Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (53 page)

I assembled my composure. “How are you?”

“Well, that’s not very important. I guess you’ve heard what your former leader has done.”

“I sure have. I can damn near hear the boots of marching FBI troops. It’s a little terrifying,” I said.

By the time Charlie called, I’d settled down. I told him what I was thinking about. “Listen, I’ve given up everything by pleading, and I got nothing. All I’ve got is a letter from Cox saying I can still be prosecuted for perjury. And if it’s my word against everybody else’s, what’s to stop Nixon from telling his next Attorney General to prosecute me? Charlie, I’ve been screwed.”

“Maybe.”

“Can I withdraw my guilty plea?”

“Nope. You voluntarily pleaded. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference that you pleaded because you like Cox. Let me think about this. I can’t really talk now, but I’ll call you tomorrow.” Charlie had little comfort to offer, and I badly needed some. Rick Ben-Veniste
had given me his unlisted number. I fished it out of my wallet and called him. He had replaced Jim Neal as the assistant special prosecutor in charge of Watergate.

“What are you guys going to do now?” I asked Rick. “I’ve got, or I had, a lot riding on your office.”

“I don’t know what’s next.”

“Have you talked to Cox? Or have you all met or something to see about blocking Nixon’s move? Or is it over?”

“I’ll give you a call tomorrow,” he said. Rick seemed preoccupied, and as stunned as I. I continued calling people. And I drank more Scotch than I had drunk in months.

October 21, 1973

It had been a sleepless night. Rick called early.
2
*

“I think we’re going to be absorbed into the Department of Justice. We just don’t know, but the reason I called is we’d like to meet with you tomorrow, about one-thirty. I’ll call you tomorrow morning and give you the details. Please don’t mention this to anyone, other than Charlie, of course. Okay?”

“Sure.”

October 22, 1973

Monday morning I tried not to stare at the telephone as I waited all morning for Rick’s call, so I read and reread the newspaper. At 11: 04 he called.

“Can you come downtown to the Statler Hilton
at twelve-thirty?”

“You bet.”

“Remember, that’s not the Mayflower
,” he quipped.

I laughed. “I’ll never confuse them again in my life. But where in the hotel? The coffee shop?”

Rick laughed, too, which made me feel better. “No, we’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

An hour later, I followed Rick and three of his colleagues to the elevator and on to a room they had taken. After checking to make sure no one had followed us, we went in separately, as if we were conspirators going to a cell meeting.

“It’s going to be announced today that Henry Petersen is now in charge of the Watergate investigation,” Rick began. “We’re going to be under the Department of Justice. How do you feel about that?”

“I think it shits,” I said.

“We’re not exactly overwhelmed, either. Why don’t you like it?”

“I think that’s obvious. Henry Petersen has been marching into the President’s office every time Nixon wants a look at the evidence, and he tells the President what it is.
3
*
I doubt if Petersen will go after the tapes. So, if that’s the situation, you’re looking at all you’re going to get—me.”

“Didn’t you recommend Petersen to the President?”

“Right. I told the President that I didn’t think Henry would want to hurt the Presidency and he should take his counsel from him. It looks as if he’s following my advice. I like Henry, but he’s sure as hell not going to be very happy with me as a key government witness. I talked to him throughout the cover-up. How in the hell can he be the prosecutor when he’s had all those dealings with me?”

“We have some problems with that, too. Was Petersen part of the cover-up? We need to know.”

“Well, I don’t think I ever compromised him to the extent that he could be considered a co-conspirator. But he had to know why I was always calling him for information. Henry had to look the other way on some things, like when I told him Gray had received documents from Hunt’s safe before the first Watergate trial.”

November 1, 1973

In the wake of the now-famous firestorm, the fierce public reaction to the “Saturday Night Massacre
,” and with an array of impeachment resolutions in the Congress, the President was forced to back down. He appointed a new Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski
. He announced that he would comply with the Court of Appeals’ order on the subpoenaed tapes, although he continued to fight against turning over others.

“Christ, Charlie,” I moaned, “we’re on our third set of prosecutors. I can’t tell whether we’re going backward or forward.”

“Look on the bright side,” Charlie advised. “If Jaworski
goes down the tube, we’ll just get another one, by God! Same disease, same medicine! Nixon’s getting eaten alive.”

November 16, 1973

During one of my frequent meetings with staff members in the Special Prosecutor’s office, I inquired about Jaworski
.

“It’s still too soon to tell, but Leon seems all right so far,” said Ben-Veniste
.

“We’re keeping an eye on him,” echoed Jill Vollner
. “We guarantee you we won’t keep quiet if he walks away from this thing.”

January 16, 1974

“Who do you think erased the tape?” Jill Volner asked.

I was reading the report of the technical experts on the eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap that had been discovered in the tape of the President’s conversation with Haldeman on June 20, 1972; they had concluded that the gap was the result of five separate and intentional erasures.

“Somebody who is not very good mechanically,” I answered.

“Like?”

“Maybe someone I know who had trouble taking the top off his fountain pen, or somebody who hasn’t driven a car in years...”

“Yeah, but how do I prove it? I couldn’t break Rose Woods
, even if she knows anything.”

February 13, 1974

Ben-Veniste
’s office was crowded with the other members of the Watergate Task Force: Jill Vollner
, George Frampton
, and Peter Rient
. A chair had been placed in front of Rick’s desk for me, and another chair sat ostentatiously empty. Rick explained.

“We’ve invited Leon to sit in on this meeting,” he said smugly. “He’s got to go down to court tomorrow and vouch for your credibility.”

“I thought we were going to go over my conversations with the President for my grand-jury appearance tomorrow,” I said.

“Well, we are. But since Leon has never really dealt with you, he thought he ought to sit in as we go over this material.”

“Fine with me.”

Rick was grinning. “We want to show Leon how a prosecutor operates. You can give us a few of your ‘I don’t recalls’ to show him we don’t push you around.”

“We want him to see your credibility for himself,” Frampton added in a more serious tone.

“I’ll be happy to perform for him,” I said sportingly.

“After this show, you can vouch for Leon’s credibility in vouching for your credibility,” Jill cracked as the telephone rang. It was Jaworski
’s secretary. He was tied up, but we were invited to his office when we’d finished. The prosecutors mumbled their disappointment. It was clear from their remarks that, while they trusted Leon, they didn’t think he understood what was happening.

Special Prosecutor Jaworski
’s office was almost bare, certainly not furnished to the standard of his Texas law-firm offices. Rick, unaware that Jaworski
and I knew each other, began to introduce us. Jaworski
stopped him and came around from behind his desk to greet me.

“I haven’t seen you since I was in your office at the White House,” he said with a smile, extending his hand. When he was president of the American Bar Association Jaworski
had visited me to argue against the nomination of Congressman Richard Poff
to the Supreme Court; on another occasion he had come to lobby against no-fault auto insurance, which took business away from trial lawyers.

Adjusting the vest of his three-piece suit, Jaworski
helped Jill with her chair and then seated himself. “I’ve managed to get myself dragged into this fight with the White House over your credibility,” he said. “Judge Gesell
wants me in his courtroom tomorrow because of my statement on the television that you were a very believable and credible witness.”

“I want to thank you for your support,” I replied.

“Well, I felt I should. I’d said the exact same thing in court. Those reporters on the TV show were really grilling me, so I thought I might as well say it there. I don’t think it was fair of St. Clair
to jump on me over that statement.” The statement had resulted in a motion by Dwight Chapin’s attorney to dismiss the case against Chapin in Judge Gerhard Gesell
’s courtroom, and it had brought Jaworski
a public blast from the President’s lawyer, James D. St. Clair
of Boston.

“I thought you were very careful in not going beyond what you’d said in court,” Jill added, in a tone and manner that recalled to me how I used to try to please the boss.

“Thank you, Jill.” Jaworski
smiled graciously. “I think the judge will understand it when I explain. I had a long-standing commitment to be on that show.”

“I’ve heard St. Clair
is a pretty good lawyer,” I said. “Is he?”

Jaworski
let my question pass. “The
Los Angeles Times
hit him hard for criticizing me. And his very own
Boston Globe
lambasted him. Even his home-town newspaper didn’t like it.” He repeated that several times.

“So St. Clair
isn’t as good as they say?” I asked.

“Jim is in an impossible position over there. Buzhardt
listens to all the tapes, knows all the problems.”

“So Buzhardt
’s still running the show?”

“Yes, sir. In all the meetings I’ve attended over there, Buzhardt
has made the decisions. He just blurts them out, and St. Clair
goes along whether he agrees or not. I don’t think St. Clair
knows what he’s supposed to be doing.” Jaworski
shook his head with pity for St. Clair
’s fix.

“Well, Buzhardt
got there first and learned the ropes,” I suggested. Jaworski
nodded his agreement.

“I told those people over at the White House not to try to destroy you,” he continued. “I told them they were asking for trouble with me, and I feel I made the point very strongly. I raised this with someone above Buzhardt
, and—”

“Haig
?” I interrupted. General Alexander M. Haig
, Jr., had replaced Haldeman as White House chief of staff.

“I’d rather not say, but I went to the top.” This confirmed my feeling that it must be Haig
. “I’ll tell you this,” Jaworski
said. “He assured me he was personally not involved in those efforts. I think I did some good in raising this matter with them. We’ll see.”

He sat thinking about what he had just said. Then he assumed a rather formal pose, as if he were sitting for a portrait, and told a story in his best Texas drawl. “Last Sunday I went to the Presbyterian church up on New York Avenue. It’s convenient to where I stay in Washington. As I went in for the service, I stopped to say hello to the deacon, who was greeting people at the front door. The deacon stopped me and said, ‘Mr. Jaworski
, President Nixon is coming this morning.’ I told the deacon that was fine and went along to my seat. I opened my program and saw that the sermon was on ‘Moral Courage,’ which made me chuckle to myself.” Jaworski
paused. But before going on, he erased the smile from his face and slowly shook his head. “During the service I prayed to rid myself of hate. Hate’s one of those evil things we’ve learned,” he said squeezing his eyes tightly and shaking his head hard, as if dispelling evil from his mind.