TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/70s/70water.006

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                                                                                July 22, 1974

NATION

The Evidence: Fitting the Pieces Together


     Never in the 25-month history of the Watergate scandal had
so much evidence been brought together in one place. The eight
volumes of material released last week by the House Judiciary
Committee assembled all the available bits and pieces of the
Watergate mosaic: previously secret grand jury testimony
furnished to the committee by Judge John Sirica, memos written
by President Nixon and some of his high aides. Senate Watergate
Committee testimony, tape recordings from the Oval Office, a
presidential Dictabelt, and notes scrawled on legal-size pads
in the President's irregular hand. The Judiciary Committee
formed no conclusions and drew no verdicts. In a serious effort
to be fair and impartial, it simply presented all the materials
it had acquired.

     The overwhelming weight of the evidence is against Nixon,
though there is no single piece of new information that could
conclusively decide the case. There is much ambiguity about
specific words and actions of the President. But the broad
pattern of motives and strategies suggested by the mass of
material leaves little doubt about the major aim of the
President: to protect himself and his aides from the flood of
disclosures that began immediately after the Watergate break-in
on June 17, 1972.

     New evidence assembled by the committee confirms, and in
many instances sharpens, the impressions given by already
published material. The President and his men often judged
possible actions for their publicity value, rarely for their
potential in getting out the complete truth or bringing
individuals to justice. Though the White House insists that the
impeachment inquiry should be limited to the Watergate break-in
and cover-up alone, the committee, beginning this week, will
produce ten more volumes of information on other allegations
against Nixon.

     The President's defense on Watergate is contained in a
separate 242-page volume, which the committee released together
with last week's seven books of evidence. Prepared by
Presidential Lawyer James St. Clair, it is the only portion of
the massive document that attempts to draw specific
conclusions. St. Clair cites Senate Watergate testimony by H.R.
Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell that the President
had no knowledge of the burglary or the cover-up. The defense
counsel's main focus, however, is on the crucial $75,000 payment
to E. Howard Hunt, one of the convicted Watergate conspirators.
St. Clair argues that the transcript of the meeting that Nixon
held with White House Counsel John Dean on March 21, 1973,
"clearly demonstrates that the President recognizes that any
blackmail and cover-up activities then in progress could not
continue."

     St. Clair's relatively slender volume of defense is
overshadowed by the seven books of evidence (ranging from 271
to 687 pages). Part 1 of the Judiciary Committee document
details the formation of the "sophisticated
intelligence-gathering system" that eventually led to the
Watergate break-in and bugging. A second volume deals with the
initial attempt to limit the case to the scandal away from the
White House. A third section of two volumes focuses on the
hush-money payments to Hunt and the continued cover-up efforts.
The three-volume fourth section contains material on activities
after March 22, 1973, emphasizing the role of President Nixon
-- whether he launched an investigation or participated in the
cover-up himself.

     Herewith the major elements of the evidence:


The Immediate Cover-Up

     One of the more startling disclosures is that Nixon
foresaw a need to conceal information about the Watergate affair
just 13 days after the June 17 break-in. At a meeting with
Haldeman and Mitchell, which was called to discuss Mitchell's
resignation as Nixon's campaign director, this dialogue took
place:

     HALDEMAN: Well, there maybe is another facet. The longer
you wait, the more risk each hour brings. You run the risk of
more stuff, valid or invalid, surfacing on the Watergate caper
-- type of thin --

     MITCHELL: You couldn't possibly do it if you got into a --

     HALDEMAN: -- the potential problem and then you are stuck
--

     PRESIDENT: Yes, that's the other thing, if something does
come out, but we won't -- we hope nothing will. It may not. But
there is always the risk.

     HALDEMAN: As of now there is no problem there. As of any
moment in the future there is at least a potential problem.

     PRESIDENT: Well, I'd cut the loss fast. I'd cut it fast.
If we're going to do it I'd cut it fast.

     It is possible that by "cut the loss" Nixon meant that
Mitchell would have to resign. But in expressing his fear that
some information might "come out," the President seemed already
concerned that an open policy of complete disclosure would be
fraught with danger -- fully nine months before he claims he
first became aware of the Watergate cover-up.

     Less than three weeks after the arrest of the Watergate
wiretappers, the possibility of granting them Executive
clemency was discussed by the President and Ehrlichman.
Ehrlichman later recalled before a Watergate grand jury that he
held a "very long, rambling conversation" with the President on
or about July 4, 1972. Testified Ehrlichman: "We talked about
the Watergate defendants, and I raised the point with the
President that presidential pardons or something of that kind
inevitably would be a question that he would have to confront."
Ehrlichman added in his testimony that Nixon expressed the "firm
view [that] he would never be in a position to grant a pardon
or any form of clemency in this case." Despite Ehrlichman's
report that Nixon rejected clemency, the conversation raises a
sticky question for the White House: Why did Ehrlichman feel
that the question of Executive clemency would "inevitably" come
up over what was then being described by Nixon's spokesmen as
a "third-rate burglary"?

     That question indeed occurred to an assistant special
Watergate prosecutor, Richard Ben-Veniste. Logically, one
Watergate defendant that the White House should have been
worried about was G. Gordon Liddy, then a fairly high official
of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President.
Ehrlichman testified that he knew by June 20 that Liddy had
headed the Watergate break-in team. Yet Ehrlichman told
Ben-Veniste that he did not inform the President of Liddy's
role.

     Q. Now when was the first time that you were aware that
the President was aware that Liddy had an involvement?

     A. I don't know.

     Q. Was he aware of it before the 10th of July, based on
your long and very complete discussions with him on the 6th,
7th, and 8th of July?

     A. I don't know.

     Then, moments later, Ben-Veniste asked incredulously:

     Q. And are you testifying that you were aware of that and
you had conversations with the President about the
possibilities of Executive clemency for these people, and you
just omitted to tell the President that the general counsel for
the finance committee [Liddy] had admitted to Dean that it was
his operation?


Nixon's Involvement Deepens

     The most damaging material concerns the events of March
1973. President Nixon has repeatedly stated that it was only on
March 21 that he first learned, from Dean, of the Watergate
cover-up. There are strong indications in the new evidence that
the President discussed the cover-up at least eight days before
March 21. More incriminating still is material showing that
President Nixon perpetuated the cover-up rather than launching
a complete investigation, as he has frequently claimed he did.

     The Judiciary Committee's version of a March 13
conversation between Nixon and Dean shows clearly, as do the
transcripts issued by the White House, that the President was
then aware of perjury by Gordon Strachan, Haldeman's top aide.
The President on that day also explicitly rejected the "hang-out
road" -- meaning a complete disclosure.

     The evidence shows that Nixon again discussed the
Watergate cover-up with Dean on March 17. A committee subpoena
for the tape of that conversation was rejected by the White
House. But during a later talk between Nixon and Press Secretary
Ronald Ziegler, a tape of which was obtained by the Judiciary
committee, Nixon recounted that on March 17 he ordered Dean to
"cut off any disclosures that might implicate him in Watergate."
The Judiciary Committee states: "The President said that [the
former deputy campaign director] Jeb Magruder 'put the heat on,
and [the former treasurer of Nixon's finance committee, Hugh]
Sloan starts pissing on Haldeman.'" As the committee report
summarizes the conversation: "The President said that 'we've got
to cut that off. We can't have that go to Haldeman.' The
President said that looking to the future there were problems
and that Magruder could bring it right to Haldeman, and that
could bring it to the White House, to the President. The
President said that 'We've got to cut that back. That ought to
be cut out.'"

     The evidence also amplifies the record of the events of
the fateful March 21. A statement made by the President on his
Dictabelt machine just after his meeting with Dean and
transcribed by the Judiciary Committee shows that he admired
those of his aides who lied to investigating groups and had
contempt for those who told the truth. He praised Gordon
Strachan -- who at the time was stonewalling FBI investigators
and Government prosecutors with denials that led later to his
indictment for perjury. In Nixon's words, Strachan was "a real .
. . courageous fellow through all this." By contrast, Nixon
talked of Magruder, who was cooperating with prosecutors, as "a
rather weak man, who had all the appearance of character, but
who really lacks it when the, uh, chips are down."

     Strangely, Nixon began the Dictabelt by saying that March
21 was "relatively uneventful." But he went on to recount his
long conversation with Dean and made a possible damaging
statement about one of the most crucial parts of the Watergate
case, E. Howard Hunt's demand for money. Lawyer St. Clair has
argued that, in his March 21 discussion of a payment to Hunt
from campaign funds, Nixon meant only legal-support payments.
But the President's Dictabelt indicates that this was not so.
"Hunt," said the President, "needed a hundred and -- thousand
[sic] dollars or so to pay his lawyer and handle other things
or he was going to have some things to say that would be very
detrimental to Colson and Ehrlichman, et al. This, uh, Dean
recognizes as pure blackmail."

     On the Dictabelt, Nixon placed much of the blame for the
whole Watergate imbroglio on Charles Colson, who had recently
resigned as White House special counsel. "Apparently what
happened is that Colson, with Liddy and Hunt in his office,
called Magruder and told him in February to get off his ass and
start doing something about, uh, setting up some kind of an
operation . . . Colson was always pushing terribly hard for
action, and in this instance, uh, pushed so hard that, uh,
Liddy et al following their natural inclinations, uh, went, uh,
the extra step which got them into serious trouble."

     The evidence confirms that Colson did urge Magruder to
speak with Hunt and Liddy, who at the time were promoting the
Watergate break-in plan. But if the President was aware of
Colson's involvement, he seemed anxious to keep others from
finding out. A week after Nixon made the Dictabelt, according
to evidence revealed in the Judiciary Committee's volumes, Nixon
instructed Ehrlichman to inform Richard Kleindienst, then the
Attorney General, that "neither Dean nor Haldeman nor Colson nor
I nor anybody in the White House had any prior knowledge of
this burglary." On March 30, nine days after the President
recorded his suspicions of Colson, Ziegler told reporters: "As
we have said before, no one in the White House had any
involvement or prior knowledge of the Watergate event, and I
repeat that statement again today."

     Ziegler was asked about that pronouncement by a Watergate
grand jury last Feb. 12. His testimony included:

     Q. Did the President tell you to make that statement in
March?

     A. Yes, he did.

     Q. So the President didn't tell you what he had learned on
March 21st [from John Dean] prior to your making the March 30th
statement?

     A. No, he didn't.


Cover-Up of the Cover-Up

     After the March 21 meeting with Dean, the President and
his top aides spent weeks huddled in strategy sessions, looking
for ways to limit damaging disclosures about Watergate while
trying to give the appearance of exhaustively examining the
case. A 15-minute portion of a March 22 meeting of Nixon,
Mitchell and Dean was entirely left out of the White House
transcripts. The Judiciary Committee transcript of that portion
of the meeting depicts the President in a cover-up frame of
mind.

     PRESIDENT: . . . I was going to say, uh, uh, John Dean is,
uh, (unintelligible) got -- put the fires out, almost got the
damn thing nailed down till past the election and so forth. We
all know what it is. Embarrassing God damn thing the way it
went, and so forth. But, in my view, uh, some of it will come
out; we will survive it. That's the way it is. That's the way
you've got to look at it.

     Significantly, when John Dean claimed before the Ervin
committee that Nixon praised his efforts to contain the
Watergate affair, the White House denied that Nixon had done so.
The transcript, however, clearly shows the President
complimenting Dean on his work. In the March 22 conversation,
the President seems still to be looking for a way to "put the
fires out" without making a full disclosure:

     DEAN: We were within a few miles months ago, but, uh, we're
--

     PRESIDENT: The point is, get the God damn thing over with.

     DEAN: That's right.

     PRESIDENT: That's the thing to do. That's the other thing
I like about this. I'd like to get -- But you really would draw
the line on -- But, I know, we can't make a complete cave and
have the people go up there and testify. You would agree on
that?

     -- The President stated in August 1973 that he ordered
Ehrlichman to investigate the Watergate case after he learned
that Dean was unable or unwilling to carry out his inquiry.
Ehrlichman testified before the Senate Watergate committee that
the orders came at a noon meeting on March 30. But a White House
transcript for that meeting shows that, in the words of the
committee report, "the only subject discussed was a statement
to be issued by Ziegler at a press briefing." The President,
Ehrlichman and Ziegler did discuss the possibility of going up
before the grand jury but only as a public relations device.

     -- One of the President's handwritten notes shows that he
fretted over the $350,000 shelled out by Frederick LaRue, a
former re-election committee aide, to the Watergate
conspirators. "What will LaRue say he got the 350 for?" wrote
the President on April 15, 1973 -- the day when Nixon was told
by Prosecutor Henry Petersen that Haldeman and Ehrlichman were
guilty of cover-up activities. The exact meaning of Nixon's note
is unclear. But apparently he was not thinking that telling the
simple truth would be the best course for LaRue.

     Previously undisclosed evidence reveals a seamy, desperate
attempt to pin the blame for the break-in on a couple of
vulnerable faithful servants of the President. The White House
tried to use Mitchell and Magruder to protect the President and
his top aides. The method: secretly tape separate conversations
with Mitchell and Magruder and then turn their words against
them.

     On April 13, 1973, while Magruder was cooperating with the
prosecutors, he was called by Lawrence Higby, an aide to
Haldeman. According to a transcript of the tape, Higby charged
Magruder with leaking information to two reporters. Magruder
retorted that that was "just ridiculous," but he went on to
implicate both himself and Mitchell: "I've committed perjury so
many times now that I'm, uh, I've got probably a hundred years
on perjury alone." Then he talked about his decision to "make
a clean breast of things." He added: "Of course, he [Mitchell]
will be upset with me because I obviously will implicate John
Mitchell." Finally, Higby extracted from Magruder exactly whom
his testimony would implicate: Dean, Strachan and Mitchell --
but not Haldeman and not the President.

     This was just what Higby and Haldeman wanted. The next
evening, Ehrlichman told the President: "He [Higby] tape
recorded this thing. Higby handled it so well that Magruder has
closed all his doors now with this tape."

     PRESIDENT: What good will that do, John?

     EHRLICHMAN: Sir, it beats the socks off him if he ever
gets off the reservation.

     "Can you use the tape?" the President wanted to know.
After some discussion, Haldeman said that, according to
Washington, D.C., law, they could.

     Also on April 14 Ehrlichman, at Nixon's request, taped a
conversation with Mitchell. The apparent purpose: to get
Mitchell to admit that he had approved the Watergate break-in
and engineered the original cover-up, and thus take the heat off
the White House. Mitchell took a commercial flight to Washington
that afternoon. Ehrlichman quickly ushered him into his office
without giving him a chance to see the President. Also,
Ehrlichman pulled a chair close to his desk so that Mitchell
would be close to the hidden microphone.

     Nixon, Ehrlichman said, would get the credit if Mitchell
would only confess his guilt to the U.S. Attorney. But Mitchell
proved to be too shrewd to say anything that would incriminate
himself. According to a transcript of his conversation, he
denied his own guilt and accused the White House of
responsibility. "Well let me tell you where I stand," he told
Ehrlichman. "Uh, there is no way that I'm going to do anything
except staying where I am because I'm too far, uh, far out. Uh,
the fact of the matter is that, uh, I got euchred into this
thing, when I say, by not paying attention to what those
bastards were doing, and uh, well, you know how far back this
goes . . . this . . . whole genesis of this thing was over here
-- as you're perfectly aware."

     That put Ehrlichman, who knew the meeting was being
recorded on the immediate defensive. "No, I didn't know that,"
he replied.


Some Light on the Origins

     The Judiciary Committee evidence shed a bit of light on
the origins of Watergate by recounting some of the practices,
power relationships and internal rivalries in the Nixon
political camp during the months before the break-in and
cover-up. What is clear is that the White House kept the
tightest control over even the smallest details of President
Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign.

     The control was exercised by Haldeman. He gave his orders
to Strachan, his liaison at the Committee for the Re-Election
of the President, who is currently under indictment for covering
up the Watergate burglary. A lot of ordinary and extraordinary
campaign decisions were made through a long series of "Political
Matter" memos that Haldeman got from Strachan; Haldeman
indicated a preferred course of action in specific situations
by placing the initial H next to an alternative.

     In the memo dated Dec. 2, 1971, with which the evidence
begins, Strachan mentioned that "the Attorney General
[Mitchell] discussed with John Dean the need to develop a
political intelligence capability. Sandwedge [a previously
considered plan] has been scrapped." In a memo four days later,
Haldeman approved a pay raise, from $26,000 to $30,000, for
Liddy, who had just shifted over from his job as an Ehrlichman
aide to handle political intelligence and legal mattes for the
re-election committee. In these and later memos, Haldeman
approved such trivia as the idea of starting a tabloid for the
campaign to get news to the organization, and the request by
Maurice Stans, the re-election committee's finance chief, for
permission to eat in the White House mess. Haldeman accepted
without comment the news that Political Adviser Harry Dent had
counseled that President Nixon could break "without undue
political flak" an unwritten promise to National Urban League
Chief Whitney Young that the Veterans Administration would
create $9 million worth of jobs for blacks. Dent had
recommended, Strachan, reported, that the funds be used instead
for recruiting blacks "who can deliver for the President on Nov.
7, 1972."

     Several memos deal with a sensitive topic -- money. Both
Haldeman and Strachan used the same slang as the underworld
when discussing finances. Zeroes were dropped from large sums;
cash is called "green." Wrote Strachan: "Of the 1.2 fund
Kalmbach has a balance of 900 [meaning $900,000]-plus under his
personal control." Strachan presented to Haldeman the
recommendation of Stans, Dean and Herbert Kalmbach, the
president's private lawyer and a major fund raiser, that "690"
be put in legal committees and that "only the 230 green would
be held under Kalmbach's personal control." Haldeman approved
with his "H," and in a handwritten note at the bottom of the
page told Strachan to "make it 350 green and hold for us."

     No theme emerged from the evidence with more regularity
than that of hear no evil. When Sloan, the treasurer of the
re-election campaign, asked Stans about Liddy's request for
$83,000, Stans replied: "I do not know what's going on in this
campaign and I don't think you ought to try to know." And when
Liddy, depressed because his plan for the burglary seemed to be
getting nowhere, approached Dean early in 1972, Dean gave him
a moral stiff-arm: "Well, Gordon, you recall that we're not
going to talk about that."