The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It by John W. Dean Page A
Authors: John W. Dean
Ads: Link
Lodge, where they talked briefly before continuing out by the swimming pool. 3 (The Aspen Lodge recording system had been installed only a month earlier, and it included the president’s study as well as the two telephones in it.) After a brief discussion of Martha Mitchell, Haldeman reported that he had nothing new on Watergate. “We forwarded the message to Vernon Walters, and it was properly received,” Haldeman said. “And no problem with the director.” Somewhat wishfully, Nixon said he felt that some of those involved in the Watergate operation should plead guilty. Haldeman agreed, but wondered, “Who?”
“Fair question,” the president responded. They discussed the civil lawsuit and how the Democrats hoped to move quickly on depositions and to “slap a subpoena on Mitchell,” as Haldeman described it. The president figured they would go after Colson to try to learn about the White House’s political activities. Haldeman was not concerned but rather found it amusing that “nobody believes the truth.” When a surprised Nixon asked, “You don’t think so?” Haldeman explained, “Oh, I don’t think at this point, they don’t. Even our own people don’t think the Cubans did it. You know, the press and the Democrats are trying to push it onto us.” Haldeman’s bemusement belied the situation, for as he wrote in his diary later that day: “The problems on Watergate continue to multiply as John Dean runs into more and more FBI leads that he has to figure out ways to cope with.”
June 25, 1973, Sunday, Camp David
The president slept late and had breakfast at 10:30 A.M. He went to Birch Lodge to work at 11:26 A.M. and requested that Haldeman join him. They talked for an hour and a half, but there was no recording equipment at that location. According to Haldeman’s diary, they discussed the campaign, which, in turn, led to Martha Mitchell, but Haldeman had little more than what had been reported the day before. 4
The president was clearly burned by an op-ed by columnist Joseph Kraft,T HE W ATERGATE C APER , in that Sunday’s
Washington Post,
for he raised it with several of his aides during the day. In his column, Kraft—unaware at the time that the Nixon White House had tried to bug his home and office to uncover his sources within the administration, and that when the first attempt failed the FBI succeeded on a second try, while Kraft was in Paris on assignment, though it ultimately never discovered who was leaking—launched a direct attack on Nixon and Mitchell. While no one believed Nixon and Mitchell were so foolish as to have been directly involved in the Watergate caper, he wrote, “you don’t hear anybody say that President Nixon and John Mitchell couldn’t have been involved because they are too honorable and high-minded, too sensitive to the requirements of decency, fair play and law.” Rather, Kraft argued, “The central fact is that the president and his campaign manager have set a tone that positively encourages dirty work by low-level operators. The president’s record goes back a long way. Every election he has fought since 1946 has featured smear charges, knees in the groin and thumbs in the eye.” Kraft said Nixon had a “special tolerance [for] using unethical means for partisan purposes” and for “[b]ending the law for political advantage.” Whoever had done this deed of “doing the dirty on the Democrats,” Kraft concluded, did so to earn “good marks in high favor” from Nixon and Mitchell. 5
Kraft further charged that Mitchell had, in his very brief public career as attorney general, compiled “deep associations in matters involving chicanery and the cutting of corners,” citing high-profile prosecutions undertaken with an “astonishing insufficiency of evidence”; the use of unconstitutional authority (unanimously condemned by the Supreme Court) to bug domestic subversives without judicial approval; and the appointment, as head of the Justice
“Fair question,” the president responded. They discussed the civil lawsuit and how the Democrats hoped to move quickly on depositions and to “slap a subpoena on Mitchell,” as Haldeman described it. The president figured they would go after Colson to try to learn about the White House’s political activities. Haldeman was not concerned but rather found it amusing that “nobody believes the truth.” When a surprised Nixon asked, “You don’t think so?” Haldeman explained, “Oh, I don’t think at this point, they don’t. Even our own people don’t think the Cubans did it. You know, the press and the Democrats are trying to push it onto us.” Haldeman’s bemusement belied the situation, for as he wrote in his diary later that day: “The problems on Watergate continue to multiply as John Dean runs into more and more FBI leads that he has to figure out ways to cope with.”
June 25, 1973, Sunday, Camp David
The president slept late and had breakfast at 10:30 A.M. He went to Birch Lodge to work at 11:26 A.M. and requested that Haldeman join him. They talked for an hour and a half, but there was no recording equipment at that location. According to Haldeman’s diary, they discussed the campaign, which, in turn, led to Martha Mitchell, but Haldeman had little more than what had been reported the day before. 4
The president was clearly burned by an op-ed by columnist Joseph Kraft,T HE W ATERGATE C APER , in that Sunday’s
Washington Post,
for he raised it with several of his aides during the day. In his column, Kraft—unaware at the time that the Nixon White House had tried to bug his home and office to uncover his sources within the administration, and that when the first attempt failed the FBI succeeded on a second try, while Kraft was in Paris on assignment, though it ultimately never discovered who was leaking—launched a direct attack on Nixon and Mitchell. While no one believed Nixon and Mitchell were so foolish as to have been directly involved in the Watergate caper, he wrote, “you don’t hear anybody say that President Nixon and John Mitchell couldn’t have been involved because they are too honorable and high-minded, too sensitive to the requirements of decency, fair play and law.” Rather, Kraft argued, “The central fact is that the president and his campaign manager have set a tone that positively encourages dirty work by low-level operators. The president’s record goes back a long way. Every election he has fought since 1946 has featured smear charges, knees in the groin and thumbs in the eye.” Kraft said Nixon had a “special tolerance [for] using unethical means for partisan purposes” and for “[b]ending the law for political advantage.” Whoever had done this deed of “doing the dirty on the Democrats,” Kraft concluded, did so to earn “good marks in high favor” from Nixon and Mitchell. 5
Kraft further charged that Mitchell had, in his very brief public career as attorney general, compiled “deep associations in matters involving chicanery and the cutting of corners,” citing high-profile prosecutions undertaken with an “astonishing insufficiency of evidence”; the use of unconstitutional authority (unanimously condemned by the Supreme Court) to bug domestic subversives without judicial approval; and the appointment, as head of the Justice
Similar Books
