Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (3 page)

At last Haldeman asked me if I really wanted the job. Following my inner game plan, I said I was not yet absolutely sure, I would like to think it over, at least overnight. He seemed surprised, but said we could talk in the morning. I thought my hesitation was having the proper effect on him—he would not take me for granted.

Haldeman offered me a ride to my hotel with him, Higby and another aide, Presidential Appointment Secretary Dwight Chapin. Just recently, I learned, Haldeman had changed his mode of transportation to and from the office. A native Southern Californian, he stayed at a family house on Lido Isle, about thirty-five miles north of San Clemente. Each morning he had been picked up at the island by a Coast Guard launch, taken across a small bay to Newport Beach, driven a few miles to a helicopter pad at the Newporter Inn Hotel, helicoptered to a pad a few miles from the President’s estate, and then driven to his office at the Western White House. The operation had employed six men and four vehicles and had taken about an hour. Then Haldeman, bent on efficiency, had discovered that he could travel faster on the freeway.

So we rode back on the freeway that night, and I got my first glimpse of Haldeman’s relationship with his staff. It was not a relaxed ride to Newport Beach, where Haldeman was dropped off. He fired questions at Higby and Chapin and asked me a question about the protocol of addressing federal judges. His manner with Higby and Chapin was condescending, and he bitched at them when they didn’t have ready answers. I winced at what I was seeing, but as I watched Higby and Chapin I thought their obsequiousness invited the treatment. They had both worked for Haldeman at the J. Walter Thompson advertising firm in Los Angeles and had joined the 1968 Nixon election campaign with him. From there they had gone directly to the White House staff as his aides. This explained their relationship in part: Haldeman had made them. If I went to work for Haldeman, I told myself, I would never accept their trampled position.

Haldeman safely delivered, Higby and Chapin drove me to the exclusive Balboa Bay Club at Newport Beach, and after a round of drinks Higby told me a driver would pick me up at nine o’clock the next morning. The desk clerk directed me to my quarters, which turned out to be an elegantly furnished two-bedroom apartment. The kitchen and the bar were stocked, and fresh flowers and fruit, ”compliments of the manager,” had been placed in the large living room overlooking the Yacht Club and bay. The White House goes first class, I thought. If they were trying to impress me, they were succeeding.

It was only nine o’clock California time—less than twelve hours since Higby had yanked me from my lunch in Washington—and I was tired but not sleepy. The excitement had my mind spinning. I fixed myself a Scotch, took off my coat, tie and shoes, and plopped down in an easy chair to think about what I should tell Haldeman in the morning. I decided, as I had always known I would, that it was too great a chance to be turned down. What I lacked in legal skill I could compensate for by extra effort; that was what I had done all my life. If I did turn it down, I might become a marked man and never get another opportunity to move up the ladder. Settled back with my drink, I entertained a reverie about what a big shot I would be as counsel to the President. Would I drive my Porsche to the office or ride in a White House limousine? Suddenly there was a knock at the apartment door. I found a Marine Corps p.f.c. standing outside.

“Can I help you?” I asked him.

“Yes, sir, I have Mr. Ehrlichman’s luggage. I was told to deliver it here, sir.”

“Fine, come on ahead,” I told him. He disappeared and quickly returned with a half-dozen large suitcases, thanked me, and disappeared again.

Why had Ehrlichman sent his luggage here? I glanced at it. There was a suitcase for everyone in the Ehrlichman family. Were they coming here tonight? Was I in the wrong room? I remembered that the “compliments of the manager” envelope had a note inside which I had not bothered to read. I went to the fruit basket and found it: “Welcome, The Hon. John Ehrlichman and family.” I was flushed with embarrassment. Ehrlichman and family would not be far behind their luggage. I scrambled. Shoes, tie, and coat. Repacking. I cleaned the ashtrays, washed my glass, returned the bottle of Scotch to the bar, and dashed down to the front desk. Quickly, I explained the situation to the desk clerk.

“Mr. Dean, you’re using the apartment Mr. Ehrlichman was going to use, but he won’t be in for several days.”

“Oh, I see.”

I returned, relieved, but the magic was gone. The splendor was for Ehrlichman, not me. I was only a transient. But someday, I thought, such arrangements would be made for me.

The meeting the next day in Haldeman’s office had barely begun when his phone buzzed.

“Whoops,” he said, bringing his feet down from his desk, “that’s the President. Excuse me, this shouldn’t take long.” I caught a glimpse of the President’s office as Haldeman rushed through the connecting doorway.

Alone, I pondered my new intimacy with power. I had already been overwhelmed by the tension and the grandeur, and I knew everything I was feeling was a minute refraction of what touched the President himself. All of San Clemente, from the helicopters and the global communications to the breathless expressions of otherwise cynical men, reached to and from the President. Presidential presence was everywhere, and the President was in the next room talking with Haldeman. I was delighting over the feel of my new title, Counsel to the President, when Haldeman came back and invited me in to meet him.

The President was standing behind his desk, his back to us, gazing through the huge picture windows at the Pacific Ocean. By now, the sun had burned away most of the morning haze. As Haldeman and I waited the President continued to stare out the window. I felt awkward about interrupting a man, particularly this man, so deep in thought.

Haldeman broke his trance: “Mr. President, I’d like you to meet John Dean.”

The President turned from the window, forced a smile, and extended his hand to greet me. I was so nervous at that moment I have no memory of what he said, but I recall he had a rather weak handshake, not in the tradition my father had instilled in me as a youngster. Immediately I realized a President has to shake so many hands that he saves his good grip for important occasions.

Richard Nixon, I found, was taller than he appeared in his pictures and on television, and he looked older. He was dressed casually in a maroon sport coat, but his manner was formal as he directed me to be seated in a chair in front of his desk. I was glad to sit down, because my knees were shaking.

The President sat at his desk with his chair pushed to one side to enable him to cross his legs comfortably, and Haldeman made a few remarks to bring the meeting to its point. Fidgeting with a fountain pen, the President turned his chair to direct his attention at me.

“John,” he said, “Bob has told me about your career as a lawyer and I want you to be my counsel.” Then, almost as if he felt that had been too blunt, he quickly smiled and asked, “Would you like to be the counsel to the President?”

“Yes, sir. It would be an honor.” A tremble in my voice surely revealed my nervousness.

“Good. That’s good,” he said with a smile.

I was annoyed with myself. Why was I frightened? The President was trying to put me at ease. I would discover he was very concerned that his visitors be comfortable because he couldn’t relax when they were uneasy. I felt the awesomeness of talking with the most important and powerful man in the world. Even more, I wanted very much to be what I thought he wanted to find, but my self-confidence had deserted me. I hoped he would not ask me a lot of questions before I caught my breath.

Fortunately, the President continued talking. He praised, with some hints of reverence, my boss and his Attorney General, John Mitchell. “Mitchell is one of the best lawyers I know,” he began, and his soliloquy was woven with fond memories of the time they had practiced law together in New York. He scarcely looked at me, and I had the feeling that he was not necessarily talking to me, just thinking aloud for my benefit. But just in case, I punctuated his remarks with appropriate smiles, knowing nods and a few “yes, sirs.”

“He is more than the bond lawyer the newspapers like to call him,” the President said, glancing at me.

I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

And then he stopped. He sat in his chair, playing with his pen, thinking about John Mitchell. No one said anything. Haldeman stared out the window. I sat watching and waiting. Finally the President looked at Haldeman and then at me, and said with a tone of emphasis, “The Attorney General carries a heavy load for the President.” And again there was silence as we pondered the President’s words.

The President broke the silence, talking about his “young, efficient” White House staff. “They get the job done, and done well.” And he let me know that Bob was very much his man in charge. This brought a slightly embarrassed but confident smile to Haldeman’s face.

Unexpectedly, the President’s tone changed, as if he were suddenly off camera. He became more personal, less Presidential, as he turned his chair to face me. He placed his pen on the desk. “John, as a young lawyer in the White House, with the title Counsel to the President, you could have an important role with the other young lawyers in the government. You know, the guys who come to Washington to work for a few years’ experience. These guys are ignored. You could organize them, get together with them, tell’m what we’re doing at the White House, make the poor fellows feel involved. Then when they go back home they’d have something to say. They’d carry a message back home.”

I understood from my own first experiences in Washington what he was saying, and I thought his idea made good sense politically. But the way he said it, the reflective, intimate tone of his voice, gave me the impression that he was referring to more than politics, to something he had experienced himself.

Several weeks after I joined the White House staff, I read
Nixon
, the biography by Earl Mazo and Stephen Hess. I discovered that Richard Nixon first came to Washington in 1942, an obviously ambitious young lawyer five years out of law school, to participate in the government’s war efforts, but that because of his Quaker background he initially entered nonmilitary government service. His biographers did not report why, after six months working for the tire-rationing bureaucracy of the Office of Price Administration, he had suddenly quit, waived his religious exemption, and joined the Navy.

I recalled the President’s comments, his ruminations about young government lawyers. The President had been telling me that his first experience in Washington had been disappointing. He had been ignored when he wanted to be involved. Probably he had found the daily tedium, the routine, and the anonymous work of a bureaucrat unbearable and had quit to join a service where his energy would be rewarded.

One evening soon after, I was dining alone in the White House mess at a large circular table reserved for staff, when a man who looked familiar came into the room.

“May I join you?” he asked.

“Certainly,” I responded. I wasn’t fond of eating alone. After he had been seated and given a menu by the Filipino steward, he introduced himself: “I’m Murray Chotiner.”

He was an intriguing man, an intimate part of the Nixon legend. Chotiner had been managing or advising the President on political matters since his first Congressional campaign in 1946. He was now channeling White House funds and advice to favored Congressional candidates running in the 1970 elections, a few months away. I knew that he did not swing much weight at the White House. Haldeman had frozen him out because of Murray’s reputation as a slush-fund politician. Chotiner was part of the “old Nixon” image, but he seemed congenial and I decided to test my insight on him. Proudly, feeling like one of the intimate few, I told him what the President had said about young lawyers, what I had read about Richard Nixon’s coming to Washington as a young lawyer, and my theory. Was I right?

Chotiner said nothing for several long and awkward moments. I felt the chagrin he intended me to feel, and I regretted my question. When he spoke, it was to offer friendly but firm advice. “John, you’re new around here. If you want to get along with the President, keep what he tells you to yourself. Unless he tells you otherwise. And even more important, don’t ask questions unless you have a good reason. Believe me, I know from experience what I’m saying.”

He was trying to be helpful, but I was stung. I learned an important lesson: to keep my mouth shut. All loose talk about the boss is dangerous to him and forbidden to his aides. The loyal soldier is silent, and he does not pry.

Now the President concluded his reflections on young lawyers in government, leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands as his arms rested on the chair, and was once again most Presidential. Haldeman, seated immediately beside his desk, looked at me and said, without speaking a word, Now that you are the President’s counsel, what do you have to say? It was my turn.

Mustering my courage, I told the President as briefly as possible that I would follow up his suggestion about involving young lawyers, and that I was most grateful for the opportunity to serve him on the White House staff. I failed to hide my nervousness or my excitement. The President responded with a smile and rose. The meeting was over.

We shook hands and Haldeman led me back to his office. I had been at the summit for twenty minutes.