RN

by Richard Nixon

  In the April 30 speech I gave the impression that I had known nothing at all about the cover-up until my March 21 meeting with Dean. I indicated that once I had learned about it I had acted with dispatch and dispassion to end it. In fact, I had known some of the details of the cover-up before March 21, and when I did become aware of their implications, instead of exerting presidential leadership aimed at uncovering the cover-up, I embarked upon an increasingly desperate search for ways to limit the damage to my friends, to my administration, and to myself.

  I talked in terms of responsibility and the fact that “the man at the top must bear the responsibility. . . . I accept it.” But that was only an abstraction and people saw through it. Finally, I clung to excuses. The fact that they happened to be excuses that I really believed made little difference. In a sense Watergate had grown out of the end-justifies-the-means mentality of the causes of the 1960s. It was also true that if we often made the mistake of acting like an administration under siege, it was because we were an administration under siege. And I believed it was true that if I had not been preoccupied with Vietnam and other policy issues, I might have probed until I sensed the full dimensions of the cover-up and perhaps precipitated action sooner—if not on ethical grounds, at least because I would have recognized that we were marching headlong into a trap with no exits.

  But these were still only excuses. They were not an accounting of my role. They were not explanations of how a President of the United States could so incompetently allow himself to get in such a situation. That was what people really wanted to know, and that was what my April 30 speech and all the other public statements I made about Watergate while I was President failed to tell them.

  It was as if a convulsion had seized Washington. Restraints that had governed professional and political conduct for decades were suddenly abandoned. The FBI and the Justice Department hemorrhaged with leaks of confidential testimony, grand jury materials, and prosecutorial speculation. And on Capitol Hill it seemed as if anything could be leaked and anything would be indulged, under the guise of righteous indignation over Watergate.

  In reporting the story the members of the Washington press corps were fired by personal passion. They felt that they had embarrassed themselves by uncritically reporting the months of White House denials, and so they frantically sought to reassert their independence by demonstrating their skepticism of all official explanations. In their determination to prove they were not the tools of the White House they went to the other extreme and became the shills for faceless and nameless leakers.

  In December 1971 the Washington Post had proudly announced a new policy: it would always insist on public accountability for public business—government officials would not be allowed to talk on a “source” basis. In the spring of 1973, however, the Post guaranteed anonymity to anyone who proffered an exciting and exclusive Watergate leak or story. Other papers followed this lead, reacting to the combination of commercial pressure and professional competitiveness. They called it “investigative journalism,” but it was not that at all. There is nothing “investigative” about publicizing leaks from sources in the FBI, the Justice Department, or congressional committees who have easy access to confidential material. This was rumor journalism, some true, some false, some a mixture of truth and fiction, all prejudicial. That it was a dangerous form of journalism should have been understood by the Post, whose editor, Ben Bradlee, has since observed: “We don’t print the truth. We print what we know, what people tell us. So we print lies.”

  A symbiotic relationship developed between the leakers on the Ervin Committee and its staff and the leakers in the prosecutor’s office on the one hand, and their media publicists on the other. The reporters gathered daily outside the committee rooms or buttonholed bureaucrats in hallways to try to get a Watergate headline. The subject had already prompted a new ferocity in reporting: grand jurors were hounded by newsmen, itself a potential offense; in some cases other political dirt was ferreted out and traded for Watergate information. The emphasis was on having a story—any story—before someone else got it. The competition for Watergate stories debauched ordinary journalistic standards. No longer did reporters feel required to substantiate the truth of a charge before printing it. They shifted this traditional professional responsibility by saying that the person accused had the obligation to prove that the report was not true—and to do so before a stated deadline in order to get them to drop the story.

  Many of the reporters argued that because there had been a cover-up of Watergate, the system of justice could no longer be trusted to work on its own. Before very long this argument became the self-justifying rationale for a vigilante squad of anonymous “sources” and competing reporters who, in effect, took the law into their own hands. Louis Nizer said during this period: “I fear McCarthyism in reverse. People are being perhaps destroyed by headlines where there are as yet no proven facts before a jury in a trial. . . . It’s one thing to dig up information and even to give it to a prosecutor to pursue, and it is another to become so drunk with the triumph as to begin taking rumor and putting it as a headline. . . . This is the time to be cautious. You see, it is easy to agree with a violation of civil rights when the fellow who is getting it is a man that we are tickled to death is getting it.”

  But neither the pleas of conscience-stricken colleagues nor the criticism of dismayed outsiders could stop the stampede.

  The New York Times carried at least one Watergate story on its front page every day but one during each of the months of May, June, and July 1973. A later study showed that an average of 52 percent of the front pages of the major American newspapers was occupied by Watergate stories on days when the Ervin Committee was in session; the average was 35 percent on days when the committee did not meet. The network news shows were devoting a third to half of their time to Watergate.

  In many cases the sheer quantity of Watergate stories derived from the nature of the subject itself: each new disclosure seemed to ignite another, like a string of firecrackers. In other cases, however, the quantity of Watergate stories derived from the process of reporting: the competition for stories created a self-perpetuating momentum, and a day without a Watergate headline became a day you had been scooped. Often the same stories were repeated from day to day with only minor changes, and sometimes without any changes at all, and then rehashed again on the weekends in Watergate “updates” or “analyses.”

  In some cases the press created the monsters it denounced. For example, it was the Washington press corps that created the idea of the Plumbers as a repressive White House “police force.” Many people are still astounded to learn that the Plumbers unit consisted of only four men who worked together for just a little over two months in 1971.

  In early April 1973 allegations that Senators Muskie, Percy, Proxmire, and Javits had been under surveillance by the White House were being widely reported. Newsweek printed reports that the offices of Senators Mansfield and Fulbright had been bugged. Both stories were untrue. On May 3 the Washington Post claimed that the Nixon administration had tapped the telephones of at least two newspaper reporters as part of the Pentagon Papers investigation and that the taps were supervised by Hunt and Liddy. Hunt and Liddy were said to have overseen a “so-called ‘vigilante squad’ ” of wiretappers, and, according to the Post’s story, it was decided at a campaign strategy meeting that some members of this squad would be used to wiretap the telephones of Democratic presidential candidates. This story was not true. On May 17 the Post claimed that a “vast GOP undercover operation” had originated in 1969, and asserted that both the Watergate and Ellsberg break-ins were part of an “elaborate, continuous campaign of illegal and quasi-legal undercover operations conducted by the Nixon administration since 1969.” The authority cited for this staggering accusation was “highly placed sources in the executive branch.” In the story we were accused, among other things, of having had copies of Senator Eagleton’s health records before they were leaked (which was not
true); of having used paid provocateurs to encourage violence at antiwar demonstrations early in the first term and during the 1972 campaign (also untrue); and of having undertaken undercover political activities conducted by FBI “suicide squads” against people we regarded as opponents of the administration (also untrue). The reporters said that there were more instances of political burglaries and bugging than had yet been revealed (untrue). They said that groups of radicals, reporters, White House aides, and Democrats all got the same treatment of bugging, spying, infiltration, and burglary (untrue).

  In early June the Post reported the accusation of “one Senate source” who claimed to have evidence of several other White House burglaries and to know who had participated in them and who had directed them. The charge was untrue; the alleged evidence was never produced. Newsweek said that the administration had a secret police force that undertook unauthorized wiretaps and burglaries against radicals (untrue). NBC’s legal correspondent Carl Stern reported charges that “massive” wiretapping had been done on McGovern’s phones by the Justice Department, ostensibly to monitor incoming radical calls, but in fact to provide information to the CRP (untrue). The Baltimore Sun said that testimony before the Ervin Committee would reveal a national network of wiretaps used to supply political information on the Democrats to the CRP (untrue). The Washington Post reported that taps had been placed on the phones of Ellsberg and of New York Times reporters Neil Sheehan and Tad Szulc, and reports from them fed to the Plumbers (untrue). The New York Times reported that we had placed a bug on the phone of friends of Mary Jo Kopechne, who died in Teddy Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick. None of these stories was true.

  There was also a flagrant double standard. In 1973, thirteen years after the alleged event, John Kennedy’s doctor claimed that his offices had been broken into during the 1960 campaign and described it as a break-in in a style similar to the burglary of the offices of Ellsberg’s doctor. All three networks carried the story. John Lungren, my personal physician, thereupon told of the break-in at his office during the 1972 campaign and even offered reporters copies of the police photographs that had been made at the time. Only one network, CBS, bothered to carry this story.

  When Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman left the White House, we knew their ability to make a defense before grand juries and in the courtrooms would depend on their ability to demonstrate that their motives had never been criminal or corrupt. Judgments about motives inevitably depend upon delicate and often intangible impressions of personal credibility. After the treatment they received from Congress and the media in the first few days of May, they had no hope of ever receiving a fair hearing.

  On the first night after they had left the White House, John Chancellor of NBC proclaimed them “by far” the most unpopular of the 21/2 million federal employees, and he quoted congressional “sources” who said that there was “dancing in the halls” over their downfall. ABC said that the reaction on Capitol Hill “couldn’t have been happier” because they were both “thoroughly disliked.” Hugh Sidey had already reviled them in his Time column.

  By the end of April the news was full of leaks of John Dean’s accusations against them and charges of “cover-up” by nameless congressional sources. But these were not their only malicious accusers. On April 25 a headline in the New York Times charged: Data from Taps Reportedly Sent to White House. The accusation came from anonymous “federal investigators” who said they had determined that officials of the White House were regularly apprised of the information obtained through the Watergate tap. They mentioned Haldeman as a possible recipient. The accusation was untrue.

  On May 27 the Times said there was evidence that Haldeman was directly linked to the Ellsberg break-in. This was also untrue. On June 17 the Washington Post ran a large front-page story asserting that Gordon Strachan was going to say that Haldeman had been sent the plans for the bugging operation. The next day the New York Times ran the same charge. Strachan never made such a claim. Ehrlichman was similarly savaged. For example, on June 13 the Washington Post reported that “Watergate prosecutors” had a memo that had been sent to Ehrlichman that “described in detail” plans to burglarize the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. The story directly contradicted Ehrlichman’s insistence that he had had no prior knowledge of the plans. There was no such memo.

  Daniel Schorr of CBS described the situation succinctly when in the fall of 1973 he commented:

  This past year, a new kind of journalism developed, and I found myself doing on a daily routine some things I would never have done before. There was a vacuum in investigation, and the press began to try men in the most effective court in the country. The men involved in the Watergate were convicted by the media, perhaps in a more meaningful way than any jail sentence they will eventually get.

  As the months went by and the leaks continued, some voices were raised in concern and protest. Democratic Senator William Proxmire likened the press coverage to McCarthyism. Elliot Richardson urged that reporters develop a code of fairness relating to the use of leaked information. And Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox accused the press of considering itself a fourth branch of government and said that he had misgivings about its role in Watergate. ABC’s Harry Reasoner denounced Time and Newsweek: in a broadcast commentary about the way those news magazines had treated Watergate, he said that “Week after week their lead stories on the subject [of Watergate] have been more in the style of pejorative pamphleteering than objective journalism, and since they are highly visible and normally highly respected organs of our craft, they embarrass and discredit us all.”

  At the time of the Agnew investigation in September 1973 James Reston wrote:

  It is easy to understand why the Agnews and the Ehrlichmans resent all this, for they are condemned even before they can state their own cases, and obviously they have a justifiable grievance. The newspapers have not resolved or even grappled with the problem effectively. They know that they ought to try to do something to protect the grand jury process, but they have not. . . . The press is ducking this problem, but it cannot do so much longer. It cannot insist on policing the power of the government without policing itself.

  The media’s performance during this period was irresponsible. Yet to this day exhibiting the same arrogance they are quick to denounce in other institutions, most reporters prefer self-congratulation to self-examination where Watergate is concerned.

  On May 2 Bob Haldeman came to see me. Just two days earlier he had been entrusted with some of the most important responsibilities in government. Now he slipped in privately to avoid causing me any embarrassment.

  He said he had been thinking about the decision I had made not to replace him but to function as my own Chief of Staff. He wanted to urge that I change my mind. In fact, I had already reached a similar conclusion. Details drain away energy even in good times; now, with Watergate, there was no way that I could handle everything myself.

  We had the same man in mind to succeed him: Al Haig. Haig had left Kissinger’s staff in January to become Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. He was steady, intelligent, and tough, and what he might have lacked in political experience and organizational finesse he made up for in sheer force of personality. He also had the enormous stamina that the job required. He knew how to drive people, and he knew how to inspire them. Equally important to me, he understood Kissinger.

  I asked Haldeman if he would make the initial approach. Haig said he would accept; he asked only that I think further about the public reaction to having a military man as the White House Chief of Staff. After talking with me about this, Haldeman called Haig back and said that he was still the man I wanted.

  When I met with Haig at noon the next day I told him that I knew what a great sacrifice I was asking him to make. With his abilities he would certainly have been in a position to become Chief of Staff of the Army and possibly Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  I explained that I did not want him to become involved in the handling of Water
gate. I wanted him to stick exclusively to running the White House staff and organizing the information I needed for making policy decisions. Still, I knew that taking this job would mean far more for him than just forfeiting military advancement and perquisites. We were in for a long and bloody struggle, and for Haig it would be like volunteering to return to combat with no guarantee of the outcome and with no medals at the end.

  A day earlier John Connally had courageously announced that he was switching his affiliation and allegiance to the Republican Party; it was, he said, his ideological home. On May 7 he agreed to come back on the White House staff as an adviser without pay. We decided that rather than define his duties specifically, we would tailor them to his abilities as he went along.

  Over the next weeks we began to regain momentum rebuilding the administration as I appointed William Colby Director of the CIA and moved James Schlesinger from the CIA to the Pentagon as Secretary of Defense. I also appointed a strong new head of the FBI, Clarence Kelley, the Chief of the Kansas City Police. Mel Laird and Bryce Harlow agreed to return to the White House as Counsellors to the President, and Haig brought in Fred Buzhardt, the General Counsel of the Defense Department, to assist Len Garment in handling Watergate.

  Much of the Watergate criticism had centered on the White House press office. Connally, Laird, and Haig all believed that Ron Ziegler should leave. They had nothing against him personally, but they felt he was a symbol of the old Haldeman order, and that his credibility with the press corps was irreparably damaged. I knew that this was true, but I thought it was unfair to Ziegler. So did Kissinger, who said that we would always regret it if we hurt innocent people in an effort to palliate the press.