The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (68 page)

Finally Petersen, whom Nixon had already convinced for his own good that I should not have immunity, offered language he could accept. The president could say, “I have expressed my hope to the appropriate authorities that it would not be necessary to immunize any major official in order to develop a prosecutable case.” After a bit more back and forth, the president said, “Okay, I’ve got it.” He moved the conversation back toward his efforts to paint the facts in a light he felt more favorable while getting Petersen’s insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the government case, whom they might indict, and when.

As the conversation was winding down, the president urged Petersen to have the Justice Department get the prosecution and Watergate over as soon as possible. Petersen in turn presciently advised him: “You know, there is another dimension, Mr. President. These fellows, Magruder, Dean, have talked to us. They’d be less than human if they didn’t watch to see if the system was surviving the test, so there is another reason for their delay. Conceivably they’ll say, ‘Well, this may be too strong for the Department of Justice or the president, or the White House; they’re not going to have the
courage to face up to this, [so] let’s wait and see what happens.’ So if we don’t see some movement, then our bargaining position will become increasingly tougher day by day by day.” This, of course, is exactly what would happen, and Petersen was repeating almost verbatim what Shaffer had told his team of prosecutors. In fact, I did not believe the Justice Department could handle the case and had moved on to work with the Senate Watergate committee, which was on a constitutional parallel with the presidency.

But Nixon ignored Petersen’s warning. “Yeah, well, keep in my mind I’d like to get the God damn thing over with, and I know the trials of Mitchell and all these people will take a long time,” he responded, noting, “Mitchell will never plead guilty, never. [He’ll] fight it all the way down the line.” Then he asked, “What would you do if you were Mitchell?” “I think I would probably go to Saudi Arabia, to tell you the truth,” Petersen replied. Petersen, who had been elevated to his post by Mitchell, added, “When I think the former attorney general of the United States being subject to criminal trial, it is just terrible.” Nixon added, “For obstruction of justice.” The president clarified, “Not the bugging, the obstruction of justice,” and he ended the session.

Within a minute of Petersen’s departure, Haldeman and Ehrlichman were back in the Oval Office, for what became a forty-five-minute session to polish the executive privilege statement, which the president himself would take to the press room to read before the cameras and White House press corps.
⁶²
As they gathered at the president’s desk, he said that the first part of the statement regarding the Senate Watergate committee was fine, but they needed to work on the second announcement. After interruptions to advise Senator Sam Ervin regarding the section of the statement relating to his committee and to bring Ziegler up to speed, Nixon gave Haldeman and Ehrlichman the highlights of his conversation with Petersen and told them that a few changes would have to be made to the immunity language of the statement. Nixon said that Petersen was considering indicting Magruder and naming a list of others as unindicted coconspirators. As he related the conversation: “They’re going to include everybody on that list. I said, ‘Is Dean going to be on that list?’ He said yes. He said, ‘Frankly, to be quite candid, that we ought not to include Haldeman and Ehrlichman on that list. Which gives you an option.’” Nixon claimed that this hypothetical of Petersen’s represented the current thinking of the Justice Department, and then continued: “I said, ‘Are you telling me that if Haldeman and Ehrlichman decide to take leave that you will not then proceed with the prosecution? And leave
them there?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean that.’ He said, ‘What I mean is that they are not going to appear on that list, and they will appear before the grand jury and make a case there to determine whether they should be indicted.’ So there’s that the gun up ahead.”

Ehrlichman hastened to ask, “Well, whether we take leave or not doesn’t affect the list that they read off?” Nixon said, to the contrary, it did, although Petersen had stated just the opposite. “Oh, it does?” Ehrlichman said with alarm in his voice. “Yes,” the president replied softly. “They will put us on the list if we don’t take leave?” Ehrlichman asked again, for clarification. “That’s what he was saying,” the president told them. “Well, the bastard,” Ehrlichman declared. Using Petersen as his foil, Nixon explained, “Yes, because otherwise, he says, Sirica is going to question Magruder, and he’s going to question him about Haldeman, and it will appear that they were involved in this.” As this all sank in there was a brief pause, and the president said the question now was whether he should go forward with an announcement today. Ehrlichman thought he had to do so or the matter would get away from him. But the key issue still hung over the conversation, and after further discussion, Nixon again mischaracterized what Petersen said, telling his aides that unless they left the White House, they would be named as unindicted coconspirators in Magruder’s case yet still remain exposed to prosecution.
*

They then proceeded line by line through the draft statement, editing a word here and a phrase there. Needing to explain why Nixon had personally become interested in Watergate, they tested several vague statements, until the president suggested, “Why don’t we say on—Shall we set a date? March twenty-first? That sounds a hell of a lot stronger if we set a date.” Because it did sound stronger, Nixon selected our March 21 conversation as his turning point. In fact, during a candid moment with Henry Petersen, Nixon had told him that it had been the McCord letter that gotten him seriously focused on Watergate, which the record shows was true. Of course, he knew exactly
what he was doing in selecting March 21 as the key date: That conversation was a serious liability for him, so he would turn it into an asset. He was building his defense, which no one else would understand, but March 21 would have him taking action before McCord’s letter rather than reacting to it. Nor would anyone understand the reference to immunity in this statement.

For a passing minute the president had second thoughts about including an immunity paragraph, telling Ehrlichman, “I don’t want to put the immunity thing in publicly. As I said privately to [Petersen], I don’t think there’s a hell of a lot to be gained by saying it publicly.” Ehrlichman quickly persuaded the president otherwise, for it sent a message to Congress. The president conceded the point, and after about twenty minutes of discussing the draft, the statement was completed, and Ehrlichman took it to a secretary to prepare a final draft in a larger-font copy for the president to read before the press. While that was being done, Haldeman told the president more about how the prosecutors were continuing to lean on Gordon Strachan, making conspicuously false statements to him. The president thought he understood why they were doing this: “You see, they think it is worse than it is. They think he is covering up and they’re wrong. That’s what it really gets down to.”

“They are trying to confuse him,” Haldeman said. “That’s what got him bothered. The poor guy. You see, what’s really worried him is that he’s covered everything with Dean, every step of the way. Everything he has done, he’s talked with Dean about over the last year, and he’s scared to death Dean will make up something or take something that is partly right and twist it, which is what Dean is doing, and hang him on it.”
⁶³
Haldeman also told the president that he and Ehrlichman, who had both retained the same attorney, had had a first meeting with their lawyer.

When the statement was completed, Ehrlichman returned (the Oval Office recording tape was in the process of being changed and so there is no recording) and presumably the president read it over before heading to the White House press room, where he read the following statement, with two announcements, but refused to answer any questions. First he reported the agreement with the Senate Watergate committee, then said he had an announcement regarding Watergate:

On March 21, 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. Last Sunday afternoon, the attorney general,
Assistant Attorney General Petersen and I met at length in the EOB to review the facts which had come to me in my investigation and also to review the progress of the Department of Justice investigation. 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.

He proceeded to read the statement that declared that if anyone was indicted he would be suspended, and if convicted, “automatically discharged.” Next he read his new position on immunity: “I have 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.” There was no doubt in my mind that this was intended as a message to me, and an effort to block me from ending the cover-up. What Nixon and my colleagues did not know was that I had already decided to testify before the Senate with or without immunity, and had given up on the federal prosecutors. Charles Shaffer had wisely insisted that if I wanted him to represent me, we follow this course of action.

Following the president’s statement, Ziegler met with him briefly in the Oval Office, seeking guidance before he returned to the press room to answer questions.
⁶⁴
Ziegler said he had been asked why I had not attended the meeting with the attorney general and Petersen. Nixon told him to say, “He decided it was necessary to initiate an independent investigation, and Mr. Dean agreed.” Ziegler said he had also been asked if the August 29 statement was still operative? Nixon instructed Ziegler to say his “August twenty-ninth statement was based on an important investigation Mr. Dean conducted, and it would be improper to comment further on matters at the present.” Ziegler was told to respond to almost every question with a nonanswer: namely, that he did not want to prejudice either the prosecution or the rights of innocent people.

“I want to get into a little snow job with some of these [reporters] on background,” Ziegler said, to explain privately to them how Nixon had been working behind the scenes to break the case, an idea that Nixon liked. “Well, you’re going to have a very rough time in the next two or three months on this,” the president said, “because they’re going to name Mitchell and Magruder, very likely [also] name Haldeman and Ehrlichman as coconspirators, certainly Dean.” He added, “Dean is likely to blow his stack, piss on the
White House, I don’t know. His attorney’s threatening to.” “Well, Dean’s decimated anyway,” Ziegler replied. “Dean can say whatever he wants. Any man who goes for nine months, who has been lying to the president, which [will be] the impression if he is indicted, or if he is involved in this, is discredited. Anytime this becomes public, he’s a bad fellow, automatically.” Nixon was not convinced, and said I had a lot of information regarding Watergate and Ehrlichman, regarding leaks and the Ellsberg matter, and bugging other than the FBI’s. Ziegler, however, remained confident: “He’s still discredited. Discredited in anything he says. The fact of the matter is, everyone has a stake in Dean, the press has a stake in Dean, the White House has a stake in Dean. If it happens that Dean was guilty of misleading, lying, not providing the full story, he’s destroyed.”

After the president spoke generally about potential problems, and they discussed the Senate’s Watergate investigation, Ziegler said, “I think I’ll call Dean and tell him what I’m going to say, should I?” The president agreed, and added, “And I’d try to take his temperature. He might be a little shaken by that statement I made.” Nixon suggested that Ziegler should reassure me that the president was treating everyone equally, and as the press secretary was leaving, Nixon again urged that he call me and added, “But remind him the president said to be sure to protect the president.”

At the press briefing Ziegler was hammered with a flurry of questions: What prompted the president’s statement? What had happened on March 21? Was the Dean report still the operative statement about the White House? Did the “major developments” apply not only to Watergate but also to the alleged espionage and sabotage? Who asked for the meeting with Petersen? Did the president still have confidence in Dean? Was anyone resigning? Why didn’t Mitchell meet with the president when he was here? How long was Ziegler going to continue to not answer questions? Did Ziegler stand by his March 26, 1973, statement that Dean did not have prior knowledge of the Watergate matter? Was Ehrlichman involved in the new investigation? Ziegler answered most of these questions by referring to the new April 17, 1972, presidential statement as the operative policy, about which he refused to elaborate because he did not want to prejudice either the prosecutor or innocent people.

After dealing with paperwork in the Oval Office, Nixon moved in the late afternoon to his EOB office, where he met for almost two hours with Bill Rogers, and they were later joined by Haldeman and Ehrlichman.
⁶⁵
Rogers
told Nixon that he thought his statement was appropriate, and Nixon brought Rogers up to date on recent information, such as Pat Gray’s admission that he had destroyed the material from Hunt’s safe, though he claimed he had been instructed to do so, a contention that both Rogers and Nixon found absurd. Nixon shared his latest information about the Justice Department’s handling of the case and explained how he had added the no-immunity language in his statement to deal with me. He told Rogers the prosecutors handling the case “were hot on trying to give” me immunity because “they want to get Haldeman and Ehrlichman, frankly.”

Nixon gave Rogers another version of Haldeman and Ehrlichman being named as unindicted coconspirators, which Rogers had difficulty understanding, insisting they were “not guilty of a God damn thing.” After agreeing on their innocence, Nixon complained that Watergate was consuming all his time, and it was destroying Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Dean. He asked Rogers to help by advising Haldeman and Ehrlichman. The president then claimed that he had met with me only three times before he had started his own investigation on March 21. He told Rogers that he had sent me to Camp David to write a report, but that I had ultimately demurred, explaining, “I really can’t write a statement that you can put out.” Nixon said he was insisting the White House “let it all hang out” but that Haldeman and Ehrlichman were not going to tolerate any charges against them, which he had told them about that morning: “[They’re] going to fight, discredit Dean, discredit the prosecutor.” Nixon warned it was going to be a real fight and added, “Dean’s pissed off.”