The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It

by John W. Dean

  So if Rose Woods did not erase the tape, that leaves the even larger question of who did, and of what was erased. Based on my conversations with Jim, I believe there is a very small field of potential candidates who might have been responsible: Richard Nixon, Al Haig, Fred Buzhardt, Steve Bull, John Bennett, Haig’s aide, and Nixon’s one-time military aide, Jack Brennan, are potential candidates. Who did it can only be established by a preponderance of the evidence, rather than beyond a reasonable doubt, unless a confession should surface. In fairness to all the potential candidates, more than a passing paragraph is needed to set forth the rather extensive and at times complex evidence. After having gone through all Nixon’s Watergate conversations, I have concluded that, in the end, while there is no absolute proof about who did it, there really is no mystery at all about what was erased. And then who did it is not as important as what was erased.

  What Was Erased?

  To understand what was erased it is necessary to consider why Nixon (or someone acting on his behalf or in his interest) would wish to have such material erased. The answer seems fairly clear and relates to the timing of Nixon’s defense. The president adopted his final defense—that he had no knowledge of a cover-up until I told him during our March 21 conversation—in his April 30 speech when firing Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kleindienst and me, and he doubled down on that defense in his May 22 statement. This, undoubtedly, was why he had only listened to my conversations before March 21, to determine if he could claim that I had not informed him of the cover-up in any of those discussions. While I had strongly suggested it in several of our talks prior to March 21, and in fact had spoken to him as if he was well aware of it, I had not previously done so as strongly and unequivocally as I did on March 21. So as he twisted and reconstituted the March 21 conversation to meet his needs, only a conversation revealing that he actually had knowledge of the cover-up before March 21 would be a threat to his defense.

  Undoubtedly Nixon had no idea what he had said in any of the requested June 20 conversations, other than that he had spoken with Mitchell from the residence. If the June 20 conversations revealed his having knowledge of, not to mention being involved in, the cover-up, the Nixon defense would have been destroyed. For example, had Cox asked for Nixon’s conversation at the end of the day on June 20, when he called Haldeman to report on his conversation with Mitchell, it would have revealed Nixon saying: “I gave Mitchell a call. Cheered him up a little bit, I told him not to worry, that we might be able to control this Watergate thing.” And one of Nixon’s ideas to control it was a Miami-based Cuban defense fund: “They could raise money for the purpose of paying these fines, and all, and so forth.”* Or if Cox had requested the tape of Nixon’s meeting the following morning, June 21, he would have heard Haldeman explain his discussion with Mitchell earlier that same morning: “Mitchell’s concern is the FBI, the question of how far they’re going in the process. And he’s pretty concerned that that be turned off, and John’s [Ehrlichman] working on it.” “My God,” Nixon insisted, “if you are talking to Gray, it’s got to be done by Ehrlichman.” Cox did not seek these tapes, because he needed to establish probable cause; since he did not then have probable cause until later, his subpoena likely would have been rejected,

  As the conversations from those first days reveal, Nixon took part in the cover-up from the outset. What he was surely discussing during this gap in the Haldeman conversation was not some great confession to Haldeman of White House involvement in the Watergate break-in, for contrary to media speculation, there was no such involvement. What he most likely said to Haldeman was what he had to Mitchell, or indicated his approval of an earlier version of Ehrlichman’s scenario. While it was not a major issue at the time, after Nixon had announced his defense, it became a potentially drastic problem, for the tape would put the lie to his own claims. Based on the conversations that transpired later that day, as well as over the next several days, it seems clear that the June 20 tape must have contained some general comment that revealed his involvement in the cover-up. For example, during these early days Nixon repeatedly said that he did not want Mitchell to be ruined by Watergate, when he clearly suspected Mitchell had a serious problem. During this first week he did not want the FBI to get out of control, as he made clear on June 21, and ordered action via the CIA to control the FBI on June 23. In fact similar broad, as well as specific, cover-up–type comments and instructions can be found in conversations that took place throughout the months before the March 21 discussion. While there was never any doubt in my mind that the cover-up would never have proceeded without Nixon’s approval, until I had transcribed all the conversations found in Parts I and II of this book, I could not be certain. But today I have no doubt of the nature of the material that was erased on June 20 during the 18½-minute gap.

  NOTES

  Preface

  1 When listening to a conversation, we seldom notice the “ah,” “ah,” “ahs” and “you know,” or “well, ah,” and the like—the false starts, changes in direction midsentence and awkward phrases that so often are part of the spoken word. And we certainly do not include such matter in our notes of conversations. While I prepared verbatim transcripts for all of the conversations involved in this project, those are generally very difficult to read, if not distracting. Indeed, the work of even stenographic reporters, which comes close to verbatim, is not really a transcript of what they are recording. For that reason, as I did with my earlier book based on Nixon’s tapes (The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment That Redefined the Supreme Court [New York: Free Press, 2001]), I have used my verbatim transcripts as the basis for the dialogue and narrative in this story but cleaned it up to make it readable, without making changes in the substance, or gist, of the statements I have chosen to tell the story. In short, the material in this story is based on exactly what was said, when it was said and whenever possible exactly as it was said, but occasionally I have added a word to clarify using [a bracket] to indicate that I have done so, and I have occasionally paraphrased spoken material in brackets. Also I have simply corrected a tangled phrase without changing its meaning. But I have not [bracketed] every such minor change, because it would make reading difficult. Nor have I used ellipses when I have compressed statements, and no empty brackets [] or [sic]s. I have added a bracket when adding a word, or when something was not clear but I felt I could take an educated guess at the word that was used. Anyone who wants a verbatim record is welcome to prepare their own transcripts, for the conversations underlying this story are readily available to anyone who wishes to listen to them. Indeed, they are fascinating. See Nixon White House tapes online, at http://nixon.archives.gov/virtuallibrary/tapeexcerpts/index.php.

  2 Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), x.

  3 Butterfield impeachment inquiry testimony, Testimony of Witnesses, Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, Book I (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1974).

  Prologue

  1 June 16, 1972, president’s daily diary (hereafter PDD), National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). All dates and times of the president’s activities in the following pages, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the PDD. In his diary, Haldeman noted that Nixon was “extremely tired” at the end of the recently completed trip to Russia, so tired that he questioned his judgment on domestic issue questions, and if there were any decisions that needed to be made, Ehrlichman “should go ahead and make them.” Two weeks of a heavy schedule that followed did not help. June 1–16, 1972, H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1993), 469-71.

  2 Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 617, 622.

  3 The highly disciplined Haldeman made 1,521 diary entries during his service at the White House, from January 18, 1969, to April 30, 1973, typically at the end of each day, first i
n longhand in a journal and later by dictation to a cassette recorder. For safekeeping, and later to prevent the information from reaching investigators and prosecutors, each journal and tape cassette, when completed, was marked Top Secret and placed in a safe in the office of the White House staff secretary and commingled with the president’s records, where its existence remained unknown until Haldeman retrieved the material from Nixon long after his resignation and both had left Washington. It was not transcribed by Haldeman for almost twenty years after he left Washington. In the foreword of the diaries, when he was preparing them for publication shortly before his death, he explained that they set forth “actions I would now prefer had not been taken, conversations I would now like to forget or disavow, and opinions with which I now strongly disagree. In the interest of historical accuracy, the content remains unchanged from the day it was written.” Haldeman, Diaries, 471.

  4 Ibid.

  5 Ehrlichman Senate testimony, 6 Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (SSC) 2580–82; Caulfield Senate testimony, 1 SSC 279; April 23, 1973, Summary of Investigative Reports, FBI (April 1973 Summary), 1. Ehrlichman recalled Boggs mentioning the check from Howard Hunt many years later, when writing Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), 347. By long-standing protocol, when the FBI name check came up on Howard Hunt—they had done a background investigation of him when he was being considered by the White House as a consultant—the Secret Service was informed, because of their protective responsibilities for the president.

  6 Ehrlichman Senate testimony, 6 SSC 2580–82.

  7 Caulfield Senate testimony, 1 SSC 267–68; 21 SSC 9687, 9700–7.

  8 Ibid., 21 SSC 9729–37; 22 SSC 10341–56

  9 Ibid. Caulfield testified that he told Ehrlichman only that it was a “disaster.” Knowing Jack, however, since what he told me was that it was “a fucking disaster,” he undoubtedly made that point to Ehrlichman as well. Ehrlichman does not recall Caulfield’s telephone call but does not deny it may have occurred. 1 SSC 279, 6 SSC 2580.

  10 Ibid., 1 SSC 253–60, 264–67.

  11 Colson impeachment inquiry testimony, Testimony of Witnesses, Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, Book III (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1974), 199–207. The codirectors of the SIU were Egil “Bud” Krogh, an Ehrlichman aide, and David Young, an aide to the assistant to the president for national security, Henry Kissinger. Shortly after being assigned to the SIU, David Young told me that he happened to return home for a Thanksgiving dinner and his grandmother asked him what he was doing at the White House. David explained that he was dealing with leaks for the president. “Oh, you’re a plumber,” his grandmother exclaimed. Upon returning to work David told Krogh the story, and they laughed, and then they decided to have a sign made for the door of the office of their supersecure location in the basement of the EOB: The Plumbers. After hanging the sign briefly, they removed it, for their mission was supposed to remain top secret.

  12 Egil “Bud” Krogh with Matthew Krogh, Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons from the White House (New York: Public Affairs, 2007), 75; and Krogh conversation with the author, February 1999.

  13 Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 347–48.

  14 Ibid., 347.

  15 According to the handwritten notes of FBI special agent Daniel Bledsoe, the extra-duty supervisor of the FBI’s General Investigative Division, who was tracking the Watergate break-in case that weekend, he received a report at 8:35 P.M. from WFO agent Harold Sanders, who was assigned to the White House, and with whom Butterfield worked to maintain current White House staff background checks and clearances. Bledsoe noted that “Butterfield advised Ehrlichman Haldeman at White House. No abnormal pressure put on CIA per Haldeman at White House.” I located Bledsoe’s notes regarding the unfolding Watergate case, and I went searching for them because of an astonishing reconstruction by Bledsoe of an event that weekend, information that has been buried in the FBI’s files for decades.

  When Bledsoe provided an oral history to the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI in October 2009 he reported information about the White House reaction during this fateful weekend never previously reported (until some thirty-seven years after the fact). Bledsoe’s interview was a recorded telephone call that was later transcribed and published. Factually, the 2009 account is deeply flawed and confused. For example, Bledsoe has “Al Hunt” trying to bail out the men arrested at the Watergate that weekend, when it was a Washington, DC, lawyer, Douglas Caddy. He has G. Gordon Liddy, whom Bledsoe knew from their days together at the FBI, being arrested at the DNC. That never happened. However, Bledsoe remembers “keeping a running log (on paper) about who called, the time, date and their reports.” This did happen, and these are the notes I located, but apparently Bledsoe was unaware they still existed. More striking, however, his oral history indicated that the information from Ehrlichman was far more significant than the notes suggest. In his oral history Bledsoe claims that on Saturday, June 17, his secretary told him he had a call from the White House, which he recalled as follows:

  “This is Agent Supervisor Dan Bledsoe. Who am I speaking with?” Bledsoe says that a belligerent-sounding Ehrlichman was on the line. “You are speaking with John Ehrlichman. Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes. You are chief of staff there at the White House,” Bledsoe responded, and although Ehrlichman was never chief of staff, he says Ehrlichman replied, “That’s right. I have a mandate from the president of the United States. The FBI is to terminate the investigation of the break-in over there on Virginia Avenue [the location of the Watergate complex] that occurred during the night.” When Bledsoe remained silent, he says Ehrlichman repeated his demand, and finally asked him, “Are you going to terminate the investigation?” When Bledsoe said no, he reports that Ehrlichman became upset and profane and wanted to know why not. Bledsoe says he told Ehrlichman, incorrectly if it happened, that the FBI had a constitutional obligation “to initiate an investigation” to determine if there had been a violation of the illegal interception of communications statute. Ehrlichman, according to Bledsoe, asked, “Do you know that you are saying no to the president of the United States?” A defiant Bledsoe said, “Yes.” An angry Ehrlichman warned, “Bledsoe, your career is doomed,” and slammed down the phone. According to Bledsoe, he then telephoned Assistant FBI Director Mark Felt, the number two man at the Bureau at the time, who had taken charge of the investigation and who told him not to worry: “That sounds like John,” Felt advised, then continued, “Dan, just keep up the good work and keep me up to date.” Daniel F. Bledsoe interview, August 19, 2009, Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, at http://www.nleomf.org/assets/pdfs/nlem/oral-histories/FBI_Bledsoe_interview.pdf.

  It’s a remarkable account. Bledsoe is a well-respected former agent, with no signs of dementia, and thus credible. Before I found his notes, others familiar with the Watergate investigations, who find his story incredible, spoke with him. They do not know what to make of it, but Bledsoe recalled the incident clearly and is sticking by his story, although he did acknowledge he confused Hunt and Liddy, and a few other details. While Ehrlichman was seldom profane, I cannot say this exchange is out of character, for I have seen him act in this manner. Nor is it impossible that Alex Butterfield might have been the one who called Bledsoe and, taking a strong position on Ehrlichman’s behalf, delivered this message, although Alex does not recall doing so. What is most remarkable about this information—or, more to the point, the information in Bledsoe’s notes—is the fact that this information was never given to anyone in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, nor later to the Watergate special prosecutor’s office.

  Bledsoe’s notes, and his memory of the exchange, cannot be ignored, so I have included them in this endnote. I spoke with him, and he clearly remembered these events and sounded as though he had an excellent memory. At the same time, this is a good example of why reconstruc
ted memories like his have been avoided in this book, for they are too often erroneous. The weakness of memory becomes glaring when comparing testimony based on memory with actual information secretly recorded by Nixon. This is true of everyone, including yours truly. Nonetheless, what does appear to be the case is that, while memory is not time-and-date stamped, and it can confuse and commingle facts and events, honest memory does typically recall the general gist of events. Clearly something occurred between Bledsoe at the FBI and the White House on June 17, 1972, and that is confirmed by Bledsoe’s June 17, 1972, notes. Ehrlichman, either directly or through Butterfield indirectly, passed a message to the FBI to push back on the aggressive investigation they launched from the moment they entered the case, as they pursued Hunt’s CIA relationship, which was a problem for Ehrlichman.