Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (43 page)
Read Blind Ambition: The End of the Story Online
Authors: John W. Dean
“Oh, I will,” he assured me, and the brief conversation ended as he talked of having to get ready to go to church. “Well, have a nice day, John.”
“Thank you, Mr. President, I hope you have a nice day, also.”
This was my last conversation with Richard Nixon. I climbed back into bed and thought about it. Was it really a stroking call, or did he still consider me his counsel? Then I felt ashamed of my thought about telling him he was full of shit; that was not the sort of thought one had about one’s President. A spark of hope was left to me: the President was really telling me that he knew I was right, that the cancer had to be cut, that he would do it.
This hope lasted only a couple of days. I called Len Garment again
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—he was my last link to the President—and urged him to take my arguments to Nixon without mentioning my name. Len said he agreed with me and would do so, but that the signs were adverse. Whatever else happened, it appeared that the President would try to make me responsible for the cover-up. A campaign to discredit me was gearing up.
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[Original Footnote:] When Henry Petersen asked for the tape, the President backed down, claiming it was only his dictation of the meeting, which had now been misplaced. Months later, after disclosure of a taping system, the Watergate Special Prosecutor’s office subpoenaed the tape of this conversation, on July 23, 1973. On October 31, 1973, the President’s lawyers announced to the court that it was missing, because of mechanical failure.
Newspaper stories with the White House line began appearing. On Thursday, April 26, columnist Jack Anderson presented a comprehensive version to his readers in nearly six hundred newspapers. It was a thumbnail defense of the White House, a broadside against me, and a foreshadowing of what was to come. Anderson spelled it out:
Our sources state flatly that Dean used his authority to obstruct the FBI
and to keep incriminating evidence from the Justice Department. He even ordered Hunt out of the country. White House aide Charles Colson, according to one source, exploded: “Do you want to make the White House an accessory to a fugitive from justice?”
One of the President’s closest advisers, John Ehrlichman, wanted to put out a statement acknowledging Magruder’s role in the Watergate conspiracy. This was vigorously opposed by Clark MacGregor, who succeeded Mitchell as campaign chairman.
A few Presidential advisers, including Ehrlichman and Colson, warned the President in February that the Watergate decisions must have been approved by Mitchell and Dean. Mr. Nixon replied that both had denied any involvement and asked for proof.
By mid-March, the President’s faith in Dean began to waver. He ordered Dean to Camp David to write a belated report on his Watergate investigation. After a few days at the Presidential retreat, Dean reported back to the President that he simply couldn’t write a report. Angrily, Mr. Nixon took Dean off the Watergate case.
Colson, meanwhile, took a lie detector test to prove his innocence. Dean was furious. “Now, we’re all going to have to take one,” he grumped.
Colson and Ehrlichman also put together information that (1) Dean had advance knowledge of the Watergate bugging; (2) Dean had ordered Hunt out of the country; (3) Dean had authorized payments to the Watergate defendants to keep their mouths shut. On Friday, April 13
th
, Ehrlichman confronted Dean with the charges.
This view of reality was so contorted that I didn’t know where to begin to refute it. Ehrlichman and Colson had obviously cooked up the story and fed it to Anderson. I knew that both had lines into him and it was what I expected from Ehrlichman and Colson, a skillful job.
But as jaded as I had become about politics, I was surprised that Jack Anderson, famous Nixon enemy and Watergate sleuth, was offering up the versions of two prime targets in the case without qualification. He offered no hint that Colson or Ehrlichman was his source and opened with a flourish: “The astonishing story can now be told how the Watergate cover-up suddenly tore apart at the stitches.” What a whore, I thought bitterly—he was taking all the sides, playing to power like everybody else in town.
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Garment was many years my senior. He had been Nixon’s law partner, and after I left, he would become counsel to the president. Len Garment and I remain friendly to this day, and have talked–long after the fact–about Watergate on many occasions, and at great length, when we were trying to figure out who Bob Woodward’s infamous source “Deep Throat” might be.
A few days later, Charlie called to inform me that I had been subpoenaed to appear before a New York grand jury which was then investigating the dealings of John Mitchell and Maurice Stans with international swindler Robert Vesco. Charlie and I joked that I might be the first person ever summoned who was actually happy about it—the Vesco case would take my mind off Watergate. We left for New York full of black humor about how things could not get worse, but on Monday, April 30, they did. Jane called from my office while I was in the U.S. attorney’s office at the New York Federal Courthouse. The two prosecutors who were grilling me asked if I wanted to take the call privately. Not necessary, I said.
Jane sounded shaken. “John, there’s a story on the wire services that you’ve been fired. Fred says it’s true.”
“Thank you, Jane. Don’t you worry. You’ll be able to stay at the White House. I’ll call you later and talk to you about it. But don’t you worry.” I hung up and turned to the two prosecutors. Charlie had gone out to get us all lunch. “Well,” I told them, “I have just learned I’ve been fired by the President.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” one of them said sincerely. “Would you like to take a break for a while?”
“No, I’m fine. Let’s proceed.” And we did. They were surprised, both at what had happened and at my lack of reaction. I had expected it. But I did not expect the speech Nixon would give on television that night.
Charlie and I were staying at the Waldorf-Astoria, at his request, until I realized I was paying the bills. It was our last stay at the Waldorf. When Charlie asked me what the President would say on television, I wanted to believe that somehow he would do the right thing. I should have known he could not. He felt the need now to cover up his own involvement in the cover-up.
I was psyching myself up for what I knew was ahead, beginning to want to dislike the President as I’d never been able to in the past. When he announced the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman, “the two finest public servants it has been my privilege to know,” I steeled myself. He removed Kleindienst with faint praise. Then he shoved a ten-word sentence into me, twisted it with a brief pause, and quickly stepped away so that all could see whom the President had stuck it to: “The counsel to the President, John Dean, has also resigned.”
“That’s what loyalty earns you, Charlie,” I said.
“Yeah, I see. You don’t have to wear that suit anymore,” my lawyer and now friend answered.
“I may not be able to afford
any
suit any longer,” I said miserably. “And I don’t even think I’ll be able to afford you, Charlie. I think I have just gone down the tube.”
“Cut it out, John,” Charlie rebuked me. “I don’t want to hear any talk about my fees. You know damn well I’m with you on this one, and we’re not licked yet. There’s one good thing about that statement. Haldeman and Ehrlichman went, too. Nobody’s going to believe that the President fired his two closest and most powerful aides unless there were some pretty heavy guns trained on them. I don’t care how many flowers he tossed them. The fact that he got rid of them is pretty damn strong evidence that you are telling the truth.”
“That may be, Charlie, but he’s thrown in with them on the cover-up. It’s still going on and I’m out there alone in the gutter.”
“Except for me,” Charlie insisted.
I called Mo. It had to be rough having your husband fired on national television. She was distressed, but not about the speech she had just heard.
“John, why didn’t you call Jane back? She’s frantically trying to reach you.”
“What’s up?”
“Jane’s really upset. She said that just after she talked to you this afternoon a bunch of FBI agents marched into your office. They asked where your files were and then put metal bands around them. They’re standing in your office, guarding them.”
“Holy Christ, you’re kidding!”
“No, I’m not!”
“Sweetheart, this is important. There’s a box of documents up in the bedroom. It’s not very heavy, and I want you to carry it to the attic. Leave it there until I come home, or until Charlie comes over to pick it up. In that box there’s a sealed brown envelope. Take it out and hide it somewhere.”
“John, what’s wrong?” Mo had fear in her voice.
“Nothing, sweetheart, please be brave. It’s very important. Also don’t answer the door for anyone.
Not anyone.”
We went over again what she was to do, and I told her to call me back after she had done it.
Charlie was pacing the floor; he wanted to know what I was instructing Mo to do. I told him about my office files and the copy of the Huston Plan. “Charlie, this is like something out of the Third Reich. I’m actually worried that Nixon might send FBI or Secret Service agents out to the house to see what they can find. Nixon, obviously, is playing very hard ball. That’s evident from his speech and sending agents to my office. I believe the man is capable of anything. “
Charlie knew me well enough by now to know I was not paranoid. He seldom drank, but that night he did.
“Charlie, all this has got to change,” I told him. “This is bigger than both of us, but I’m in a position to do something, I think—if people will believe what I have to say, and that’s a big if.”
Chapter Nine: Going Public
CHARLIE AND I WENT BACK TO WASHINGTON the next day, May 1. We didn’t say much on the trip; we were in shock. I was now just a private citizen guilty of crime, up against a battery of prosecutors who wanted to nail me. The President of the United States wanted to nail me. All I had going for me was my word that there were bigger people involved.
By the time the plane landed, both of us had to come back to life. I invited Charlie to my home for a strategy session. “If there are reporters around the house, we can slip in the back,” I told him in the taxi.
“No sir,” he declared. “Those bastards aren’t going to make
me
use back doors. If they ask me for a comment on your firing, I’ll stop and say, ‘Why don’t you go fuck yourself? Now print that, and remember my name is spelled with two
f’s
.’” I knew this was only tough talk. Charlie did refuse to talk to reporters, but he was too much a gentleman to insult them and he was always polite when he told them to go to hell.
Charlie made himself comfortable in the living room while I went upstairs to reassure Mo that everything was all right. I found her calmly reading. After my “scapegoat” statement I had warned her that I might be canned, but I had really been bracing myself. I returned to find Charlie searching the living room for a match.
“How would you like to get into a pissing match with the President of the United States?” I asked Charlie.
“I think we are already in one,” he answered. “It looks like the P is going to keep walking with his German shepherds.”
“No, I mean directly.”
He shrugged. “Why not? What do you have in mind?”
“Well, we’ve never really talked about the President, but I think you know there is no way I can testify completely about the cover-up without telling you about my dealings with him.”
“Right. I’d like to hear about the P if you’re ready to tell me.”
“Let me begin with some of the things I heard when I first went to the White House.” Charlie was still reluctant to hear details of the Huston Plan
, but he agreed now that, as my attorney, he had to advise me on what he thought was or was not “national security.”
“You mean to tell me you’ve got memos showing that the President approved illegal taps, mail opening, and break-ins?” he reacted angrily.
“That’s right. Mo hid them last night. You want to see them?”
“No, I don’t want to touch them. I don’t like you having them here in your house, either. You are no longer a government employee, so you’re not authorized to have them. You’ve got to get them back to the White House in the morning. I don’t want you to commit another crime accidentally.”
“If I send them back, they’ll disappear forever. That’s why I took them. I figured nobody would ever believe me if I said there was such a plan. It shows the kind of thinking that produced Watergate.”
“Okay. I’ve got an idea. I want you to get a safe-deposit box. Tomorrow. Understand? And put that stuff in the box. Then I’ll draw up some papers, and we’ll turn the key to the box over to Sirica. He can decide what should be done with them.”
“Charlie, I don’t have any evidence that the President knew what Liddy and Hunt were up to once they went over to the Reelection Committee. But, goddammit, I know the way that place works, and Haldeman must have told him something. Ain’t no one ever going to be able to prove that, though, I assure you.”
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Many years later I found myself sharing a lecture stage with Jack Anderson. My agent had not told me of the arrangement. Before going on stage I was introduced to Anderson in the Green Room. His journalistic dishonesty flashed in my mind, as did my anger. Seldom do I confront people, but this was an opportunity I could not pass. I told Anderson that he should brace himself because I planned to tell our audience that he was a dishonest journalist who would print anything he was told without checking its veracity. Anderson flinched and flushed. He immediately walked out of the room, and soon returned with the host who was sponsoring the event, who said that Anderson was going to cancel if I insisted on attacking his credibility as a reporter. I explained that that was fine with me if he cancelled, for I would be happy to explain that Anderson was a coward as well as a dishonest journalist. Anderson asked our host to step outside, where they conferred. Soon we headed for the stage, and the host introduced us, and explained to the audience that Anderson had an unexpected conflict so he would give his talk first and take questions, and then he would have to depart before I proceeded. When I had my turn at the lectern Anderson was gone. I took a few mild cracks at him but he had effectively defeated my effort for a head-on confrontation about his ethics and honesty. Indeed, he did not mention a word about me, Watergate, or Nixon in his talk. My agent later told me that Anderson cancelled a second appearance with me that he had arranged. He had put us together because I could draw an audience, while Anderson could not, but he thought it might work for us both and be a good program. I thought it would be a great program to debate his indefensible journalism. See also, John W. Dean,
The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court
(New York: Free Press, 2001) where I explained that former Virginia Congressman Richard Poff withdrew his nomination for a seat on the high court because he worried the confirmation process would reveal that he had adopted one of his sons–a fact he and his wife did not think the child was ready to learn. Jack Anderson was told of this private information long after the fact but while the child was still unaware of his adoption, and over the pleas of Poff and his wife, Anderson insisted hurting the Poff family by reporting the no longer relevant story. I wanted to publicly debate Anderson not only about his misinformation about Watergate but his willingness to harm an innocent child with his column.
I took Charlie step by step through my dealings with the President on the cover-up, from the first meeting, on September 15, 1972, through the last. Charlie’s cigar went out somewhere along the line, but he didn’t notice.
“What do you think?” I asked finally.
Charlie stood up and walked across the room. He stopped and turned. His head was shaking and his lips were tight, as if they were fighting to hold back the words: “The President is a goddam criminal, that’s what I think.”
I nodded.
Charlie began pacing. “Now, listen, I want to go back over a couple of points. I want you to tell me again what he said about it being no problem to get a million bucks, and what you told him about laundering money. That’s the damnedest conversation I’ve ever heard. The P sounds like the Godfather, for Christ’s sake.”
He sat back down in the easy chair beside our fireplace and listened as I repeated the conversation.
“Now tell me about the clemency offers again,” he said.
I repeated it.
“The P’s in big trouble. Big trouble,” he concluded and was off pacing again. Then, as he lit his cigar, “The P needs a lawyer and he better get himself a good one.”
“Well, now you can understand why I suggested that Silbert and Glanzer get that tape of my meeting with Nixon on April fifteenth,” I said.
“Yeah, I see.” Charlie sat down again with a sigh. He was quiet for a long time. When he finally spoke, his mood had changed. “I don’t think I ever told you this, but I voted for Nixon last time. Everybody, I guess, figures that an old Kennedy Democrat like me would love to nail Nixon, but I’d figured the bastard would make a better President than McGovern
. You know,” he continued as he watched the smoke from his cigar swirl up toward the lamp beside him, “it’s damn depressing, what you just told me.” He was silent again.
“Would you like a drink?” Mo asked Charlie as she came down the stairs to check on us.
“I’ll have a little brandy if you’ve got some, thanks.” Charlie waited until she was out of the room and then spoke to me softly. “I don’t think you ought to tell McCandless about the P. I don’t think this stuff should be leaked to the press.
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He’ll learn about it in due time, but not now. Okay?”
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After Nixon’s taping system was revealed, as I set forth in the Afterword, the evidence has surfaced indicating Nixon did have knowledge.
“I agree.”
Charlie sighed again. “You against the President. Shit, I can’t believe it. I knew you were carrying a load around in your head, but I didn’t realize it was a goddam atom bomb. I want to think about this for a while. We’re going to take this one step at a time. It may be your word against Nixon’s and the rest of ‘em, and that doesn’t make me very comfortable.”
“It doesn’t make me very comfortable, either.”
“Not that I don’t believe you,” Charlie reassured me, and I knew he meant it.
He had said the same thing to me a few weeks earlier, at a time when he had had doubts. It had been an awkward situation for him and most uncomfortable for me. I had gone to his office to meet with him and had found that something was bothering him. “I had a talk today with Silbert and Glanzer,” he had said. “John, they don’t believe your story about Gray destroying documents, which makes them very leery of what else you told them.” Charlie’s worried tone upset me. He always sounded confident, about everything. “They say Petersen talked to Gray, and Gray has denied ever receiving any documents from you and Ehrlichman, let alone destroying them.” Charlie shifted in his chair. “Now, I believe you,” he added hastily, “but...” He was struggling for the right words. I knew my face must be registering my concern, and Charlie was trying to comfort me, but his words didn’t offer solace. “...but I’m not the prosecutor in this case.”
“Charlie, I’m telling you the truth. Gray told me he’d destroyed those documents. I’d swear to it under oath,” I pleaded, looking for stronger assurance than the mere fact that my own lawyer believed me.
“Here’s the problem. They say, ‘Why should we believe Dean?’ You see, it’s your word against his, and just because I tell them Gray’s a damn liar doesn’t help us a bit. We’ve got to convince them, and I’ve got an idea I’d like to run by you.” Charlie was more fidgety than I’d ever seen him. He spun a pencil with his hand as he spoke.
“Sure,” I said, but I felt desperate. I’d been trying to convince myself that if I said what had happened I’d be believed. Now even Charlie wants more, I thought.
“Here’s what I’m thinking. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but it might be a good idea if you took a lie-detector
test. If the results don’t come out right, we’ll put the goddam report in the bottom drawer and bury it.” Charlie was testing me.
“Hell, Charlie, I’m ready. Gray’s lying, and if that’s what I’ve got to do to prove it, fine.”
“Terrific. That’s terrific. I’ll set it up for you as soon as we can do it. I’ve got the man.” He was smiling for the first time since I had arrived, which made me feel better.
Charlie called a private investigator and made the arrangements. The next day I would “get on the box,” as he called it.
Charlie’s investigator friend and the lie-detector
expert were waiting for me in the uninviting back room of a sterile prefabricated office building in suburban Maryland. What if I fail, I kept thinking; then I’m going to be in really big trouble. I had nearly convinced myself that no machine could register anything about me because my central nervous system was carrying more voltage than it was built to handle. The tester tried to put me at ease. The purpose, he explained, was not to trick or surprise me. We reviewed the questions carefully.
There was no way to get comfortable in the hardwood chair, with terminals attached to my fingers, a blood-pressure tourniquet around one of my arms, and a rubber belt around my chest. Wires ran behind me to the “box.” The tourniquet cut off the circulation in my arm. I felt a tingling feeling as my fingers fell asleep, then pain. This was normal, the tester said when I complained. He kept asking questions: “Did you turn documents from Hunt’s safe over to Pat Gray? Did Mr. Gray tell you he had destroyed the documents from Hunt’s safe you had given him?”
“We’re almost finished,” he said. “But I want to do one more test. Please select a card.” He held out a fan of half a dozen playing cards. “Now, remember the card you selected. I’m going to call off all the cards, and I want you to lie to me about which card you selected.” He read off the cards and I picked the wrong one. He peered at his instruments, laughing. “That’s a good sign. You damn near broke my machine when you lied.” I felt better as he unhooked me from the straps and wires.
Charlie called when he received the report the next day. He was riding high again. “Son, from now on whenever there’s any doubt about who’s telling the truth, you’re going to get on the box. I already called Silbert and told him to get Gray on the box, because my man passed with flying colors.” Gray, of course, never took a lie-detector
test; he finally confessed that he had destroyed the documents.
The polygraph test was not wasted. It led us to an important decision: I would testify only to facts on which I was prepared to take a lie-detector
test. Often when we were preparing testimony in sensitive areas, Charlie would lean over, smiling, and ask whether I was ready to go on the box about it. It would give us a boost as we squared off against the President.