The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate (86 page)

30. Schoenebaum,
Profiles of an Era
, pp. 369–71; Haig interview (opposite [emphasis in original]).

31. Hushen interview, December 30, 1993. Reporter Sanford J. Ungar placed Laird’s call on Sunday morning; professor David Rudenstine at one point dated it “late Saturday night or Sunday morning” yet elsewhere stated flatly that Mitchell “heard about [the Sunday article] from Laird the previous day.” Hushen, however, was certain the call came Sunday morning, before Mitchell had read the paper; see Sanford J. Ungar,
The Papers and the Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle Over the Pentagon Papers
(Dutton, 1972), p. 108, and David Rudenstine,
The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case
(University of California Press, 1996), pp. 69–71.

32. Except where noted, this study’s treatment of the Pentagon Papers case draws on Ungar,
The Papers
; Rudenstine,
The Day the Presses Stopped
, which drew on unpublished segments of the Papers and on a 1988 interview with Mitchell; and two indispensable collections of White House tape transcripts published online after 2001, the first by the National Security Archive, at
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv
, the second by Daniel Ellsberg, at
www.ellsberg.net
.

33. H. R. Haldeman with Joseph DiMona,
The Ends of Power
(Dell, 1978), pp. 154–55. Historians must treat this book with caution, for Haldeman later discounted it as more his coauthor’s product than his own, published at the wrong time (when Haldeman was entering prison), for the wrong reasons (to stave off creditors), and overly simplified for the reading public. Based on extensive taped interviews with Haldeman conducted in 1976–77, DiMona’s second draft, Haldeman recalled in 1993, “was so much better than the original draft that I didn’t realize how bad it was still…. So I agreed to let it be done, and it was a bestseller, and I made a lot of money on it, and it solved my problem at that time. But it created another problem, which is that it doesn’t say what I want it to say in the way I wanted to say it.”

34. Kissinger interview.

35. Laird denied so advising Mitchell; see Rudenstine,
The Day the Presses Stopped
, p. 82.

36. National Security Archive transcript, NT, Nixon-Haldeman, Conversation 519–1, Oval Office, June 14, 1971, 8:49 a.m.–10:04 a.m. (damn Jew); National Security Archive transcript, NT, Nixon-Mitchell-Ziegler, Conversation No. 521–9, Oval Office, June 15, 1971, 3:45 p.m.–4:30 p.m. (Ellstein); HN, June 29, 1971 (the Jew). Nixon’s anti-Semitism was somewhat misplaced in Ellsberg’s case. The latter was, by his own account, “raised fanatically” in Christian Science, educated at an Episcopalian school, and married in Cambridge’s Christ Church. Leading a wholly secular life since the mid-1960s, Ellsberg has visited a synagogue only once in his life, to lecture about the Pentagon Papers; yet, despite all this, he has always, and proudly, identified himself as a Jew. “My parents always said we’re Jewish, but not in religion,” said Ellsberg. “I grew up thinking of myself as Christian, anyway…. Nixon could care fucking less whether you went to church or whatever. I was a Jew and I am a Jew. By his definition, I’m 100 percent a Jew, as I would be under Hitler’s” see Daniel Ellsberg, interview with author, March 13, 2004.

37. Author’s transcript, NT, Nixon-Mitchell-Kissinger, Conversation No. 532-23, Oval Office, June 30, 1971, 2:55 to 3:07 p.m. (destroy); author’s transcript, NT, Nixon-Haldeman-Kissinger, Conversation No. 534-2, Oval Office, July 1, 1971, 8:45 to 9:52 a.m. (Hiss case, good lawyer, destroying, play this game).

38. Author’s transcript, NT, Conversation No. 534-12, op. cit. (better off); HN, July 1, 1971 (see it clearly).

39. “I learned about it from [John] Dean somewhere along the way,” Mitchell recalled shortly before he died; see CI, April 15, 1988. In July 1974, however, Mitchell said he learned about the Ellsberg break-in from either “Dean or Mardian.” After the Watergate arrests, Mitchell told House investigators, “Mardian and Dean…met with Liddy and Liddy informed them of the Ellsberg break-in.” In fact, Dean was not present for Mardian’s debriefing of Liddy, thus making it likelier that Mardian, not Dean, informed Mitchell of the Ellsberg break-in. Mitchell also told investigators that, once informed, he discussed the break-in with Haldeman and Ehrlichman, but “consciously avoided” raising it with Nixon; see HJC summary of John Mitchell interview [conducted] July 4, 1974 [filed] July 5, 1974; RG 460 WSPF
U.S. v. Mitchell
(Jencks)—Mitchell, NARA. After the break-in was publicly disclosed, in the spring of 1973, Ellsberg’s lawyer, Leonard Boudin, wrongly told Federal District Judge Matthew Byrne the crime “was the product of a political espionage operation by…John Mitchell” see
CBS Morning News
, May 1, 1973. Two days later, President Nixon privately suggested likewise, even though he knew full well Mitchell had opposed the Plumbers’ creation. “Hunt did work on the Ellsberg case,” Nixon told Kleindienst, “and that was one of the main things they were working on, you know, through our dear friend John Mitchell” see author’s transcript, NT, Nixon-Kleindienst, Conversation No. 911-2, Oval Office, May 3, 1971, 8:51 a.m. to 9:09 a.m.

40. HN, June 17, 1971 (hang FDR); author’s transcript, NT, Nixon-Mitchell-Haldeman-Ehrlichman-Col son, Conversation No. 576-6, Oval Office, September 18, 1971, 10:40 a.m. to 2:05 p.m.

41. SSCEX, Gordon Strachan, July 12, 1973.

42. James Rosen, “Nixon and the Chiefs,”
Atlantic Monthly
, April 2002.

43. Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds.,
The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis
(Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 188; H. L. McMaster,
Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
(HarperCollins, 1997), passim; Deborah Shapley,
Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara
(Little, Brown, 1993), pp. 240–41, 428–33.

44. Melvin Laird, author interview, August 28, 1997.

45. Ronald H. Cole and Willard J. Webb,
The Chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
(Joint History Office, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, 1995); William F. Jasper, “Admirals Sound the Alarm,”
The New American
15, 7, March 29, 1999;
All Hands: The Bureau of Naval Personnel Career Publication
, July 1970, pp. 8–13; Schoenebaum,
Profiles of an Era
, pp. 449–51; Robert Buzzanco,
Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era
(Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 173, 182, 268.

46. Cole and Webb,
Chairmanship
; Schoenebaum,
Profiles of an Era
.

47. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr.,
On Watch
(Quadrangle, 1976), p. xiv; Chalmers M. Roberts, “American Power Margin Is Slipping,”
Washington Post
, October 4, 1970; Richard Nixon,
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Volume 2
(Warner Books, 1979), pp. 242–43 (crap); George Lardner Jr., “On Tapes, Nixon Sounds Off on Woman, Blacks, Cabinet,”
Washington Post
, December 27, 1998.

48. Author’s transcript, NT, Nixon-Haig, Conversation No. 17–28, White House Telephone, December 24, 1971, 5:01–5:08 p.m., NARA. “We had firm evidence,” Haig recalled years later, “that the Russians and the Indians were colluding, that the Russians were urging the Indians to dismantle Pakistan. This was a regional Cold War issue” see Haig, July 27, 2000.

49. Jack Anderson with George Clifford,
The Anderson Papers
(Ballantine, 1974), p. 281. Kissinger claimed his remarks were “taken out of context” see Associated Press, “Column,” January 5, 1972, 3:31 a.m. EST, in WHSF—SMOF, JDE Special Subject File, Box 37, Young Project, NARA.

50. SSC, VI: 2410 (very ability). Mitchell concluded the SALT leak came from “someone who was in the NSC meeting in the Roosevelt Room” at which the negotiating position was adopted; see WH memo for the record by David R. Young, Subject: Meeting on 7/28/71 at 9:30–10:15 a.m., [filed] July 28, 1971; RG 460 WSPF Plumbers Task Force, General File—Documentary Evidence, David R. Young White House Files, Box 10—Memoranda, Chronological David R. Young Folder, NARA.

51. Testimony of Rear Admiral Robert O. Welander, USN, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 21, 1974, HHBP; Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin,
Silent Coup: The Removal of a President
(St. Martin’s, 1991), pp. 3–68, 279–439, 456 (Ellsberg syndrome). Prior to the release in October 2000 of the relevant White House tapes, which were published for the first time in Rosen, “Nixon and the Chiefs,”
Silent Coup
offered the most comprehensive account of the Moorer-Radford scandal, adducing, as Kissinger biographer Walter Isaacson noted, “a wealth of detail…[and] much useful reporting and information” on the episode. Isaacson’s
Kissinger
also treated the affair in depth, as did Seymour Hersh’s
The Price of Power
—which, like
Silent Coup
, drew on interviews with Mitchell. In addition to testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 1974, Radford spoke at length to Hersh; Colodny and Gettlin; Jim Hougan, author of
Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA
(Ballantine Books, 1984); and journalist Richard Lamb, who profiled Radford in “Tale of the Shadow Chaser,”
George
, October 1998.

52. SSC memo to Fred Thompson from Don Sanders and Howard Liebengood, Subject: Donald Stewart Interview, July 24, 1973, HHBP (deception). Stewart told the Senate Watergate committee he only “boxed,” or polygraph tested, Radford on one occasion, and only questioned him over the period December 16–17; Radford, on the same day, told the Senate Armed Services Committee he was “interrogated almost daily” by the same individuals over “two to three weeks,” including “several” polygraph tests; see SSCEX Stewart; and Testimony of YNI Charles E. Radford, USN, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 19, 1974, HHBP.

53. Lamb, “Tale of the Shadow Chaser.”

54. In one forty-nine-day period from March to May 1971, Anderson published thirteen columns based on leaks of classified material, including articles reporting U.S. seeding operations over clouds in Indochina, aimed at increasing rainfall on the Ho Chi Minh Trail; the Pentagon’s development of secret plans to mine Haiphong Harbor, not carried out until May 1972; and American wiretapping of the Saigon palace of President Thieu. Anderson’s source for these columns was not Radford but Stephen W. Linger, an enlisted man in the JCS Digital Information Relay Center; see TPOP, 182–83, 472.

55. Rosen, “Nixon and the Chiefs.” Citations for all Moorer-Radford tapes quoted here appear on p. 580.

56. Ehrlichman,
Witness to Power
, p. 277.

57. CI, April 28, 1986.

58. CI [Mary Gore Dean], October 6, 1987.

59. CI, May 30, 1986. “I’ve been talking to Tom Moorer about a business transaction,” Mitchell said. The two men served on corporate boards for separate companies engaged in what Mitchell called “a joint venture.”

60. KI, February 9, 1988, April 11, 1988.

61. Ehrlichman,
Witness to Power
, p. 279. In later years, Kissinger downplayed the episode. “There were traditional cold warriors who were opposed to the détente policy, no question about it,” Kissinger said in 1995; but he suggested there was never any animus involved. “Moorer was actually a friend of mine. Radford I barely knew—I didn’t know. That was just a way for them of getting information about what we were doing. It wasn’t aimed at me, it was aimed at the office.” Yet in a contemporaneous discussion about the incident, in January 1974—surreptitiously recorded by Kissinger and declassified thirty years later—Kissinger spoke of “these people spying on me” and added: “I could never tell whether this was superbureaucratic gamesmanship, or something a little more sinister. My feeling is that, you know, bureaucratic empires always go up by knowing things. It got out of control. I mean it may have started as bureaucratic gamesmanship and it got out of control” see State Department Telcon, Secretary Kissinger/Hugh Sidey, January 21, 1974, 9:50 a.m., at
foia.state.gov
.

62. The transcript of the Ehrlichman-Welander interrogation was published, for the first time and in its entirety, as an appendix in Colodny and Gettlin,
Silent Coup
.

63. CI, November 1985 (grabber, abandon), August 17, 1986 (crucial, different light). Mitchell believed Haig was Deep Throat; see Gettlin interview.

64. Years later, Haig remembered these calls differently: “The president said, called me, he said, ‘Al, what is this? I’ve got
spies
in the NS-
C
? Is this the military trying to take over the government?’…I said, ‘Hey, Mr. President, come on!’” See Haig interview (emphases in original). The tapes reflect no such conversation.

65. Ehrlichman interview.

CLOUD OF SUSPICION

1. WSPF transcript, NT, Nixon-Haldeman-Colson, Conversation No. 697–29, Oval Office, March 30, 1972, 12:47 p.m.–2:32 p.m., NARA.

2. Frank Carlucci, interview with author, February 8, 2001; Rehnquist interview; letter from William H. Rehnquist to the author, June 29, 1993; CI, August 17, 1986 (smart ass), January 24, 1987 (full of); John Dean,
Blind Ambition
(Pocket Books, 1977), p. 42; Charles Bartlett, “Kleindienst Withdrawal Weighed?”
Washington Evening Star
, March 14, 1972.

3. James R. Williamson,
Federal Antitrust Policy During the Kennedy-Johnson Years
(Greenwood Press, 1995), p. xi; Lester A. Sobel, ed.,
Corruption in Business
(Facts on File, 1977), pp. 78–179.

4. Sobel,
Corruption in Business
, p. 178; Grover, “Cabinet Enigma.”

5. WH memo for the attorney general from Alexander P. Butterfield, Subject: Notes from the president, March 25, 1969; WHCF FG J-L, Box 9 (agree, anti-business); and WSPF memo from Paul Hoeber to the file, Re: Office Interview with John Mitchell [conducted December 14, 1973], [filed] December 19, 1973; RG 460 WSPF
U.S. v. Mitchell
(Jencks)—Mitchell, both in NARA.