House involvement in Watergate, and no involvement by high-ups at the CRP. I was also ready to go with a detailed accounting of the Segretti episode, regardless of the embarrassment that would cause us.
Not everyone agreed with such a course of action. I heard that Dean in particular thought we should just leave well enough alone. The news stories had died down, so there was no immediate need to respond to new charges. There was, in fact, the danger that anything we did would only create new publicity that would focus new pressure on Magruder or even Mitchell. Finally, there was the legal argument that the Watergate trial was about to begin and anything said by the White House would prejudice the jury about the evidence.
These were all good arguments, but I still wasn’t satisfied with inaction. On December 8 I suggested to Haldeman that Dean talk to the press. On December 10 and again on December 11 I pushed for a public statement of some kind that we could issue. But nothing happened. Haldeman and Ehrlichman and I were all working long hours on reorganization, a far more gratifying and, in our view at the time, more important task than the knotty Watergate problem. And then, in the weeks before Christmas, my own time was almost completely absorbed by the unfolding events concerning Vietnam.
While our main attention was focused elsewhere, the Watergate situation became considerably more complicated. In the last weeks of December and the beginning of January, the ground began to shift, however subtly. The Watergate trial was about to begin and the pressure was mounting on the defendants. The vibrations were felt in the White House, particularly in the case of Howard Hunt, whose despair following the death of his wife had been communicated to Colson.
Colson cared deeply about Hunt personally; they had been friends for many years. It is also true that implicit in Hunt’s growing despair was a threat to start talking, although I was never sure exactly about what.
In this period, just as had been the case in the days immediately following the Watergate break-in, we began to act on unspoken assumptions, presumptions, and unverified fears. Each person began expressing concern that the others were vulnerable: Haldeman and Ehrlichman said that they thought Colson might be more involved than he was acknowledging; Colson said the same about both of them. This was the period when Colson went to see Hunt’s lawyer to reassure Hunt. We were on the verge of a Vietnam settlement, engaged in a wrestling match with Congress over the budget, and about to face some highly publicized Watergate hearings. No one wanted to take any chances.
On January 8, I made a diary note about a conversation with Colson.
Diary
Colson made the interesting point that those that engaged in this activity did so with the thought that in the event they were apprehended that we would move on whoever was the prosecutor and see that nothing happened. Of course, this is very hard for me to believe that they could have had such ideas but I suppose they were thinking back to the Johnson era when he used all the powers of his office to protect himself and others at the time of the Bobby Baker investigation.
By February I was still concerned about the widespread impression of a cover-up that had set in, yet there was little we could do. Whatever our suspicions, we did not actually know who was responsible, and I was not going to force someone to change his testimony just to solve a public relations problem for me. Still, as I said to Colson, “The President’s losses got to be cut on the cover-up deal,” because “we’re not covering up a damn thing.” Colson emphatically agreed.
A diary note I dictated on February 14 summed up the situation as I saw it during those first weeks of the new year.
Diary
The real concern here on Colson’s part seems to be the possibility that Hunt may blow. He seems to have the obsession that he killed his wife by sending her to Chicago with the money or whatever it was that she was doing at that particular time. He doesn’t want to take the $250,000 insurance because of the fact that he takes the blame for killing his wife. Under these circumstances I can see how if the judge calls him in, threatens him with thirty-five years in jail, that he is very likely to be tempted to take immunity and talk about everything he knows.
I really don’t know what he knows. Ehrlichman and Haldeman claim they don’t know, and of course the same is true of Colson. I think all of them may know a little more than they indicate but how much I simply can’t say. The real problem in the whole thing I think is Mitchell and of course the second man there [Magruder].
I don’t know what the situation is, but in any event we are going to have to take our lumps and get the thing over as quickly as we can. I say as quickly as we can although the strategy may be to delay as long as we can and let it drag on and on. I am inclined to think that perhaps the latter is the better thing although it seems to draw blood little by little all the way along.
After Edgar Hoover’s death in May 1972 I had named Pat Gray, then an Assistant Attorney General, as Acting Director of the FBI. Gray had earned a reputation in Washington as one of the most efficient, sound, and genial administrators in the city. As Acting Director during the summer and fall of 1972 Gray had overseen the Bureau’s Watergate investigation. He was proud of the extent and intensity of that investigation, and he was eager to defend it in any forum.
I decided to nominate Gray to be the FBI’s permanent Director, and I met with him on February 14 to discuss the post. I assured him that I was not worried about anything that might come out at his nomination hearings involving Watergate: “I’m not concerned about the substance, about the facts coming out,” I said. My only concern was the condition he would be in after the partisan battering he could expect to receive in the hearings.
He responded that he was ready. “I’m not ashamed for it to hang out because I think the administration has done a hell of a fine job in going after this thing,” he said. He told me that at the end of the first week he had called in the agents working on the investigation and “just gave them unshirted hell and told them to go and go with all the vim and vigor possible.” He said that the week after the break-in even Larry O’Brien had said that he was very happy with the job the FBI was doing.
Gray was sure that he could convince even nonbelievers that the FBI had proceeded without showing favor in the Watergate investigation. He certainly believed it himself.
Diary
At least getting Gray before the committee he can tell a pretty good story. It is a true story of a thorough investigation and this of course knocks down the cover-up. As I emphasized to Ehrlichman and Haldeman and Colson, but I am not sure that they all buy it, it is the cover-up, not the deed, that is really bad here. Of course, the deed may prove to be pretty bad if it involves Mitchell and to a lesser extent if it involves Magruder.
Suddenly it was the end of February and the Ervin hearings were breathing down our necks, and we had still not decided the critical issue of whether we would invoke executive privilege and refuse to let any White House aides testify. Haldeman’s, Ehrlichman’s, and Dean’s efforts to come up with a strategy always seemed to get sidetracked by other things. At the same time, the Republicans in Congress were beginning to grow anxious; some were even insisting publicly that I do something about Watergate. I reflected in my diary: “It is hard to understand how those we have supported so strongly have to make asses of themselves by taking up the cry of the opposition on a matter of this sort when they know very well that there
could not possibly be any involvement at the White House level.” Ehrlichman and I decided that instead of working through him and Haldeman, I would work directly with John Dean. I thought that perhaps this way I could break the roadblock. For months I had deliberately left the Watergate strategy and planning to others. But not only had the problem not been solved or contained; now it was starting to snowball. I decided to give it my personal attention.
When I met with Dean on February 27, it was the first time I had talked with him since he had reported to me on September 15, the day the Watergate indictments were handed down.
Diary
The talk with John Dean was very worthwhile. He is an enormously capable man. Dean went through quite an amazing recitation as to how Johnson had used the FBI. Apparently he had the FBI do bugging or at least intelligence work on even the New Jersey Democratic convention [in 1964].
I made another note after I had met with him again the next day, February 28.
Diary
I had another very good talk with John Dean. I am very impressed by him. He has shown enormous strength, great intelligence, and great subtlety. He went back and read not only Six Crises but particularly the speech I made in the Congress and it made the very points that I am trying to get across here—that the Truman administration had put up a stone wall when we tried to conduct an investigation. They wouldn’t allow the FBI or the Justice Department or any agency of government to cooperate with us and they were supported totally by the press at that time.
I am glad that I am talking to Dean now rather than going through Haldeman or Ehrlichman. I think I have made a mistake in going through others, when there is a man with the capability of Dean I can talk to directly.
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