Nixon's Secret (64 page)

But according to authors Phil Stanford and Len Colodny, Dean was directly involved in Sandwedge—he was actually a coauthor of the plan.
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Mitchell refused to approve Sandwedge. Campaign Manager Jeb Magruder would have us believe Mitchell later approved a more grandiose plan that included highly illegal surreptitious break-ins. Mitchell deputy Fred LaRue, the only other person in the room, vigorously disputed Magruder’s account, as does Mitchell himself.

Dean, of course, did not stop at Sandwedge. It was this lust for influence that made John Dean the real power behind the notorious Gemstone plan.

Next, Dean handed the baton off to colorful ex-FBI man G. Gordon Liddy. According to Dean’s own book
Blind Ambition
, he pushed to have Liddy hired as the legal counsel to the Finance Committee for the reelection of the President. Dean incorrectly said that he promoted Liddy for the job of general counsel to the Committee to Reelect the President, a different entity. Technically, Liddy worked for Finance Chairman Maurice Stans, not deputy director Jeb Magruder.

“Dean realized that the way to increase his influence was through political intelligence, so when Caulfield—to Dean’s dismay—decided to resign to set up his own detective agency, Dean—to his horror—realized he was going to lose his operative, so I was recruited,” said Liddy.
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Liddy, like Caulfield, was someone who could perform tasks in the interest of Dean.

Dean had knowledge of Liddy’s break-in at Dr. Fielding’s office. He encouraged Liddy to develop a “first-class intelligence operation.”
13

“You mean Sandwedge?” asked Liddy.
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“No. We’re going to need something much better, much more complete and sophisticated than that,” replied Dean. “How’s a half a million for openers?”
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Well,” Liddy said, “You’re talking the right numbers, anyway. Half a million is just about right for openers, and it’d probably take another half before we’re finished. That doesn’t bother you?”
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“No, problem,” Dean answered.
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Liddy was also provided with the twelve-page analysis and proposal for Sandwedge with a comment added from Dean that it had been “inadequate.”
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“Liddy was told to put together this plan, you know, how he would run an intelligence operation,” Dean said later, without stating that it was he who gave the order. Dean told Nixon it was Colson who most likely pushed Liddy to develop the proposal. “I think he (Colson) helped to get the push, get the thing off dime,” Dean told the president.
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The operation, urged on by Dean and drafted by Liddy, was named Gemstone, a series of clandestine and illegal exploits, each named after a precious stone, which landed at $1 million. The massive undertaking included chase planes, prostitutes, and the beating, drugging, and kidnapping of anti-war demonstration leaders who would be stowed in Mexico and held there until after the Republican National Convention.

On January 22, 1972, accompanied by Dean and Magruder, Liddy presented his plan to John Mitchell in the attorney general’s office. As Liddy ran through his checklist of bribery, kidnapping, and prostitution to the attorney general, the two men who had encouraged the operative, Dean and Magruder, sat there “like two rabbits in front of a cobra.”

When Liddy concluded his far-fetched proposal, the straight-faced attorney general removed the pipe that had been clenched between his teeth, took time to repack, relight, and paused to puff and collect his thoughts.

“Gordon, that’s not quite what I had in mind,” Mitchell said, adding that Liddy should come up with something a bit more realistic, effectively nixing the proposal and ending the meeting. Liddy was miffed at Mitchell’s brusque response to the plan; he had supplied what he thought the attorney general had requested, but it was clear that Mitchell had not been filled in beforehand on the figures or design. In fact, Mitchell saw Liddy’s proposal as ludicrous. “I think it can best be described as a complete horror story that involved a mish-mash of code names and lines of authority, electronic surveillance, the ability to intercept aircraft communications, the call girl bit and all the rest of it,” Mitchell later told the Senate. “The matter was of such striking content and concept that it was just beyond the pale. As I recall, I told him to go burn the charts and that this was not what we were interested in. What we were interested in was a matter of information gathering and protection against demonstrators.”

“. . . In hindsight, I not only should have thrown him out of the office, I should have thrown him out of the window.”
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While Liddy felt put off by Mitchell, he felt betrayed by Magruder and Dean. These were the men who pushed the proposal, encouraged Liddy to think big, and remained silent when his submission was rejected. Liddy recalled the moment in his autobiography,
Will:

I walked out of Mitchell’s office with fire in my eyes. Before we even reached the car, in which John Dean was to join us for a ride back to the White House, I unloaded on both of them. “Thanks for all the help. What the hell does he mean, ‘realistic?’ You’re the one, John, who said there’d be ‘half a million for openers.’ I’ve got top people committed and standing by on the basis of a budget of a million, in good faith. What’s going on?”

Magruder was solicitous. “Mr. Mitchell,” he said, “sees more of the picture than any of us. It may be that contributions aren’t up to what they were expected to be by now and there just isn’t the money for intelligence and dirty tricks they thought would be available. These things happen in campaigns. You’ve got to be flexible. You’re going to have to cut out the most expensive stuff.”

“It’s clear,” chimed in Dean, “that he wants a less broad-gauged program. Jeb’s right, you’re going to have to cut it back.”
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Following the first Gemstone meeting, Liddy went back to the drawing board, halved the budget and eliminated the more extreme measures of the plan, cutting it down to $500,000. The updated plan was “less spectacular and therefore more acceptable,” Magruder said.
22

Another meeting was arranged for February 4, 1972, and again attended by the attorney general, Liddy, Magruder, and Dean. Mitchell was again dissatisfied at what was being proposed, so much so that Dean saw him “wince” during the presentation,
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and he decided to call the meeting to a close.

Perhaps with the fear that if the meeting ended at that moment the project would be scrapped completely, Dean intervened. “Sir, I don’t think a decision of this kind should come from the attorney general’s office. I think he should get it from somewhere else—completely unofficial channels.”
24

Dean’s later version to Nixon was outlandish, given that it was Dean who desired the intelligence plan and its approval. I said, “You all pack that stuff up and get it the hell out of here ‘cause we just, you just can’t talk this way in this office and you should re-examine your whole thinking.”
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Outside of the office, Liddy was once again seething. “Now, I want a fucking decision and I want it fast!” Liddy yelled at Magruder. “What John said was unfortunate, but he has a point,” Magruder answered. “Don’t worry; I’ll follow through on it and get you a decision.”
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The February 4 meeting was significant not only because it was the second time Mitchell rejected a Dean-sponsored intelligence plan (third if Sandwedge is included), but also because the stories of Dean and Magruder began to diverge from those of Liddy, Mitchell, and others. This was when, Dean and Magruder argued, particulars of what became the Watergate break-ins were considered.

Dean and Magruder contended that this was the first time a surveillance operation, with the specific target of Democratic National Chairman Larry O’Brien, was discussed. Magruder said O’Brien was the first name mentioned in a meeting about a surveillance operation. In Magruder’s story, O’Brien was bugged at both the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami, where the convention was to be held, and in his DNC office at the Watergate.
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Dean, who claimed he was late to the meeting, had three versions of what was mentioned in the meeting regarding the surveillance of O’Brien. In private testimony, Dean claimed the meeting touched on O’Brien and the Fountainbleau. Only days later, in a television interview, Dean claimed that he could not recall if these items were discussed. In this version, Dean wavered, saying there “may have been something as to potential targets,” and later that “none were named.” In the later part of 1974, taking the stand in
US v. Mitchell
, Dean was asked once again about the second meeting, stating that when he entered, the three men were “talking about targets, possible targets of electronic surveillance.”
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Both Liddy and John Mitchell maintained that neither Larry O’ Brien or the DNC were mentioned as potential targets during the February 4 meeting. Mitchell added that the DNC was “basically ceremonial” and not an interest to him. Liddy said the DNC was not a target for break-in until March, and at that time it was an order from Magruder.
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Magruder once again told Liddy that the proposal at $500,000, which Dean had assured Liddy was an approved start-up figure, was “too expensive.”
30
Liddy once again halved and redrafted his proposal.

The third and final meeting where Gemstone was discussed took place on March 30, 1972, in Key Biscayne, Florida. Mitchell was vacationing with his wife, Martha, and daughter at the Florida House, owned by Nixon pal Bebe Rebozo.

Present at the meeting in Key Biscayne were Mitchell, Magruder and high-ranking Nixon White House aide Fred LaRue. Magruder was presenting Mitchell with a series of papers with items to make decisions on. The intelligence plan, which included bugging the DNC office of Larry O’Brien, was at the bottom of the pile. Again, later recollections contradicted when the discussion turned to the intelligence proposal. Magruder recalled that approval of the operation was “a reluctant decision,” but was given the go-ahead by Mitchell. Mitchell’s version is consistent with his apparent distaste of the previous two meetings. “We don’t need this,” Mitchell said he responded. “I am tired of hearing it. Out—let’s not discuss it any further.”
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LaRue’s account lends support to the argument that Mitchell did not approve the proposal. “Mr. Magruder, as in the previous proposals, handed this paper to Mr. Mitchell,” said LaRue. “Mr. Mitchell read it, he asked me if I had read it and I told him I had. He asked me what I thought of it and I told him I did not think it was worth the risk.”
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LaRue said that Mitchell then replied, “Well, this is not something that will have to be decided at this meeting.”
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The meeting, and his lack of assertiveness in rejecting the idea of the break-in, haunted Mitchell for years.

“Under the setting and the circumstances, what was said was vehement enough to [convey] ‘Get the hell out of here and don’t bring any of that nonsense around me,’” Mitchell recalled. “. . .The conclusion I’ve come to in my own mind [is] that these things were under way and they were going to go ahead regardless.”
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The many accounts of the meeting in Key Biscayne make it probable that no matter what Mitchell said in the meeting, Magruder had to leave with the plan approved.

G. Gordon Liddy, not present at the Key Biscayne meeting, knew where the idea and the approval of the Watergate break-ins derived. “Dean was the highest-level person to sign off on Watergate,” said Liddy.
35

Despite LaRue and Mitchell’s accounts to the contrary, Watergate prosecutors accepted Magruder’s testimony. Magruder went a step further with his account of the Key Biscayne meeting three decades later, adding the claim of an overheard phone call between the president and the attorney general.

According to Magruder, Mitchell called Haldeman and Ehrlichman to discuss the DNC/wiretapping enterprise further. Magruder said that sometime during the call he heard the familiar voice of Nixon on the other end personally giving the order for the break-ins.

“John . . . we need need to get the information on Larry O’Brien, and the only way we can do that is through Liddy’s plans,” Nixon allegedly told Mitchell.
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“And I could hear his voice distinctly indicating that he wanted the Liddy plan to go ahead,” Magruder added. “And Mitchell got off the phone and said to me: ‘Jeb, tell Maurice Stans to give $250,000 to Gordon Liddy and let’s see what happens.’”
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According to John Taylor, executive director of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda until 2009, Magruder’s claim is undoubtedly false. “The White House Daily Diary, which details all the president’s meetings and telephone calls, shows that Mr. Ehrlichman did not meet or talk with President Nixon at any time on March 30, 1972,” Taylor said.
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Even John Dean would contradict Magruder’s late claim, telling the Associated Press, “I have no reason to doubt that it happened as he describes it, but I have never seen a scintilla of evidence that Nixon knew about the plans for the Watergate break-in or that the likes of Gordon Loddy were operating at the reelection committee.”

Dean historian Stanley Kutler, an expert on Nixon’s White House tapes, called Magruder’s allegation “the dubious word of a dubious character.”

Magruder and Dean had good reason to issue different recollections than the others in the Gemstone meetings. By passing the buck to Mitchell, Dean and Magruder assumed the role of two lower-level White House functionaries who “were just following orders.” Dean looked the part at the Watergate hearings, as well. Gone was the long-haired, modish, Porshe-driving White House operative everybody knew; the John Dean who showed up to the Watergate hearings looked nebbish, with a short haircut in a conservative suit. Even his contacts were gone. Instead, he wore horn-rimmed glasses.