Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (23 page)

Timmons, who met regularly with Jerry Ford, had explored with him Connally’s suggestions about Patman. “What do you think?” I asked Timmons. “Do you think we ought to dig into this stuff? Parkinson sent me a file on what contributions these guys have reported.”

“Well, John, you know, this is kind of
sensitive
,” said Timmons, “and I talked to Jerry about it. Jerry doesn’t think it would be such a good idea. And, frankly, I’ll tell you the problem is that, uh, Jerry himself might have some problems in this area, and so might some of our guys on the committee. I don’t think we ought to open this up.”

“I see. I guess that scraps that.”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

“Well, how does your head count look?”

“It’s gonna be close, but I think we can pull it out. Jerry and Dick Cook [Timmons’ aide] tell me they’re sure every one of the Republicans is lined up. They’re gonna march them into that committee room like cattle, all together. Nobody’s gonna be off playing golf that day. But we still need some Democrats to carry the committee. I’m working on the Southerners. I think we can get a couple.”

“Mitchell says he’s gonna swing Brasco.
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That’s one Northern Democrat.”

“Is he sure?”

“I’m pretty sure he is. Put him down. He’ll either take a walk or vote with us.”

“Okay, John. Let me know if you have any more names for my tally sheet. I’ll stay on it. I think we’re over the top.”

More arm-twisting and back-room politics and Timmons reported we were safe. On October 3, the Banking and Currency Committee voted 20-15 to deny Chairman Patman subpoena power for his Watergate investigation. That ended any chance of a Congressional inquiry before the election, and the White House breathed a sigh of relief. Patman announced that he would proceed without subpoenas, but it was a futile gesture. He held a public hearing on October 10 and lectured four empty chairs with big name plates in front of them marked “Mr. Mitchell,” “Mr. MacGregor,” “Mr. Stans,” and “Mr. Dean.”

That day, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward broke a story in the
Washington Post
pinpointing Donald Segretti as a central figure in a “massive campaign of political spying and sabotage.” This caused another scramble in the White House and more firefighting. Chapin, Kalmbach, and Haldeman had become vulnerable as well as Segretti. After a quick round of investigative phone calls, we assembled our position. On substance alone, we were tempted to fight the story openly. It had portrayed Segretti as the point man of a brownshirt horde, which we knew was grossly inaccurate. Liddy, maybe. But not Segretti. He was a prankster who wore Weejuns, not jackboots. But some of his pranks were tasteless; many were funny, and some were cruel. I searched the statutes and reported that he had broken no laws except some technical and generally ignored provisions of the campaign laws and that these violations were only misdemeanors. But we couldn’t use it. If we produced Segretti to rebut, he would lead straight to Kalmbach’s financial dealings in other areas. It would lead into the White House through Chapin and Haldeman. Furthermore, if we allowed Segretti to speak openly we would not be able to explain why we were not equally forthcoming in the Watergate investigation. So we had to stonewall the Segretti allegations too; he was told to disappear until after the election.

The Segretti story did not stem the Nixon election tide, but it ruined my wedding. I had grown weary of playing the high-powered bachelor in the limousine, especially as I felt the cover-up tighten the screws. I became lonely and realized that I had made a mistake by letting Maureen go home to California. I loved her. The decision to propose was a difficult one to make. My first marriage had broken up at least partly because I had put my career first. Now I was locked in the White House and it took some mental gymnastics to convince myself I would not repeat the mistake. When I proposed to Maureen on the telephone, I made myself warn her that life with me would be no bed of roses until after the election. If things held together until then, I said, I could probably demand and get any post I wanted in the government. At the time, I was thinking about an ambassadorship to a small French-speaking country somewhere. Certain doubts nagged me to tell Mo that there was a slight chance of rough sledding even after the election, but I minimized the fear and failed miserably to prepare her for what lay in store for her. When Mo accepted, I cleared my plans with Haldeman, of course, and we were married right in the middle of the Segretti chaos. Just as we arrived in Key Biscayne for our first-class honeymoon, Haldeman called me back to Washington for more stonewalling.

As expected, Judge Richey had obliged the White House by ordering a halt in the civil proceedings of Larry O’Brien’s suit against the Reelection Committee, citing the same logic we had employed to kill the Patman hearings—the publicity might deprive Liddy and the others of a fair trial. We would be safe through the election, but now we decided to make an effort to use our advantage to get the whole matter dropped. O’Brien was to be the fulcrum. Ehrlichman had pressured the IRS into a tax audit of O’Brien, and it had produced evidence that he had a six-figure annual income far exceeding the salary of the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The purpose of the audit was both to trace the sources of his income, in hope of documenting his retainer from Howard Hughes, and to find some tax deficiency for which he might be prosecuted. Either success would produce a counterscandal to Watergate.

“I’m going to call Dwayne Andreas
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for Maury [Stans],” Mitchell told me. “And I’ll tell him to pass the word to Mr. O’Brien that we might find a way to end the nuisance of his tax problem if he can find some way to end the nuisance of his lawsuit. I think he’ll recognize this might be a very satisfactory solution to a tough problem for everyone.”

I had been trying to pressure O’Brien myself, by urging the Reelection Committee lawyers to inform O’Brien’s lawyers that we would seek information about his sources of income in our own discovery proceedings. I had told the President of this fact, aware of his long interest in O’Brien’s relationship with Hughes, and he had seemed pleased. But Judge Richey had halted the proceedings before anything could be done. From what I’d learned of the Democratic chairman, I was sure he would not enjoy an intensive discovery proceeding. I was curious to hear whether he would accept Mitchell’s offer.

A few days later, Mitchell reported back. “I called Andreas,” he said, “and he told me O’Brien is very interested in working something out, but can’t do anything. He says the lawsuit is beyond his own control, because he’s got so many co-plaintiffs in with him. The Democratic state chairmen and so forth. He can’t make a move by himself. So that’s out.”

After several other legal maneuvers, we decided to let the stalemate ride out. I kept at it furiously, counting down Election Day. The hatches stayed battened down on the FBI, the lawsuits, the Justice Department, the Congress, the GAO, and even the press, everything except the defendants’ demands for hush money.

In mid-October, Chuck Colson’s secretary stopped me in the hall to complain that Howard Hunt’s wife had been calling her at home, demanding that the “commitments” be honored. Colson wouldn’t take any calls himself, she said, wouldn’t even listen to the messages. He simply told her to pass them to me. I told her not to take any more calls herself and to get an unlisted phone number. I didn’t want to hear about the demands either. Still they would not go away. Later in October, I stopped by Fred LaRue’s office and found him stewing with Paul O’Brien over how to pass Fred’s first payment to Hunt’s lawyer. Caulfield’s man Tony had dropped out of the picture along with Kalmbach, and Fred was at a loss for a safe way to deliver the money. O’Brien paced the small room, his trench coat flung over his shoulder. I suggested the mails. LaRue asked me to enlist Kalmbach for one more drop. Impossible, I said. Fred finally decided to send “the package” to Hunt’s lawyer by commercial messenger.

Finally, Election Day 1972. Oddly, the celebration of the President’s landslide seemed little more than a good excuse to drink with friends. The entire senior staff at the White House assembled droopy eyed and hung over the next morning in the Roosevelt Room, a conference room about the same size as the Cabinet Room. I sat in a corner, one of the few people in the room who knew that the ax was about to fall. We rose to our feet to applaud when the President walked in, looking drawn and haggard, not particularly happy, acknowledging our tribute with a mechanical smile, motioning us to be seated.

“This is a great day,” he said flatly, standing with his hands on the back of a chair, “and I want to thank every one of you for your outstanding contributions to the best and most successful campaign I have ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of them. Pat and I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of our hearts.” Polite applause. The President offered more congratulatory remarks and then served up the heart of his message. “I was reading Disraeli the other night,” he said, “and Disraeli spoke of how his administration of the British government lost its spark after being reelected. The campaign took too much out of them, he said. They became a ‘burned-out volcano,’ fresh out of ideas and energy. Well, I thought about that, and I pledged to myself that no such thing will happen to this second administration. I am not a burned-out volcano, and the second administration will not become one, either. We are going to inject new vigor and new energy into the government. We have no choice but to do that. Our opportunity is too great. Our responsibility is too great. The American people have just spoken and given us a tremendous mandate, a vote of confidence and hope. We can build a generation of peace, with prosperity, in America, and we are going to get on with the job. Now Bob is going to talk to you about some of the specifics. I want to thank you all again.” The President smiled and departed, to another standing round of applause.

Bob moved to the head of the table and, never long for words, went straight to the point. “As the President indicated, some things are going to change around here. I want you all to send me a written description of the responsibilities your office now has, plus a description of the responsibilities you would like to have in the second administration, and the reasons you think you should have them. Now, don’t get carried away on the reasons you think you are qualified to handle everything. Make it simple. We can get your flowery reasons later, if we need them.” Bob laughed nervously at his joke, coughed when it didn’t go over, and composed himself for his important lines. “Now, the President and I are meeting with the Cabinet shortly. We are going to direct them to obtain written letters of resignation from all appointed sub-Cabinet officers in the government and submit them along with their own resignations. And the President has directed that everyone in this room also hand in a letter of resignation. This doesn’t mean that you won’t be asked to stay on, of course. We will review each situation individually. We just want to show we mean business.” And he departed for the Cabinet meeting.

All the President’s men and long-time servants had been fired at the post-landslide thank-you meeting. The news hit with a thud, leaving a few seconds of silence before the Roosevelt Room buzzed with shock, complaints and outrage. I slipped out. I was unaffected, secure on the inside.

Ehrlichman stopped me by the elevator. “Well, John, what are your plans for the future?” he asked. I was being tested to find out how much Haldeman had told me.

“Well, Bob’s left no doubt in my mind what my plans are,” I replied steadily. “I’m going to stay on until we put Watergate to bed.”

The eyebrows arched moderately as he nodded a slow affirmative. “I understand.”

I hurried back to my office for a strategy session with Fielding. Fred would have to prepare the memo Haldeman had demanded, because I was leaving that afternoon for a California vacation. We scanned the jurisdictional horizons in the White House and prepared a long laundry list of new functions we thought the counsel’s office should be awarded. We would not try to take over entire operations, just get a foot in the door everywhere to continue to build the counsel’s law firm in our pattern. Riding high from cover-up success, I was not bashful in our requests. We asked for the right to approve the appointment of general counsels to all government agencies and departments, so that we could put our own people in these crucial positions. We asked to be designated the official White House liaison office for all the regulatory agencies. We added a lot of clearance functions, legal powers, and perquisites. We were to get most of them.

As I was preparing to dash to the airport, a fearsome Watergate thought bubbled up. I called Haldeman. “Bob, I’ve been thinking about those resignations. There’s one guy we can’t afford to piss off. One guy we need, who’s been helpful, concerned, and who’s been watching out after our interests. And that’s Henry Petersen. I don’t think we should let Henry worry about his future.”

“Yeah,” said Haldeman. “I agree.”

“I’d like to call Henry and reassure him he’s all right.” Haldeman assented readily.

When I called Petersen, he had just gotten his bad news from Kleindienst. “Jesus Christ, John!” he said. “Has the President gone crazy? He can’t just throw everybody out in the street like this! Waste everybody’s damn career. He’ll screw up the whole government. I tell you, he’ll regret this.”