All the President's Men (18 page)

A credit card leaves a trail of hotel and restaurant charges and airplane tickets giving dates, times, places, costs, transactions. The FBI usually goes to those records first, gobbling them up with subpoenas.

Segretti, whose last name means “secrets” in Italian, had crisscrossed the country more than 10 times during the last half of 1971, according to his credit-card records, usually staying in a city for no longer than a night or two. The stops had included Miami; Houston; Manchester, New Hampshire; Knoxville; Los Angeles; Chicago; Portland; San Francisco; New York; Fresno; Tucson; Albuquerque and—repeatedly—Washington. Many of the cities were in key political states for the 1972 presidential campaign, mostly primary states. In New Hampshire, Florida, Illinois and, particularly, California, Segretti had moved from city to city, leaving his trail in territories where the Democratic primaries would be fought hardest. The travel records supported Shipley’s account.

Bernstein passed the reporters’ information about Segretti on to Meyers, who was staking out Segretti’s apartment and talking to his neighbors. Marina del Rey, where Segretti lived, was on the water and, if you believed the ads, represented the ultimate in swinging-singles living. Lots of sailing, saunas, mixed-doubles tennis, pools, parties, candlelight, long-stemmed glasses, Caesar salads, tanned bodies, mixed double-triple-multiple kinkiness in scented sandalwood splendor.

Meyers climbed up to Segretti’s balcony and looked inside. There were dirty dishes on a counter. The apartment looked comfortable—thick white wall-to-wall carpeting, a gas-jet fireplace with fake logs, a battery of stereo equipment, books, magazines and records stacked on tables. Meyers could see a 10-speed bicycle in a hallway that appeared to lead to the bedroom.

Two of Segretti’s neighbors said he had left in a hurry in his white Mercedes sports coupé on Saturday afternoon and had mentioned that he might not be back for a few days. They didn’t know about his work, except that he was a lawyer and traveled a lot. He didn’t talk about politics much.

The garage under Segretti’s building resembled something between a sports-car showroom and a racetrack pit stop. Somebody seemed to be working on a car at almost any hour of the day or night. Meyers
spent a lot of time in the garage, checking there for Segretti’s 280-SL, inspecting the vacant parking space for oil drippings in case he had missed a quick return. But the floor remained dry; the mail in Segretti’s mailbox accumulated.

On Thursday morning, a matchstick Meyers had wedged into the interface of Segretti’s front door had dropped to the floor. But there was no answer when Meyers knocked, and Segretti’s car was not in the garage. Meyers waited. Segretti was back that afternoon and answered the door. Meyers introduced himself as a reporter for the
Post.
The
Post
had information about certain work Segretti had done in behalf of Teddy Kennedy, or possibly Hubert Humphrey, he said. Could they talk?

Segretti remained silent in the doorway. He looked younger than his 31 years, more as if he were in his early or mid-twenties. He had a friendly face, though it was unsmiling.

Meyers asked if he had any connection with Kennedy or Humphrey.

No.

Meyers wanted to get inside. The
Post
had extensive information on Segretti, he said, about his work in the Democratic primaries. Segretti let him inside.

Did he know Alex Shipley?

“Why?”

Because the
Post
had information connecting Segretti with an attempt to recruit Shipley for undercover political work.

“I don’t believe it,” Segretti said.

In fact, hadn’t Segretti attempted to recruit Shipley during a drive to Dulles Airport on June 27, 1971 to do work concerning the primary campaign of Humphrey or Muskie?

“I don’t remember.”

Did he know Alex Shipley?

“No comment.”

Hadn’t he called Shipley from Chicago and told him he wanted to talk to him about a job?

“I don’t remember.”

And later, hadn’t he called Shipley and asked him to fly to Atlanta to recruit Kenneth Griffiths?

“I don’t remember.”

He did know Shipley, correct?

“No comment.”

Had he called Shipley from California on October 23, asking him to check on Muskie’s operation in Tennessee?

Segretti’s demeanor remained mild, even affable. “This is ridiculous,” he told Meyers. “I don’t know anything about this. This all sounds like James Bond fiction.”

Meyers asked him about Dixon, Nixt and whether the Treasury Department had picked up any of his tabs; about his law practice, and about his travels, and again about Shipley.

Segretti remained impassive, a faint smile on his face.

What about the name Bill Mooney, a false ID that Segretti had said he might use? Did that ring a bell?

“Ridiculous.”

Segretti moved toward the door. Reaching for a 35-millimeter camera under the back of his jacket, Meyers said he wanted to take a picture before he left, and started clicking. Segretti ran outside into the hallway, yelling “No pictures!” A moment later, he came back and Meyers pointed the lens at his head. Just one more, Meyers said, aiming the camera again. Segretti tried to grab it and missed, then seized Meyers’ left arm and pushed him toward the open door, the camera still clicking.

Meyers rushed to a pay phone. Bernstein was talking to Sussman in the city editor’s office. Things were breaking. During a routine telephone check with a Justice Department official that morning, Bernstein had asked if the official had ever heard of Donald Segretti. It had been a throwaway question.

“I can’t answer your question because that’s part of the investigation,” the Justice official replied.

Bernstein was startled. Woodward and he had thought they were alone in pursuing Segretti.

There could be no discussion of Segretti because he was part of the Watergate investigation, right?

That was correct, but the official would not listen to any more questions about Segretti. Bernstein went down his list of checks, crossing out each item, writing “no” or “nothing” in the margin.

Herbert W. Kalmbach?

“That’s part of the investigation, too, so I can’t talk about it,” the official said.

Sloan had refused to say if Kalmbach was among those who could give out money from Maurice Stans’ safe. But since the fund was intended for “intelligence-gathering,” Segretti might have been bankrolled that way. Shipley had the impression that Segretti had got money from a “big spender” who was not in government. That would fit Kalmbach, President Nixon’s personal attorney.

Was there a connection between Segretti and Kalmbach?

The official would say nothing more.

Sussman and Bernstein were discussing all this when a copy aide rushed into the city editor’s office to say Meyers was waiting on the phone, sounding all out of breath.

“Jesus, I nearly got my ass beaten trying to take pictures,”
*
he told Bernstein. Then he got his breath back and put the scene into better focus.

Bernstein told Meyers that the Feds knew about Segretti. Sussman came over to talk to Meyers. All agreed he should go back and contact anyone who might know Segretti, find out if his acquaintances had been contacted by the FBI, what questions had been asked, everything they might know about him. The University of Southern California and Boalt Hall law school at Berkeley, where Segretti had studied, seemed the best places. The next day, Meyers called to say that, as a USC undergraduate, Segretti had been close to several persons who were to become part of the Nixon White House. Among the USC graduates at the White House were Ron Ziegler, the President’s press secretary; Dwight Chapin, the presidential appointments secretary; Bart Porter, a former White House advance man and CRP scheduling director who had received money from the fund; Tim Elbourne, who had served as a Ziegler press assistant; Mike Guhin, a member of Henry Kissinger’s National Security Council staff; and Gordon Strachan, Haldeman’s political aide and the White House liaison to CRP.

Bernstein and Woodward sent feelers out through the
Post
newsroom, looking for anyone who had more than superficial contact with members
of the White House staff. Their expectations weren’t very high, given the relationship between the Nixon administration and the
Washington Post.
That heady era of good feeling, in which reporters had rubbed elbows and shoulders with President Kennedy’s men in touch football and candlelit backyards in Georgetown and Cleveland Park, was a thing of the past.

But Karlyn Barker, a former UPI reporter who had joined the city staff on the same day as Woodward, said a friend of hers had gone to USC with the White House boys and had stayed in close touch with them. Within a few hours, Barker had given Bernstein a memo headed “Notes on USC Crowd.”

Her friend had known Segretti, Chapin and Tim Elbourne since college. He referred to the “USC Mafia” in the White House and said Segretti and Elbourne had been called by their schoolmates Dwight Chapin and Ron Ziegler to help in the Nixon election business.

All belonged to a campus political party called Trojans for Representative Government. The Trojans called their brand of electioneering “ratfucking.” Ballot boxes were stuffed, spies were planted in the opposition camp, and bogus campaign literature abounded. Ziegler and Chapin had hooked onto Richard Nixon’s 1962 campaign for governor of California—managed by Bob Haldeman. After graduation, Ziegler and Chapin and Elbourne had joined the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in Los Angeles, where Haldeman was a vice president. Segretti had been summoned to Washington and trained to work in a presidential election, according to Karlyn Barker’s friend.

Bernstein called the Justice Department official who had originally told him that Segretti was part of the Watergate investigation. It was Saturday, October 7.

“No, I can’t talk about him,” the official said once more. “That’s right, even though he’s not directly linked to Watergate, to the break-in. . . . Obviously, I came across him through the investigation. . . . Yes, political sabotage is associated with Segretti. I’ve heard a term for it, ‘ratfucking.’ There is some very powerful information, especially if it comes out before November 7,” the day of the election.

Could that powerful information involve Dwight Chapin? Had he hired Segretti? Or had Ziegler? Or  . . .

“I won’t say anything on either Ziegler or Chapin.”

Bernstein guessed Chapin. The official said he certainly didn’t want to discourage anything the
Post
might be pursuing.

In the rough code they had evolved, Bernstein interpreted the remark as confirming that there was a connection between Segretti and Chapin.

Did Segretti have anything to do with the Canuck Letter?
*

The official said he couldn’t talk about that letter either; it was also part of the investigation.

•   •   •

Bernstein groped through the paper effluvia on his desk and retrieved a manila file marked “Phones.” In June he had begun jotting down phone numbers of persons contacted on the story, logging them on a sheet of copy paper. He started going through the pages, looking for people who might know about Donald Segretti, ratfucking, Dwight Chapin, the USC Mafia, the Canuck Letter.

Bernstein had been reading the clippings on the primaries for any examples of malicious dirty tricks.

Finally he hit with one call.

“Ratfucking?”
The word struck a raw nerve with a Justice Department attorney. “You can go right to the top on that one. I was shocked when I learned about it. I couldn’t believe it. These are public servants? God. It’s nauseating. You’re talking about fellows who come from the best schools in the country. Men who run the government!”

Bernstein wondered what “right to the top” meant. But he wasn’t given time to ask. The attorney had worked himself into a rage.

“If the Justice Department could find a law against it, a jury of laymen would convict them on that. It’s absolutely despicable. Segretti? He’s indescribable. It would be useful for you to write an article about this type of conduct. I was so shocked. I didn’t understand it. It’s completely immoral. All these people, unbelievable. Look at Hunt. I don’t think he’s involved in the ratfucking. But he’s capable of anything. And he had access to the White House.

“The press hasn’t brought that home. You’re dealing with people who act like this was Dodge City, not the capital of the United States. Hunt bringing guns into the White House!”
*

Bernstein was impressed. He had never known the man to be so outraged.

The Chapin-Segretti connection?

“Look at it more to see if your facts are straight,” the attorney advised.

The secret fund—had it financed the ratfucking?

“That’s a fruitful area.” He was calm for a moment, then became angry again. “Why else would they have all that money lying around? It’s a scandal. But it will all come out at the trial. . . .”

The Canuck Letter?

“The Muskie letter is part of it.”

Kalmbach?

“I won’t discuss names. There are so many things that nothing would surprise me. It’ll come out at the trial, which is the best context of all because the people will know it is the truth. The prosecutors have the truth. They want an opportunity to show it. The people who did this are going to take the stand.”

John Mitchell?

“Mitchell? They won’t call him. But it will be there. He can’t say he didn’t know about it, because it was strategy—basic strategy that goes all the way to the top. Higher than him, even.”

The attorney realized he had gone too far.
Higher than Mitchell?
Dwight Chapin was a functionary, an advance man and glorified valet, servant to Richard Nixon and H. R. Haldeman. At most, there were three persons who went
higher than John Mitchell:
John Ehrlichman (maybe), Haldeman and Richard M. Nixon.

Basic strategy that goes all the way to the top.
The phrase unnerved Bernstein. For the first time, he considered the possibility that the President of the United States was the head ratfucker.