All the President's Men (42 page)

•   •   •

The White House Correspondents Association annual dinner is a
formal, overdone, alcohol-saturated event, attended by all those with power—or pretensions to power—in the media and the government. It was held on April 14 at the Washington Hilton and Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kissinger, and the President (who arrived after dinner flanked by a retinue of POWs) were among those who sat through an evening’s entertainment that was interspersed with savage Watergate jokes.

Bernstein and Woodward had been invited because they had received two journalism awards. They spent a good part of the evening pretending they had never before met administration aides who had been sources for them. Some had always been difficult to reach and reluctant to talk. Now, a number of them were themselves shut out, and wanted the reporters to tell them what was happening. “What’s going on?” “How bad is it?” “What do you think the President should do?” they were asking the reporters.

In the lobby after the dinner, the reporters saw Attorney General Kleindienst holding court. Kleindienst’s public statements had been the backbone of the administration’s defense of its investigation; Woodward and Bernstein had never had any access to him. They went up to introduce themselves.

“You two follow the courage of your convictions,” Kleindienst said.

What’s going on? Woodward asked.

“The Watergate case is going to blow up,” Kleindienst said simply. Woodward said that they should talk. What about the next day—Sunday?

“I have to go to church,” said Kleindienst.

Bernstein and Woodward said they were anxious to talk.

“Okay,” Kleindienst said, “you go to church with me tomorrow morning and afterwards we’ll come back to my house and have breakfast.”

Some of the news organizations had rented hospitality suites where drinks were served almost to sunrise. Woodward arrived at the
Wall Street Journal’s
party at about 2:00
A.M.
About 20 people, glasses in hand, were gathered in one corner, and a familiar voice was ringing out from the center of the circle. “You son of a bitch!” Unmistakably Bradlee. He was arguing with his former employee, now White House aide Ken Clawson. The subject was Clawson’s purported statement confessing he had written the Canuck Letter. But the argument ranged
over ancient battles—the press versus the government, the
Washington Post
versus Nixon. Clawson had once told friends that Bradlee was the man he most admired. Now he despised Bradlee, and held him personally to blame for the Canuck Letter story.

Fueled by alcohol, the debate grew hotter and more personal. The two men, in dinner clothes, waved away anyone who tried to join in. Finally, in a ridiculous attempt to be more discreet, they moved into a closet, and left the door open.

“Have they hit each other yet?” one woman asked hopefully.

At the bar, there was another Watergate imbroglio. Edward Bennett Williams, the
Post’s
lawyer and the president of the Washington Redskins, President Nixon’s favorite football team, was faced off against Patrick J. Buchanan, a White House speechwriter. Williams’ firm also represented the Democratic Party. He was speaking bitterly about the 1972 election.

“You’re just a sore loser, Ed,” Buchanan was saying.

“But you did it dirty, Pat,” Williams said, heaving his large body to one side. “You had to do it dirty. You won, but you had to steal it.”

“The Watergate’s all you had,” Buchanan retorted. “Some Cubans going in to look at Larry O’Brien’s mail. . . . You blew it out of all proportion.”

“Dirty, Pat, dirty election,” Williams said. “Aren’t you ashamed? You’re a conservative, and all this law-breaking. And the
Washington Post
really sticking it to you. Oh, that must have hurt the most.” Williams threw his arm around Woodward. “The
Washington Post
just jamming it up your old ass.”

“Sixty-one percent, Ed,” Buchanan responded. “Sixty-one percent. Just the biggest landslide in recent history, and if it hadn’t been for Watergate, it would have been more.”

“You did it dirty.”

“A little spying, Ed. That’s politics. I’ll bet you guys had the binoculars on Shula [the Miami Dolphin football coach] at the Super Bowl. You had the glasses out on the other side of the stadium and you didn’t even win.”

“You won, Pat, all right, and now everyone is seeing how it stinks.” Williams faltered slightly, clutching his drink in both hands.

“How about some of your clients, Ed?” Buchanan responded,
referring, possibly, to former Teamster president James Hoffa and ex-Senate aide Bobby Baker. “You’ve really handled some fine fellows.”

“Pat,” Williams said, moving in and planting his bulky frame in front of Buchanan, “I’m surprised at you, Pat. There’s one big difference—”

“How about some of those crooks you defended?” Buchanan taunted.

“There’s a big difference,” Williams boomed, “such a big difference.” He bent his head, leaned against the bar, and looked up quietly.

“What’s this big difference, Ed?”

“I didn’t run any of my clients for President.”

•   •   •

The next morning, Woodward and Bernstein slept through church and drove out to Virginia to Kleindienst’s house for the breakfast they had been promised.

Mrs. Kleindienst opened the door. “He’s been called to the White House and can’t discuss the Watergate with you,” she said. “He went there for services and had to stay for a meeting. He was sorry.”

•   •   •

That Sunday afternoon at dusk, Woodward and a friend were sitting on a grassy ridge in Montrose Park in Georgetown. A short distance away, Woodward saw a couple in intense conversation strolling toward them.

“It’s Haldeman,” Woodward’s friend said. It was indeed Haldeman, wearing light-colored sneakers, casual slacks and a tan windbreaker. He walked slowly, his hands in his pockets. His wife, also casually dressed, was speaking to him with obvious emotion and conviction. Haldeman was silent, occasionally turning his head to her. The sun was setting.

Woodward saw a chance to get past the wall. Here, in a public park, with no guards or police or White House limousines waiting. Haldeman looked subdued. Woodward started to rise, wondering if Haldeman would slug him if he introduced himself.

“Leave him alone,” Woodward’s friend said quietly. The couple walked by, engrossed in private conversation. Woodward didn’t move.

•   •   •

Kleindienst called the reporters at their office on Monday morning to apologize for the canceled breakfast. There had been an urgent meeting at the White House, he said cryptically. It would all be out in a few days.

•   •   •

That evening, the
Post’s
night city editor called Woodward at home. The
Los Angeles Times
was predicting on its front page that the White House would make a dramatic Watergate admission in a few days: one or more high-level officials not identified in the story would be named as directing or condoning political espionage and sabotage activities without approval from the President.

Woodward made an emergency call to Deep Throat. The procedure involved making a call from a pre-designated phone booth, saying nothing and then hanging up after 10 seconds. Woodward had to wait for almost an hour by the phone booth before the call was returned.

No meeting was possible that night, Deep Throat said. “You don’t have to tell me why you called.”

The whole town is going crazy, what’s going on? Woodward asked.

“You’d better hang on for this,” said Deep Throat. “Dean and Haldeman are out—for sure.”

Out? Woodward repeated, dumbfounded.

“Out. They’ll resign. There’s no way the President can avoid it.”

Could the
Post
publish that?

“Yes. It’s solid,” Deep Throat said.

What should we do? Woodward asked.

“Someone’s talking. Several are talking—go find out. I’ve got to go. I mean it—find out.” Deep Throat hung up.

When Woodward arrived in the newsroom at about eleven the next morning, April 17, Bernstein, Sussman, Rosenfeld, Simons and Bradlee were in Bradlee’s office trying to figure out what to do next. Bernstein had just talked to a White House official who said the place was chaotic, but that nobody seemed to know what was going to happen, or when.

Woodward rushed into Bradlee’s office, blurting out Deep Throat’s message. The others were stunned.

It was solid, Woodward said. Deep Throat had been sure. They all realized that the house of cards was crumbling.

“Can we go with it?” Bradlee asked, staring out the window.

Yes, said Woodward. But he was concerned that a story might delay the resignations.

Bernstein worried that a story in the
Post
might even kick the decisions the other way.

Rosenfeld suggested politely that perhaps the reporters and the
Post
as well were overrating their importance. If Dean and Haldeman had to go, the President had more to worry about than whether the
Post
got the satisfaction of reporting it first.

Bradlee was recalling that he had been badly burned on a resignation story once, and the experience had left him with a healthy fear of the whole genre.

“I wrote a cover story for
Newsweek
on J. Edgar Hoover, saying the search was finally under way for his successor at the FBI,” he said. “Moyers [Bill D. Moyers, Lyndon Johnson’s press secretary] said, ‘We’ve finally got the bastard. Lyndon told me to find his replacement.’ So that was the lead, without Moyers’ name: The search is finally under way for J. Edgar Hoover’s successor.’ Johnson—the next day, I think—held a press conference at which he appointed Hoover director of the FBI for life. And as he went in before the television cameras, he said to Moyers, ‘You call up Ben Bradlee and tell him, “Fuck you.” ’ Well, for years people said, ‘You did it, Bradlee. You did it, you got him appointed for life.’ ”

Bradlee said he didn’t know what to do with this one about Haldeman and Dean. He wanted to go, but he was afraid of it.

A decision became unnecessary for the moment. A news aide brought a piece of wire copy into the room. The President had scheduled an announcement for that afternoon in the White House press room.

The reporters decided Bernstein should go in case the President agreed to answer questions from the floor. He called Ziegler’s office—Bernstein didn’t have a White House press pass either.

The room was already jammed when he arrived. Bernstein was surprised at what he judged to be a very different attitude among the
White House press corps, old and young. There were a lot of angry people in the room. Gallows humor was the order of the day. The President was running late.

“He’s out getting a cocker spaniel and a cloth coat for Pat,” said one senior reporter.
*

“Nixon’s going to waive executive privilege for Manolo and finally throw him to the wolves,” said another. Manolo Sanchez was the President’s valet.

Somebody theorized that they were about to hear the administration’s prison-reform message. “Yeah,” replied another, “they’re going to move the White House to Leavenworth.”

A few members of the press corps, including Helen Thomas of UPI, thought the President was going to announce Bob Haldeman’s resignation. An hour passed and the television lights were turned off. Gerry Warren appeared and said the President would be out as soon as possible. Warren looked grim.

There was some discussion as to whether Warren’s appearance meant that Ziegler was finished and going to be replaced. If the President admitted any White House involvement in Watergate, someone said, Ziegler deserved to be finished. He deserved to be finished no matter what, someone else added, and there was a good deal of laughter.

Helen Thomas thought the President had become so emotionally wrought at what he was going to have to announce that he couldn’t pull himself together to go through with it. That would explain the delay, she said.

Warren appeared again and said it wouldn’t be too much longer. The lights went back on.

At 4:40
P.M.
, Ziegler, looking grimmer than Warren, emerged from the hallway in the West Wing. “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

The President was very tanned, but he looked older than his pictures. His hands were shaking, Bernstein noticed.

“On March 21,” he said, “as a result of serious charges which came
to my attention, some of which were publicly reported, I began intensive new inquiries into this whole matter. . . . I can report today that there have been major developments in the case concerning which it would be improper to be more specific now, except to say that real progress has been made in finding the truth.”

There were to be no resignations that day. Instead, the President announced that he would suspend “any person in the Executive Branch or in government” who was indicted in the case.

The President had become the investigator who would see justice done where others had failed. These were the much reported “major developments.” Nixon had met on Sunday with Attorney General Kleindienst and Assistant Attorney General Henry E. Petersen “to review the facts which had come to me in my investigation and also to review the progress of the Department of Justice investigation.” So that was why Kleindienst couldn’t have breakfast on Sunday morning.

Richard Nixon was now also the prosecutor and had expressed “to the appropriate authorities my view that no individual holding, in the past or at present, a position of major importance in the administration should be given immunity from prosecution.”

The President, reversing his earlier position, was now agreeing to permit his aides to testify under oath before the Senate Watergate committee, he said. Though they might still claim executive privilege on particular questions. John Ehrlichman was working out the details with the committee.

The President’s announcement lasted about three minutes. His hands did not stop shaking. Most of the time he looked past the reporters in front of him, his eyes fixed on the television cameras on a platform at the rear of the room, or on the paper he was reading from.