Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (17 page)

“John,” said Mitchell, as I headed for the door, “I’ll sure appreciate your help on this thing. We’re going to need all the good heads we can put together.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mitchell,” I said. This was a new kind of flattery from John Mitchell. I felt a sense of importance as I left to drive home.

I was numb. I didn’t sleep well, even though I was drained from jet lag and the day’s emotional barrage. An alarm had gone off at the White House, I thought. Almost every important official in the Administration had scurried to the fire poles in panic, and they all landed in the counsel’s office. Now I was learning what the job really meant. I felt no danger for myself. In fact, I was proud of having extricated myself from situations that might have left me like the rest—worried. Instead I was a refuge, a shoulder, a brain, a counsel. I was about to arrive.

The next morning I got to my office and picked up the
Washington Post
. I was bemused by the story on the Watergate break-in, which carried the official White House stance. “I am not going to comment from the White House on a third-rate alleged burglary attempt,” said Ron Ziegler. “It is as simple as that.” He had told reporters placidly that the White House had learned of the break-in from newspaper accounts, and he had deflected all questions to Mitchell.

While I was reading, three workmen in green GSA coveralls and matching green caps wheeled dollies straight into my office and began unloading cartons on my floor. Fielding appeared simultaneously to inform me that these were the materials from Hunt’s safe. Kehrli had moved fast the previous night, and Fielding had substituted for me at what he called a “safe-opening party” with GSA safe drillers and Secret Service agents. Kehrli had kept the contents overnight in his office, which was equipped with an ultrasonic sensor alarm system for security. I supervised the unloading, and the cartons were stacked in the middle of my office.

Jane buzzed. I was wanted immediately in Ehrlichman’s office. As I left, I told Fred we would go through the material later.

I found Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell, seated around Ehrlichman’s coffee table. It was the first time I had ever seen the three of them together in one room alone.

“Well, if it isn’t our traveling counsel,” said Haldeman with a laugh. He had just returned from Florida with the President; there was a new luster to his tan. “Every time you leave the country, something awful happens,” he teased, referring to my Paris trip before the ITT crisis. “I hope you’re not planning any more trips before the election.”

There were chuckles. This group, I thought, is in surprisingly fine spirits.

Ehrlichman leaned over toward Mitchell, smiling. “We thought we should have our lawyer here when the Attorney General of the United States, who is cooling his heels in the west reception room, pays his visit.” Ehrlichman loved to stick it to Mitchell and Kleindienst. Mitchell said nothing.

Kleindienst arrived and took a seat. Here they all are, I thought—Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Kleindienst—with Junior suddenly in their league. I expected some weighty decisions to be made in this company. Wrong. All parties were guarded. The White House faction did not trust the Justice Department faction, and, moreover, no one wanted to acknowledge how serious the problem might be. The Florida weather was discussed, Haldeman’s tan, Liddy’s personality, Mitchell’s political soundings in California. I hardly said a word. Mitchell grunted and puffed. Haldeman dropped a few jolly remarks. Ehrlichman raised the only matters of substance, and even they were marginal. He told Mitchell that the White House would steer all Watergate press inquiries to the Reelection Committee. Mitchell nodded, not happy, not objecting. Then Ehrlichman asked Kleindienst about the Watergate leaks. Kleindienst replied that they were coming from the Metropolitan Police. He said the problem would soon be solved, since the FBI was assuming jurisdiction over the investigation. The conversation lurched down more side avenues, with more half-hearted pleasantries and subtle ribbings, and then the meeting dissolved. I had witnessed the first round of internal stonewalling.

Kleindienst caught me in the hall. “Hey, Junior! What are you doing right now?”

“Nothing. I’m just going back to catch up on some work,” I said, thinking of the cartons lying on my floor.

“Come on. Ride back to my office with me.” The Justice Department. I followed him to his limousine, and we rode mostly in silence. Kleindienst was seething over the charade we had just attended. Unlike the others including myself, he was not known for masking his inner thoughts.

“This thing is so goddamn stupid I can’t believe it!” he exploded when we reached his office. “Breaking in and bugging the damn Democratic National Committee. There’s nothing in there but a lot of carp, anyway. Anybody knows that. Dumbest damn thing I ever heard.”

Kleindienst walked over to his desk and sat down. He waved his arms to emphasize his dismay. “This fella Liddy must be crazy. He tracked me down at the Burning Tree Country Club on Saturday after my golf game. He said, ‘John Mitchell wants you to get the men arrested at the DNC out of jail.’ Can you believe it? I told Liddy to get his ass packing. If I’d ever seen a guilty man, it was Liddy. He was rattled and nervous, and I wasn’t about to talk to him.” So that’s the little encounter Dick had with Watergate over the weekend, I thought. Liddy’s name had not yet surfaced in the investigation, and I assumed Kleindienst had not reported the incident for fear of implicating both Liddy and Mitchell. Kleindienst was instinctively on the inside of the problem, too. This strengthened my impulse to confide in him.

I watched him change moods as he stared silently at his desk. “If John Mitchell is in trouble,” he said gravely, “I’ll resign before I’d ever prosecute him.” He knew where this was heading as well as I did. I decided to trade worries with him.

“Dick, I don’t have all the facts, but I’m worried. I’m afraid this thing could lead right to the President. I don’t know if the President is involved, but—”

“God, I hope the President is not involved in this, and that you’re not involved.”

“I assure you I’m not, but I have no idea where this investigation could lead.” I sensed he was backing off. We were being infinitely more candid with each other than anyone had been at the earlier meeting, but we were still playacting, pretending, testing each other. I decided not to tell Kleindienst about my two meetings with Mitchell, Magruder, and Liddy, which had taken place in the same office we were sitting in. The information would squeeze his position even more, and he obviously wanted no ammunition against Mitchell. I withheld it, another small step into the cover-up. I knew Mitchell and the White House would be grateful. So would Kleindienst.

“Listen, Junior,” he continued, “those people over there where you work don’t understand this place. They think I can take care of any problem they’ve got. For Christ’s sake, John Connally
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was over here not long ago trying to get me to handle a problem for him. And when I refused, the President started climbing all over my back.”

“I know, I know, Dick. I’ve tried to tell them a few times, but nobody’s ever worked over here.”

Kleindienst’s thoughts were drifting off again. He was feeling the pressure. “You know, John Ehrlichman may need a friend someday, but I’ll be goddamned if it’s going to be me. He’s like Sherman Adams was in this town.
**
He’s managed to make everyone hate him, and someday he may regret that.”

“I guess so,” I said, not anxious to pursue this line. “Dick, if this investigation leads into the White House, I’m afraid the President may not be reelected. There’s so much shit going on there.” I halted. No need for specifics.

Kleindienst bolted up from his chair. His mind seemed to have been wandering all over the lot. He stopped, picked up the phone, and summoned Henry E. Petersen, head of the Criminal Division. Petersen arrived quickly.

“Henry, Junior here is worried about that Democratic Committee break-in.”

“Frankly, I’m worried about this case, too,” Petersen replied. “I don’t like it. Not one second.” He began a cursory status report on the investigation. As always, Petersen had a certain dismantled, harassed look to him. Henry had logged more than twenty years in the Department, working his way to the top through persistence and bureaucratic skill. Now, as the man in charge of all the federal government’s criminal prosecutions, he had reached a unique plateau—a Democrat, and a career civil servant, holding a sensitive appointed post in a Republican Administration. It was John Mitchell who had made him head of the Criminal Division. And Henry Petersen had been around.

As he briefed Kleindienst, his craggy face did not break into his usual friendly smile. His expression was hard. My thoughts went back to a conversation I had had with him about a year earlier. Colson, who was trying to win organized-labor support for the President, had become convinced that Mitchell was conspiring against his strategy. Since he and Mitchell had a quarrelsome relationship at best, Chuck had dispatched me to Mitchell’s office. Mitchell deflected me to Henry, whom I had known for years.

“Henry, I need your advice, really a little education,” I had said. “Colson claims you guys are unnecessarily prosecuting labor leaders, which is making it tough for Chuck to build labor support for the President.”

“Shit, we don’t have a vendetta against labor,” Henry said quickly. “It just so happens there are some goddamn bad men in the union movement, and these labor cases pop up all the time in normal investigations.”

“I understand, Henry. Let me tell you what’s troubling me. Those folks over at the White House want to halt labor prosecutions, at least till after the election—”

“No, sir,” he interrupted emphatically.

“Wait, Henry. I don’t disagree. I know exactly what you’re talking about. I don’t like this, but I need to know what I’m talking about to turn them off, to tell them that that sort of thing isn’t possible.”

“John, never, I repeat never, has an Attorney General that I know of, as long as I’ve been here, and that’s quite a while now, reversed a major case after an investigation has begun and turned up evidence of a criminal violation.” He was firm but friendly. “He couldn’t if he wanted to, because the lawyers in this division would walk out.” This would weigh heavily against Colson’s argument, I thought. “I think you should tell those guys,” Henry continued, “not to get involved in any way, shape or form with any criminal case over here. It would have serious repercussions if it ever came out. The only time a case could ever be stopped is before an investigation has commenced. Hell, I’ve got a recommendation right here on my desk that I authorize an investigation of Lyndon Johnson on some shitty little banking violation down in Texas. Now, I’m not going to authorize an investigation of a former President. This is a case that will never start, and need not start…”

That conversation was on my mind as Petersen reported to Kleindienst on the first stages of the Watergate investigation. When Kleindienst had to leave for another meeting, Henry and I went to a small lounge in the back of his office.

“Henry, I don’t believe the White House can stand a wide-open investigation,” I said quietly. “There are all kinds of things over there that could blow up in our face.”

Henry looked at me and thought for a few moments. He had to know, I figured. I was fishing for hints on the crucial question of how the investigation would be defined at the beginning. “Earl Silbert’s got the case. You know him, don’t you?”

“Sure. I know Earl.”

“Well, I’ve instructed Earl on the investigation. He knows he’s investigating a break-in. That’s the crime we have in front of us. He knows better than to wander off beyond his authority into other things.”

I filed these words away in my mind, with some relief. Henry, however, became animated and began pacing. His thoughts turned in a new direction. “John,” he said, “I think you ought to go back to the White House and pass the word on to the President that he’s got to move quickly on this thing. He’s got to cut his losses cleanly and get it over with.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” I replied. But I couldn’t tell Petersen all the details I knew that would make this charge painful to carry out.

Kleindienst returned. He sighed and said he needed a drink. Petersen joined him, and the two pulled down heavy portions of a midday cocktail. We talked for a few minutes, and I left for my office. White House vulnerability had just diminished, I thought, reviewing the meeting. The prosecutor’s authority, which set the sights of the investigation, was limited to the break-in itself. The government’s search for evidence would not be programmed on the reasonable suspicion that the incident had grown out of decisions at the White House; the White House was not a target of the investigators. If we could keep them from stumbling into other areas, which in my mind ran from campaign contributions to the Ellsberg break-in, things might not be as bad as they looked. I was already busily engaged in plotting a cover-up strategy.

It was lunch time. I sat at my desk, waiting for Jane to bring me a sandwich, catching up on normal business. Gordon Strachan dropped in again. Richard Howard, one of Colson’s aides, was with him. Both had nonplused looks on their faces. They stood in front of me like guilty schoolboys in the principal’s office. I looked at them curiously and waited.