The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (80 page)

This conversation ended with the president reminding Haldeman that if I did not receive immunity, “if convicted, there’s only one place where he will ever get any possible clemency.” Haldeman agreed, and Nixon added, “But I sure wouldn’t say that to him.” Haldeman agreed, and said he was sure that that had to be in the back of my mind.

Before lunch Ziegler spent not quite an hour with the president in the Oval Office. Ziegler wanted guidance on how to explain John Wilson and Frank Strickler’s visit to the president, about which the press had learned. Ziegler was told to say that Nixon was gathering facts, but Wilson and Strickler were not his legal representation.
¹³⁵
Shortly after noon the president phoned Kleindienst for an update on what was happening in the Ellsberg trial now that the judge had received the information about the Ellsberg break-in. Kleindienst said the message had been given to the judge as instructed, and they hoped he would keep it confidential and that it would not disrupt the trial.
¹³⁶
Following his conversation with Kleindienst, Nixon went over to his EOB office, where he had lunch, a brief nap and then went through paperwork until he asked Haldeman and Ehrlichman join him. Haldeman arrived just before four o’clock and remained until after nine o’clock; Ehrlichman arrived at 5:57
P.M.
and left at 7:14
P.M.
Most of this lengthy session entailed Haldeman reporting the remainder of the March 21 discussion and then reading more pages of his notes of his March and April conversations with me.
¹³⁷
Periodically this session was interrupted by Nixon making telephone calls, nine in all, principally to Kleindienst and Petersen. The president and Haldeman went deep into the minutiae of the conversations as they recalled them to explore Nixon’s potential vulnerabilities, and they continued to look for the suspected bomb in my arsenal. Only a few insights and revelations surfaced from this meeting.

Nixon felt that the part of the March 21 conversation when Haldeman joined in was better than the first segment, but Haldeman acknowledged that that was only when looked at in the context of the spin he was placing on the conversation, of “trying to smoke out from Dean what kinds of things he would say to do.” He was most concerned about whether he had given me orders to pay off Hunt, and he had not (nor had I ever thought otherwise, for I was trying to prevent him from taking such action). Haldeman read the president a forthcoming story from Jack Anderson attacking me, asserting
that everything that was amiss about Watergate was my fault. Haldeman assumed that Colson had given Anderson information, but he admitted that Ehrlichman had assisted Colson, and they “made up a story partly.”

After going over the March 21 recorded conversation, Nixon wanted Haldeman’s thoughts on how he would deal with the matter when he testified. “It’s a privileged conversation, and the president’s authorized me to characterize it as I remember it,” Haldeman replied, and then proceeded to characterize it as he hoped Nixon would also remember it; namely, Nixon was merely smoking me out. Then they returned to “the Pappas thing,” and how to handle that. “Well, Pappas was one of a number of major contributors that we met with,” Haldeman said, trying to recall what he had told the president, and added, “I don’t think I said the Watergate thing. I said Mitchell wants you to be sure and talk to Pappas. He’s very helpful. Well, I may have said ‘helpful in raising money for the defense.’”

“Give me a little rundown on your lawyers, if you wouldn’t mind,” Nixon then asked. “[To see] if there’s anything that they’ve added.” Haldeman said they were still going through details and were going to visit the prosecutors that afternoon to arrange an appointment. “Now they very much do not want the appointment until you get the thing from Petersen on what he sees as the potential charges on us,” Haldeman said, in effect telling Nixon their attorneys did not want to meet with him until they had a chance to evaluate the charges against them, which Petersen had promised to provide the next day, because the prosecutors would not likely be as forthcoming in revealing the situation to their attorneys when they met as Petersen would be with Nixon. Haldeman and Ehrlichman wanted inside information.

Returning to the Anderson story falsely attacking me, the president had a warning for Colson: “He’d better watch out; Dean will try to nail him.” “Yeah, or Dean will lash back,” Haldeman agreed. “Now Dean will read this and figure it out. That it ether came from Colson or Ehrlichman or both,” although Haldeman noted that the piece implicated both Colson and Ehrlichman as well. Nixon asked if it was true that Ehrlichman had confronted Dean with charges, as Anderson reported. Haldeman said, “Well, he didn’t really confront Dean with charges. What Ehrlichman did is say, ‘Here’s the way the thing stacks up.’ I don’t think he confronted him with him having advance knowledge, because Ehrlichman still doesn’t think he did have advance [knowledge.]”

Nixon and Haldeman had another lengthy discussion of the $350,000
that went back to LaRue at the reelection committee for payment to the Watergate defendants, which prompted the president to ask if Haldeman had talked to their lawyers about this money, “What is their latest feeling as to what the hell your defense is on that point?” Haldeman responded, “Well, they don’t feel I have a defense, because they don’t feel there’s a charge.” When Nixon suggested, “Conspiracy to obstruct justice?” Haldeman replied, “They can’t make that. Because there’s no way that I intended to obstruct justice.” Nixon asked about Hunt, and Haldeman said, “They feel I have (A) no motivation to keep him quiet and, (B) no intent to.”
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When discussing the March 21 conversation, Haldeman repeated that Ehrlichman was not threatened by Hunt’s blackmail; Ehrlichman had spoken to Krogh and didn’t think he was going to be in any trouble. Haldeman thought I was wrong in the March 21 conversation when I reported that Krogh was troubled by his perjury. Ehrlichman was still claiming all this was “national security,” adding, “For that reason, maybe I just don’t understand it, but I’m not at all sure that this whole Ellsberg thing coming out is bad.”
*
Clearly Haldeman did not understand it.

Haldeman admitted to Nixon that the part of the March 21 conversation that really shocked him was when I warned, “‘Some people may go to jail.’ You said, ‘Who?’” And he said, ‘Well, me, to begin with.’ And that really jarred you. You said, ‘Oh, hell, no.’” Haldeman said he could tell “by listening to the tape, it startled, came as a blow to you.” He added, “As soon as he told you that, a thought process starts in your mind. ‘What the hell, you know, who am I dealing with here? What’s going on?’ Because he was always the dispassionate operator, and you knew he was carrying some water on [
unclear
] keep Mitchell on, for example. But you didn’t know he was [involved himself.]” “I didn’t,” Nixon agreed. “When they talked about the load, I was not thinking, basically, Bob, of the load taking care of defendants. He never told me that until this damn conversation was made, in February, I don’t know.” (Although Nixon misspoke here, I had actually previously hinted at my problems—as early as February.) Haldeman continued, “Well, that isn’t the load that he was really carrying. He was trying to keep the whole thing on track, as he had all these people lying, bouncing out with all sorts of different tales.”

Nixon fell silent for almost a half minute, then said, “My God, he should have come to us earlier and said something. But Dean, too, has told you and John, ‘What the hell, all we’re doing here is protecting John Mitchell.’ Correct?” Haldeman agreed and admitted, “We know that, too.” Nixon continued, “Bob, I think, we had several conversations on that point. Remember? In February, right? You said, ‘This whole God damned thing is about Mitchell. Why doesn’t Mitchell get out?’”

The direction of this conversation changed when Ehrlichman joined and the president learned that the
New York Times
had the story of Pat Gray destroying documents from Hunt’s safe. Nixon first called Petersen: “I just wanted to get your reaction as to how we how we handle the Gray situation on this
New York Times
thing: You want to think about it a little bit overnight or should we react right away or what?”
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“Well,” Petersen replied, “I told Kleindienst that I’d think about it overnight and then discuss it with him in the morning.” He described it as an “unfortunate, almost needless casualty.” The president agreed it was “a dumb thing” and asked, “Why the hell did he destroy the damn file?” “I don’t know,” Petersen responded, and then replied to Nixon’s question about how Gray was going respond to the charges: “He said, ‘I had implicit confidence in Ehrlichman and Dean; when they gave him documents and said these should be destroyed, he didn’t see any reason why they shouldn’t.’” “But, well, he can’t say that Ehrlichman and Dean told him to destroy them.” Nixon, sounding flabbergasted, objected, “It wouldn’t stand up for him, I mean, apart from anything else. Why would, for example, Ehrlichman and Dean call the director of the FBI over and say, look, here’s some documents, destroy them. Why the hell wouldn’t they destroy them themselves?” Petersen said he understood that it made no sense. Nixon reminded Petersen that Gray had previously told him he had not been given the documents, and therefore had lied on at least one occasion. Nixon wanted Petersen to talk sense into Gray, and then wanted to know who should run the FBI. Petersen, somewhat presumptively, said he did not care if he got the job, but added, “I don’t want to see anybody from the inside take that job.” Nor did Nixon: “It’s got to be cleaned out.” “I don’t think that Gray should pop off with a statement tonight on the thing,” Nixon concluded.

At 6:20
P.M.
a frustrated Nixon called Kleindienst, complaining that Gray’s account of the documents was contrary to what both Ehrlichman and I had told him. Nixon suggested that if Gray took that position, he would publicly call Gray a liar. “Well, I have left the office, Mr. President,”
Kleindienst reported, “I’m at a dinner party of ten people. I have talked to Henry about it. I am going to call Gray on the telephone in the next two minutes.” At 7:12
P.M.
, after talking with Ehrlichman, who was putting out his own statement with the matter still unresolved, Nixon called Petersen again, wanting to know how this was going to be handled. Petersen said he was just commencing a conversation with Gray. At 7:44
P.M.
Kleindienst called and said he and Petersen were now in Kleindienst’s office at the Justice Department with Pat Gray, who had a new position: He would not say he had been ordered to destroy the documents by Ehrlichman and me, but with a hitch: If cross-examined he would claim, as Kleindienst explained, “He said, ‘I had to gather from Dean, as being, you know, a representative of the president of the United States, and I had to just infer from his remarks that these documents should not see the light of day, they were of such a highly sensitive nature they should not be put in the FBI files,’ he just concluded himself he ought to destroy them. Now that’s quite a bit different, you know, than being given a specific direction.”

Nixon still thought it weak, as did Kleindienst, who told the president he had said to Gray: “So suppose that this very statement that you gave us, that you made public tomorrow. You just got the press in and said, this is what happened. What would that do with respect to your ability to manage the Federal Bureau of Investigation?” Gray admitted, “It would be a disaster,” but Kleindienst said Gray was resisting resigning: “He feels that for him to resign, it’s an admission of guilt of some kind.” Kleindienst and Petersen were working on Gray to step down, but they recommended that nothing be done until the following day, because Gray “knows he’s got to resign.” They now turned to Watergate and me. Like Nixon and Petersen, Kleindienst worried about what I might say about his handling of Watergate: “[Dean] has put himself in the position in opposition to me, you, the government of the United States, everybody he’s associated with. John Dean will find himself in a very, very—” before Kleindienst could finish his sentence, Nixon added, “And that’s the point. He’s going to, you know, as I told you, he will strike a king.”

As this conversation proceeded, the president mentioned that Henry Petersen “hated” Ehrlichman and had told Nixon that it was Ehrlichman who had ordered Gray to destroy the Hunt documents. “I don’t want Petersen to mislead me like that,” Nixon complained. “Petersen doesn’t hate Ehrlichman,” Kleindienst protested, and told the president how, the previous
summer, while Kleindienst was on vacation, Ehrlichman had called Petersen “in a very intemperate way, gave him instructions with respect to what he ought to do in this God damn matter. That really rubbed Henry the wrong way.” Nixon now backed down, saying, “I like Petersen, I mean, myself, you know what I mean?” Kleindienst said that if the president trusted him, he should trust Petersen. Nixon said, “Of course,” he trusted Kleindienst. (Within seventy-two hours Nixon would force Kleindienst to resign.)

The president called Haldeman to the Oval Office at 7:50
A.M.
, before the morning staff meeting, to ask for an update, but Haldeman had nothing new.
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When the president noted that the Gray story had made the front page of the
New York Times
, Haldeman pointed out that the FBI or Justice Department had gotten their story to the
Times
while the president was talking with Petersen and Kleindienst about what Gray was going to say. Haldeman did not believe that I had instructed Gray to destroy the documents by saying they “should not see the light of day.” After briefly discussing the
Times
story, Haldeman said, “Then there is that other story, also a Dean story,” referring to an account on the front page of
The Washington Post
, which the president had ignored.
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Haldeman said, “That, you know, we met on the twentieth and we all agreed to go down with the ship or something.” Nixon asked, “What was that?” Haldeman said, “I don’t know,” and then noted, “Well, I think that maybe there was a meeting on the twentieth when we said he should give you a complete bill on the thing that is quite possible.” The
Post
in fact had the date and substance wrong: I thought I had had a tacit understanding with Haldeman and Ehrlichman to tell the truth, regardless of the consequences, when we had spoken without the president on the afternoon of March 21,
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and Nixon spent the rest of this conversation fixated on this conversation. Haldeman reminded the president that he had to go run the staff meeting, though Nixon wanted to discuss Ruckelshaus’s becoming temporary acting FBI director, stating, “I don’t want Felt.” As the meeting ended, Nixon asked Haldeman what he thought of John Connally or Bill Rogers becoming attorney general. Haldeman did not know about Connally, but thought “Rogers would be superb.”