All the President's Men (16 page)

At the
Post
the next morning, Mrs. Graham asked Bernstein if he had any more messages for her.

•   •   •

The night of October 4, Woodward got home at about eleven. The phone was ringing as he stepped in the door. “Ace—” it was Bill Brady. The night editor calls all the young reporters “Ace.” (Brady had called Woodward “Ace” the second night he worked at the
Post,
and Woodward’s head had swelled for several hours, until he heard Brady address a notorious office incompetent by the same title.)

“Ace,” said Brady, “the
L.A. Times
is running some long interview with a fellow named Baldwin.”

Woodward groaned, and said he’d be right in.

Alfred C. Baldwin III had seemed for a time to be one of the keys to Watergate. The reporters had learned of him while making some routine checks. Bernstein had been told that a former FBI agent had participated in the Watergate operation; that he had informed investigators that Democratic headquarters had been under electronic surveillance for about three weeks before the arrests; and that memos of the wiretapped conversations had been transcribed and sent directly to CRP. The man had also said he had infiltrated the Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, on orders from McCord. On September 11, Bernstein and Woodward had written a story about the participation of such a former FBI agent.

A week later, with help from the Bookkeeper, they had identified him as Baldwin, a 35-year-old law-school graduate who had worked as chief of security for a trucking firm before becoming a CRP employee paid in $100 bills. Baldwin was the government’s chief witness—the insider who was spilling the whole story. He seemed to have unimaginable secrets to tell, and reporters were in line to hear them. Woodward had joined the queue. He began making regular phone calls to Baldwin’s lawyer, John Cassidento, a Democratic state legislator from New Haven, Connecticut.

“We’ve got hundreds of requests for interviews, hundreds,” Cassidento had told Woodward. “Everyone wants to talk to Al. There are two
Los Angeles Times
reporters camped out there. Al is getting no peace. He is followed. . . . Ugly fuckers, you reporters. Thank God
you’re
not pestering us.”

Taking that hint, Woodward said that he and Bernstein wouldn’t join the herd.

“Fine,” Cassidento said cozily. “We’ll let you know if Al has anything to say. You’ll get the first call.”

Several days later, Cassidento called Woodward back. “Hey, Al needs some money. . . . Everyone is offering him money for his story. Just want to let you know in case you want to enter the bidding.” It was rumored that a major magazine had offered $5000 for Baldwin’s first-person account.

Woodward explained that the
Post
never paid for news.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry you don’t care about the story,” said Cassidento. “We have other offers.”

Woodward started to say that the
Post
cared very much about the story, but Cassidento had hung up.

Woodward and Bernstein told the editors about the invitation to bid on Baldwin’s story. “I bid this  . . .” Bradlee said, and raised the middle finger of his right hand.

Two weeks later, and without paying a penny, the
Los Angeles Times
had gotten the story that brought Woodward back to his desk the night of October 4. Baldwin’s first-person account of the bugging operation, told to
Times
reporter Jack Nelson, was a vivid description
of a raid on the Democratic national headquarters, and of the men who had participated in it.

From the Howard Johnson Motor Hotel across the street from the Watergate, Baldwin had monitored conversations of Democrats’ phone calls. McCord had told him he would be doing the same thing at the Democratic convention in Miami. When hired, he had been handed a gun belonging to Fred LaRue. He told of an aborted attempt to break into McGovern headquarters and bug it; Gordon Liddy had suggested shooting out a street light to facilitate the entry. Baldwin described a brief stint guarding Martha Mitchell, and he related Howard Hunt’s panic as he had rushed into the Howard Johnson at 2:30
A.M
. on June 17 and watched the police lead five of his hirelings from the Watergate.

Bernstein and Woodward had been aced out. The story was a major break, not just because it contained a great deal of new information, but because it made the Watergate operation, and the siege mentality behind it, real.

“I would like to have had that one,” Bradlee said the next day. He was not harsh, but he was grimacing, clutching his arms as he spoke, moving them quickly from side to side like a running halfback.
*

In his five-hour taped interview with Jack Nelson, Baldwin had not provided the name of any individual who might have seen the wiretap memos. But two weeks before the
Los Angeles Times
interview, Bernstein had been told by a Democratic Party investigator that Baldwin had named two persons he thought had received them: Robert Odle, Jeb Magruder’s intensely nervous aide-de-camp at both the White House and CRP; and William E. Timmons, Assistant to the President for congressional relations and chief White House liaison to CRP for the Republican national convention. Baldwin had seen McCord addressing the memos.

There was a third recipient, Baldwin was alleged to have said, someone whose first name sounded like a last name. Shown a list of CRP officials by federal investigators, Baldwin had picked the name of J.
Glenn Sedam—the man who had shared an office with Gordon Liddy. But, Bernstein was told, Baldwin had not been certain about Sedam.

Bernstein suggested to Woodward that they write a story saying that Baldwin had named Odle and Timmons, and describing how he picked Sedam’s name. Bernstein called a Justice Department source who confirmed the details. Woodward agreed to go ahead.

The story would be a significant advance on the
Los Angeles Times
account. It ran on October 6. There were no denunciations from CRP or the White House.

But the report was incorrect, and the decision to rush it into print was a mistake. Weeks later, Woodward and Bernstein learned that the initial FBI report had not made it clear whether the memos Baldwin had seen were of the wiretap conversations or were merely routine security memos. Eventually, the reporters became convinced that they were routine memos which had nothing to do with wiretapping.

Three men had been wronged. They had been unfairly accused on the front page of the
Washington Post,
the hometown newspaper of their families, neighbors and friends. Odle complained to the prosecutors. “He was almost in tears,” one of them said later. The stigma of Watergate stayed with him, though not solely because of the story, and he had great difficulty obtaining a job. In 1973, he was hired by the Department of Agriculture as a consultant, but he was soon fired when his name continued to figure in the investigation.

Timmons was dejected about the
Post
allegations, and his wife had wanted him to quit his job on the White House staff. Only after a long conversation with the President had he decided to stay on.

6

T
HE NIGHT
of September 28, Bernstein had been taking some good-natured complaining from the copy desk about his penchant for making late-night fixes or changes in his stories. He was not displeased when the exercise was interrupted by the phone.

The caller introduced himself as a government lawyer who had nothing to do with the Watergate investigation. He said he might have some information that might or might not have something to do with the things Bernstein and Woodward had been writing about.

Such calls were becoming more frequent, though most of the “tips” the reporters received were requests that the
Post
pursue theories about the deaths of John Kennedy, Mary Jo Kopechne, Martin Luther King and others.

As for tips related to Watergate, they had checked out dozens which had proven to be either inconsequential or without foundation.
*

The lawyer on the phone now said he had a friend who “had been approached  . . . to go to work for the Nixon campaign in a very unusual way.”

Bernstein put a sheet of paper in the typewriter and began taking it down.

The caller said his friend was named Alex Shipley, an assistant attorney general of the state of Tennessee, living in Nashville. In the summer of 1971, Shipley had been asked by an old Army buddy to join the Nixon campaign.

“Essentially, the proposal was that there was to be a crew of people whose job it would be to disrupt the Democratic campaign during the primaries. This guy told Shipley there was virtually unlimited money available.”

The caller didn’t know the name of the man who had approached Shipley. “This guy was a lawyer. The idea was to travel around, there would be some going to towns and waiting for things to happen. For instance, some guy would be waiting to see if the Democratic candidates were renting a hall to have a rally. Then his job would be to call up the owner of the hall and say the event had been rescheduled, to fuck up the logistics.”

Shipley had told the story “during a drunken conversation at a picnic” and the caller did not remember many other details. At the time Shipley was approached, he was still in the Army, stationed in Washington. He had talked to people who had worked for former Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee. “They advised him to lead this guy along while trying to figure out what was going on.” The caller didn’t know what had happened after that.

Reluctantly, he gave Bernstein his name and telephone number, on the condition that he never be disclosed as the source of the information. Bernstein thanked him and asked him to stay in touch.

Bernstein got Alex Shipley’s number from Nashville information, but there was no answer.

The next day, Bernstein showed Howard Simons his notes and said he was convinced the information—admittedly very sketchy—was important. By itself, the Watergate bugging made little sense, particularly since it had occurred when the Nixon campaign was at its strongest. But if it had been part of something much broader, it might make some sense, Bernstein said. And there was evidence of a broader scheme,
though the information was disparate. Among the things they were aware of had been the attempt to bug McGovern headquarters; Hunt’s investigation of Teddy Kennedy; an investigation by McCord of Jack Anderson; the effort by Baldwin to infiltrate the Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Hunt’s investigations of leaks to the news media; and McCord’s rental of an office next to Muskie’s campaign headquarters. Perhaps the White House had been in the political intelligence business in a much bigger way and for much longer than most people figured. Watergate could have been scheduled before the President’s re-election chances looked so good and perhaps someone had neglected to pull the plug.

Simons was interested and urged Bernstein to get to Shipley fast. The managing editor shared Bernstein’s fondness for doping things out on the basis of sketchy information. At the same time, he was cautious about what eventually went into print. On more than one occasion, he told Bernstein and Woodward to consider delaying a story or, if necessary, to pull it at the last minute if they had any doubts. “I don’t care if it’s a word, a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, a whole story or an entire series of stories,” he said. “When in doubt, leave it out.”

A prize-winning science reporter, Simons had become the number-two editor at the
Post
a year before. An intent, sensitive man with a large nose, thin face and deep-set eyes, he looks like the kind of Harvard teaching assistant who carries a slide rule strapped to his belt. But he is skillful with fragile egos, and also the perfect counterpoint to Bradlee. Bradlee is more like Woodward: he wants hard information first and is impatient with theories.

Bernstein tried to stir Woodward’s interest in Shipley’s story, but Woodward was skeptical.

That night, Bernstein reached Shipley at home. He sounded pleasant and was surprised that a reporter would be so interested in the approach that had been made to him.

“The deal I was offered was slick,” Shipley said. “We’d say we were working for So-and-so in the Democrats and really we’d be working for Nixon. Say, for instance, my job would be to go to a Kennedy rally. I’d say to one of Kennedy’s people: ‘I’m also with you people. We want you to go get a job in the Muskie office. And when you find out anything, you let me know and we’ll get it back to Kennedy.’ ”

Somewhere, Bernstein had been told that the CIA did that kind of thing abroad. He had heard it called Mindfuck, but the agency called it Black Operation.

Shipley continued, “There would be as much money as needed. I was promised the pie in the sky by and by. Expenses plus salary. I’d be working for him.” Shipley did not want to give the man’s name until he decided to tell the whole story.

“I’ve been thinking about talking to somebody. About six months ago, I made a memo to myself and it’s up at the office—I’ve got dates. And I’ll give you the best of my memory.”

First, however, he wanted to obtain permission from his boss before talking to the press. He thought his boss would approve. The attorney general of Tennessee was a Democrat, and so was Shipley. That was perhaps the strangest aspect of the approach in Shipley’s mind.

“This guy came to me. I said, ‘I’m a man with a picture of Franklin Roosevelt on the wall since I’ve been a child. Why me?’ He said, ‘It could be for purely selfish reasons—we can do a lot for you.’ Liking the Democrats more, I didn’t follow it up.”

Beyond the man’s word, Shipley had no proof that the offer was made on behalf of Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign. He had known the man in the Army. “My impression was that he would not be very effective at spy stuff. But he said he was working for Nixon.”

Bernstein did not want to press for the recruiter’s name—yet.

He called Shipley the next evening. The Democratic attorney general of Tennessee told Shipley to do what he thought right, and Shipley had gotten his notes together. The man who had approached him was named Donald Segretti.