The Real Watergate Scandal: Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot That Brought Nixon Down (41 page)

4
.
     
Like those of the Ervin Committee, HJC investigatory papers are sealed until 2024.

5
.
     
The study only became public when it was published in book form. See C. Vann Woodward, editor,
Responses of the President to Charges of Misconduct
(New York: Delacorte Press, 1974). Professor Woodward’s papers are at the Yale University Library Center.

6
.
     
Renata Adler,
Canaries in the Mineshaft
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 35–36.

7
.
     
See Max Holland,
Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012).

8
.
     
See Jeff Himmelman,
Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee
(New York: Random House, 2012).

9
.
     
All papers of special and independent prosecutors in the possession of the National Archives are maintained in the Special Access Section of Archives II in College Park, Maryland, and are accessible under the same restrictions as with WSPF papers.

10
.
   
John Dean,
The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It
(New York: Penguin Viking, 2014), 8, 288, and 591.

11
.
   
Ibid., footnote at 312.

12
.
   
Ibid., 95, 119, 421 and 593.

13
.
   
Ibid., 193, 203, 267, 282 and 421.

14
.
   
Ibid., 232–36, 270, 280, 286, and 306.

15
.
   
Ibid., 105–6.

16
.
   
Ibid., 209.

17
.
   
Max Holland, “Naftali Reconsidered,”
Washington Decoded
, June 11, 2014.
http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2014/06/naftali.html
.

18
.
   
Dean,
The Nixon Defense
, 20.

19
.
   
Ibid., 253.

20
.
   
Ibid., 55–56. Dean’s explanation is still incomplete. The effort was to prevent FBI interviews of apparent campaign contributions by Ken Dahlberg and Manuel Ogarrio, who were really acting as conduits for contributions from prominent Democrats, including Dwayne Andreas and a group of Texas oil and gas producers.

21
.
   
A much more detailed review of the background of the smoking gun conversation is on my website, “Smoking Gun Explored,” at
http://geoffshepard.com/essays.html
.

22
.
   
Bradlee’s unpublished 1990 interview, as cited in Himmelman,
Yours in Truth
, 212.

23
.
   
Estes v. Texas
, 381 U.S. 532 (1965).

24
.
   
Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel Mezei
, 345 U.S. 206, 225 (1953), Jackson, J., dissenting.

25
.
   
Adversary System, the Free Dictionary by Farley,
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Adversary+System
.

26
.
   
See Judicial Code of Conduct for United States Judges, as promulgated by the Judicial Conference of the United States,
http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/conduct/Vol02A-Ch02.pdf
.

27
.
   
Ibid., emphasis added.

28
.
   
Ibid.

29
.
   
See D.C. Bar Association, Code of Professional Ethics.
http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/ethics/legal_ethics/rules_of_professional_conduct/amended_rules/index.cfm
.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE SECRET MEETINGS BETWEEN JUDGES AND WATERGATE PROSECUTORS

1
.
     
Carr went on to become special assistant to Attorney General Edward Levy in 1975–1976 and, ultimately, a partner in the D.C. office of Morrison & Foerster. He wrote a law review article lauding Levi’s tenure:
In Honor of Edward H. Levi, Mr. Levi at Justice
, 52 U. Chicago L. Rev. 300 (1985). In 1991 Carr served on an ABA special committee on amicus curiae briefs that was chaired by Philip Lacovara, former counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor. One can only wonder if they appreciated their earlier connection.

2
.
     
Woodward’s papers are at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. See File 6, Jaworski I, 2–4 p.m. 12/5; his office. The top page of Woodward’s typed notes from his interview is reproduced as Appendix B. In the second paragraph of that page, Woodward records that Jaworski said that the House Judiciary Committee “was ‘very slow’ getting started . . . and would never have gotten off the ground without the info provided by [the special prosecutor’s office].” In Jaworski’s mind, it was the WSPF that got Nixon. Without its help, the Judiciary Committee would have floundered.

3
.
     
See Jaworski and Ben-Veniste in Annotated Bibliography.

4
.
     
See
Senate Select Committee v. Nixon
, 498 F2d 725 (D.C. Cir. 1974).

5
.
     
Leon Jaworski,
The Right and the Power: The Prosecution of Watergate
(New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1977), 103.

6
.
     
William Merrill,
Watergate Prosecutor
(East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2008), 69–70.

7
.
     
Leon Jaworski,
Crossroads
(Colorado Springs: David C. Cook Publishing Co., 1981), 206.

CHAPTER FIVE: STAFFING THE NIXON IMPEACHMENT

1
.
     
See Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities. Book II,
The Growth of Domestic Intelligence: 1936 to 1976.
Government Printing Office (1976). It is also available at
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports_book2.htm
.

2
.
     
Leon Jaworski,
The Right and the Power: The Prosecutions of Watergate
(New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1977), 45.

3
.
     
Frampton may not have been the ideal choice for someone to author such important documents, since he lacked any prosecutorial experience. According to the dust jacket of his 1977 book with Richard Ben-Veniste, “He was working as a public interest lawyer in June 1973 when his former professor Archibald Cox asked him to join the Watergate prosecution team a few days after it was set up.”

4
.
     
Memo of January 3, 1974, from Peter Rient to Philip Lacovara, “Hypothetical Conspiracy Case,” 3 (included as a part of Appendix I).

5
.
     
James S. Doyle,
Not Above the Law
(New York: Morrow, 1977), 284.

6
.
     
Ibid., 285.

7
.
     
Richard Ben-Veniste and George Frampton,
Stonewall: The Real Story of the Watergate Prosecution
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977), 222.

8
.
     
Ibid., 241–42, emphasis in original.

9
.
     
See Jerry Zeifman,
Without Honor: The Impeachment of Richard Nixon and the Crimes of Camelot
(New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1995).

10
.
   
Ben-Veniste and Frampton,
Stonewall
, 217, emphasis in original.

11
.
   
Jaworski,
The Right and the Power
, 103.

12
.
   
Haldeman v Sirica
, 501 F2d 714 (D.C. Cir. 1974).

13
.
   
Doyle,
Not Above the Law
, 290–91.

14
.
   
A Brian Lapping Associates Production for The Discovery Channel and BBC (1994), vol. 3:
The Fall of a President
.

15
.
   
Ben-Veniste and Frampton,
Stonewall
, 285–87.

16
.
   
Ben-Veniste and Frampton,
Stonewall
, 286.

17
.
   
The Frampton revision is too long to reproduce in full, but is available upon request from the Special Access section of the National Archives.

18
.
   
Ben-Veniste and Frampton,
Stonewall
, 287.

19
.
   
Haldeman’s telephone records did confirm a nine-minute call to Mitchell’s offices shortly after the meeting with Nixon and Dean. Both Haldeman and Mitchell testified the only purpose of the call was to invite Mitchell to meet with the president the following day. Of course, WSPF prosecutors insisted upon another interpretation.

20
.
   
“Dean’s Anticipated Trial Testimony—From the Beginning Up Until March 21, 1974,” dated July 22, 1974, by George Frampton, 69.

21
.
   
“John Dean, Sequence of Testimony,” undated, at 44.

22
.
   
Ervin Committee Hearings, 997–99.

23
.
   
Trial Transcript, 2364.

24
.
   
Trial Transcript, 6726–28.

25
.
   
Trial Transcript, 6785.

CHAPTER SIX: A FAIR AND IMPARTIAL TRIAL JUDGE

1
.
     
Renata Adler,
Canaries in the Mineshaft: Essays on Politics and the Media
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 366–67.

2
.
     
A more recent review of the nature and extent of Sirica’s due process violations in the Watergate break-in trial was authored by Anthony Gaughan, now a professor at Drake Law School. See
Watergate, Judge Sirica and the Rule of Law
, 42 McGeorge L. Rev. 343, 2010–2011.

3
.
     
Williams’s papers are in the Library of Congress.

4
.
     
Robert Pack,
Edward Bennett Williams for the Defense
(New York: Harper & Row, 1983).

5
.
     
Ibid., 126.

6
.
     
Evan Thomas,
The Man to See: Edward Bennett Williams, Ultimate Insider, Legendary Trial Lawyer
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), 277.

7
.
     
John J. Sirica,
To Set the Record Straight: The Break-in, the Tapes, the Conspirators, the Pardon
(New York: Norton, 1979), 54–55.

8
.
     
G. Gordon Liddy,
Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1980), 282.

9
.
     
Pack,
Edward Bennett Williams for the Defense
, 18, citing Bernstein, 225–27.

10
.
   
Jeff Himmelman, “The Red Flag in the Flowerpot,”
New York Magazine
,
http://nymag.com/news/features/ben-bradlee-2012-5/
.

11
.
   
Jeff Himmelman,
Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee
(New York: Random House, 2012), 204.

12
.
   
The book has an interesting history. Supposedly, the young reporters were waiting for a resolution of the Watergate scandal to write their book. They were approached by Robert Redford, who wanted to do a movie
on their roles, however, and were urged to produce a book rather quickly—focusing on themselves and their roles in ending the cover-up—which Redford felt was needed in advance of his proposed movie. The book, and subsequent movie, created the idea of investigative reporters as individual heroes and changed forever the relative obscurity of the Washington press corps.

13
.
   
Himmelman,
Yours in Truth
, 202.

14
.
   
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward,
All the President’s Men
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), 211–13.

15
.
   
Ben Bradlee, for example, later admitted in an unpublished interview that he harbored serious doubts about Deep Throat and many of the specifics of Woodward’s reporting. Jeff Himmelman devotes two chapters in his book to this, as well as to Woodward’s reactions in attempting to prevent Bradlee’s doubts from being disclosed. See Doubt (Part One) and Doubt (Part Two), Himmelman,
Yours in Truth
, 211–31.

16
.
   
Himmelman,
Yours in Truth,
210.

17
.
   
When Himmelman’s story first broke in 2012, the then chief judge of the D.C. District Court, Royce Lamberth, was petitioned to request an investigation into the grand juror interview incident, from which we might have learned even more about the breach of the Watergate grand jury, but that motion ultimately was rejected. See
In Re Petition of Luke Nichter
, Misc. 12-74, particularly Letter of Luke Nichter, filed June 13, 2012, and subsequent Order of Judge Lamberth, dated November 2, 2012.