Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (57 page)

“I’ll try it, but I’m not too hungry tonight.”

“After you get some dinner, I’ll take you around and introduce you to some of the men here,” Herb said brightly.

“Well, I’m not sure we can do that...” I eyed the deputy next to me. I had already changed my mind about the restrictions on me, feeling miserable that I couldn’t talk to Herb and Chuck. They had touched me with their efforts to be friendly. Our old grudges and battles seemed to have happened years ago.

“He can’t talk to anybody,” announced the deputy, twitching his neck in my direction. “He’s on restriction. No contact with the other principals.”

“Oh, I see,” said Herb with disappointment. I explained the special rules. Herb nodded and then put his hand on my shoulder. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he said sincerely. “Just fine. Don’t worry.”

“It doesn’t get any better, but you grow used to it,” added Chuck.

“Thanks, Chuck,” I said. “Thanks.” I felt gratitude welling up and I wanted to express it, but I had to keep a grip on myself. I thought about Chuck’s last remark. I was loaded down with sensations that were going to take a lot of getting used to. The smell of soured kitchen grease and body odor. The sight of the other principals wearing everything from Bermuda shorts to tailored suits. Thoughts about hoarding my phone calls. An anxiety which I couldn’t attach to anything except loss of freedom.

As the deputy and I returned to my room with dinner, we ran into Magruder. “Welcome to the club, John,” Jeb said. “This place looks almost like the White House with all of us here.” He leaned over and whispered, “But we wouldn’t be here if we’d used a few of the guys here to pull off Watergate. They think we’re a bunch of amateurs, and they’re right. Talk to you later.”

“...You motherfucking, cocksucking two-cent bitch! You just wait till I get out of here! Nobody whores around on me with no goddam shit-ass greasers! I’m gonna shoot your ass full of holes and cram your tits down your fucking mouth!...”

It was one of the principals, a Mafia killer, yelling on the prison phone outside my door. I was lying in my bunk, my eyes were rolling around in my head. They felt as big as oranges.

“...What do you expect Richie to do, you stupid slut! He’s not gonna give you any dough! How do you think I feel! I’ve got a goddam fucking hundred-thousand-dollar contract out on me! I’m marked, baby, and so are you...”

For all the rough language I had heard and used in my life, I was still stunned to hear a man talk that way to his wife. The Mafia men tended to have trouble with their “old ladies,” who were cut off from the normal financial support the syndicates provided. Holabird
was indeed a special prison. It was full of “rats” in big cases. The authorities took elaborate precautions to keep their organized-crime witnesses from being hit in jail. The man on the phone was a tinderbox friendly and humorous one moment, then suddenly maniacal. The deputies tried to keep him pumped full of tranquilizers.

Every sound in the hallway seemed amplified a thousand times, and my mind was racing. Howard Hunt’s money demands. My son. Counsel to the President. Nixon going to jail. When the tirade on the phone finally ended, the building quieted down. My ears were then assaulted by a constant squeaking. The deputy posted outside my door was rocking slowly in his chair. I was too intimidated to complain, and I tried to escape by thinking. Then I would see little sparks of light flying about on the inside of my eyelids. Nervous energy. I tried to drive thought from my mind so that I could sleep. When I did, the squeaking returned, as if the deputy’s chair were floating toward my head. My thoughts danced around to loud carousel music. The night inched by in a haze.

September 4, 1974

“How you doing?” Neal asked, smiling. “You surviving?”

“I’m okay,” I managed, bleary from the ordeal of the previous night. The marshals had returned me to Jim’s office.

“You don’t look so good,” he allowed. “Didn’t they treat you right up at Holabird
?”

“Well, I’m a little shellshocked. Holabird
’s no country club, but I’ll get used to it. The thing that unglued me yesterday was spending a couple of hours in the slammer down in the courthouse basement. I didn’t exactly feel like Jimmy Cagney.”

“In the slammer?” Jim exclaimed incredulously. “You’re kidding!” He was surprised, and I was surprised that he was surprised.

“No, I’m not kidding. Old Marshal McKinney
made Bud and Terry parade me right up to the front door of the courthouse, where he had the press waiting for a big show.”

A thundercloud came across Jim’s face, and he lurched into his pace around the office.

“Goddammit,” he fumed. “This keeps happening. I’m going to have to knock those damn marshals’ heads together. First they threw Kalmbach in the county jail in Los Angeles! Then they put Magruder out in the Arlington County Jail—not that I really care where they put him still, they did it, and now you. Goddammit, I’m gonna put a stop to this! I don’t want any of my witnesses in jail, ‘cause it’s gonna rattle the shit out of all you guys! You’re not used to it. And until this trial is over I’m not gonna let you get in those hellholes. You’ve got my word.”

“Thanks, Jim,” I sighed.

“All right. Now let’s get going on the witness book. We’ve got a long way to go to get you ready.”

September 7, 1974

“I used to have trouble reading the Scriptures, too. But I found something that helped me. Start with John in the New Testament. Don’t start with Genesis. And get yourself a modern version.” It was Chuck Colson talking religion late at night with the deputy outside my door. The deputy was an old man, a Southerner, and he was confiding in Chuck.

“Maybe that’ll help, Mr. Colson,” he said. “But I don’t know. I’m a good, God-fearing Christian, but I’ve never been able to read the Bible.”

“It’s hard to get started,” Chuck said gently. “It took me forty years. I’ll tell you what, though. You can come down to my room and read with me any time you want. Be glad to have you.”

“I might just do that, if you don’t mind.”

There was something real about the new Chuck Colson, I decided after a period of skepticism. He was different, but his faith did not erase his old zest or wit. “Sometimes I don’t think there’s much ministry for me to do in here,” he twinkled one night. “All these Mafia guys say they’re already good Catholics.”

September 8, 1974

“Boy, have I got some news, good and bad, for you,” announced Neal as he swaggered into my working office at the prosecutors’ office with Jill Vonner and Larry Iason on his heels. He was trying to look serious, but I saw salty mischief in his face.

“The good part first, please,” I said.

Neal put his hands behind his back, rocked in his shoes, looked up at the ceiling, pursed his lips, and then spoke like a town crier: “The former President of the United States, the Honorable Richard Nixon, has announced from San Clemente, California, that you—good ole John Dean—are responsible for the entire Watergate matter. Therefore, President Gerald Ford has seen fit to pardon him for all crimes he may have committed as chief of state.” Neal grinned.

“Very funny.”

He let out a belly laugh and slapped me on the back in celebration of his performance. “No, no. I’m kidding about what Nixon said, but your wife just called to inform us she heard on the radio that Ford did pardon Nixon. She’s damn mad about it. I don’t think she likes your old boss.”

One glance at Jill and Larry and I knew Jim was serious. “Did he pardon anybody else?” I asked tersely.

“No,” Jim growled, the humor draining from his face. “Just the President. The son-of-a-bitch. Presidents are special, you know.”

“They sure are,” I observed bitterly. “That’s what I used to think.”

“I can’t believe it,” sighed Jill. “I really can’t believe it. What’s happened to justice in this country? I don’t see how the citizens will stand for it.” Jill paused and looked off. “I wonder if our system is capable of equal justice. This is proof to me it isn’t.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one damn thing,” said Jim as Jill’s comment hung in the air. “This is going to have one hell of an impact on our trial. Old Jerry has really thrown a monkey wrench in the works.”

“I agree,” said Jill.

“It’s the old empty-chair situation,” Jim continued, carried away by his lawyer thoughts. “If I were a defense lawyer in this case, I’d stick a big empty chair in the middle of that courtroom for every juror to see. And I’d point to it every day and make speeches about how my client couldn’t get a fair trial because of the absent conspirator, Richard Nixon. The big cheese. The head man. A good lawyer could do wonders with that routine. I can’t understand why the hell Ford didn’t at least wait until the jury is sequestered.” He paused. “But I’ll tell you something else. This prosecutor has got him an alibi now.”

“What do you mean?” asked Larry.

“If we lose this damn case, it’s not our fault. It’s Jerry Ford’s fault.”

Jill looked at me with evident concern. “How do you feel about this, John?”

“Well, I’m not too happy about it,” I replied lamely. I looked away, trying to sort out my feelings. One second I felt a surge of anger that Nixon would never have to admit doing anything wrong, and I thought I would be willing to serve an extra month just to see him have to do it. The next second I would swing back: no, I’d rather see Nixon back in the White House if I could trade it for one week off my sentence. I didn’t know. “I will say one thing, Jill,” I said finally. “I’m sure as hell going to work harder on my testimony. I’ll be damned if I’m going to come off as the liar after all this.”

“Attaboy!” Jim exclaimed. “Mean John Dean.” A new nickname had been born, and “good ole John Dean” began to fade from Jim’s vocabulary.

“I guess we all just have to work harder,” sighed Larry. Jill agreed. “Well, at least Ford’s taken poor Leon off the hook,” Jim mused. “I guess Leon is pretty happy he straddled the fence on whether to indict Nixon. He passed the cup to Jerry,” he said dramatically as he held out his Styrofoam coffee cup. He paused and then gulped down the coffee. “And Jerry poured it on the floor.” Jim grinned and turned the cup upside down.

Mo followed my marshal’s car to Holabird
from the Special Prosecutor’s office, since she didn’t know the way. It was our first visiting day, and I had worked late the previous night cleaning my quarters. We rushed into each other’s arms. I don’t think I had ever felt more emotion, and Mo returned my feelings. We joked about making love in the closet and made nasty faces toward my door. My guard was standing just outside, as always, and he insisted that the door remain open. Rules. Mo and I were full of steam, but we had to channel it. She stepped back, smiled, and threw herself into a kind of birthday ritual, presenting me with all the things I’d asked her to bring—two potted plants, a small rug, an old radio, a soap dish, and new towels from Sears Roebuck.

We made the most of the ceremony, and then Mo brought up her worry about the pardon. “I’m going to issue a statement, John,” she said firmly. “Senator Weicker
will help. I’m not going to just sit around and take this. The President’s got to pardon you. It’s only fair.”

I winced and decided not to encourage her hopes, or mine. “We’ve got to be realistic, sweetheart. The President’s probably not going to pardon anybody else. It’s over for now. Even the prosecutors would recommend against a pardon for me now. They want me in here.”

Mo looked shocked and hurt by my response, then angry. We were both strung tight as bowstrings. “Why do you say that?” she exploded, in tears. “Do you like being in here?”

That stung me. I had taken the wrong approach. “No, I don’t like being in here,” I said gently. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. That’s all.” I was trying to baby her, and it backfired.

“Well, you said the time was going by real fast,” she sobbed. “You said it was all right. I don’t understand you!”

All our emotions were out of sync. We floundered painfully until Mo finally said she was worried that she might not get home before dark. She left an hour before the visiting period ended, and I collapsed on the bunk, feeling as if I were wrenched inside out.

I struggled to my door in response to a loud knock. It was Chuck. He had persuaded certain guards to let him speak to me from the doorway as long as we didn’t discuss testimony.

“Hi, Chuck,” I sighed.

“Get on your horse.” He was sparkling. “We’ve got work to do! I told Magruder to draw up a game plan. And we should get Patty and Mo to do The Today Show, The Dick Cavett Show, Merv Griffin, and Mike Douglas. One tough and one crying, demanding pardons for their husbands. I’ll get a hold of some of the heavies to put the screws to Ford. Jeb can get his old operation going and take out full-page ads urging freedom for the POWS, Prisoners of Watergate! Herb can raise the dough.” Chuck was mimicking his old White House locomotive style. Then he roared with laughter, and it was infectious.

“Ah,” I sighed loudly, feigning lament. “Those days are gone forever.”

“I know.” Chuck grinned and ducked away in good spirits.

September 12, 1974

Gordon Liddy walked past me in Neal’s office, flanked by two marshals. I was just leaving for Holabird
.