The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It by John W. Dean Read Free Book Online Page B

details.”
    “Couldn’t have,” Nixon said, dismissing the possibility. If Mitchell was involved, the whole affair was closer to the president, so he asked: “Isn’t there some way you can get a little better protection of the White House?” Before Haldeman could respond, the president repeated his ongoing concern about Colson, who he felt was “taking a bad rap,” and, of course, “if he’s taking the rap, basically the White House is taking the rap, regarding the White House consultant business.” The president noted rhetorically, “Hell, yes, Hunt worked for Kennedy, he worked for Johnson and he worked for the White House. That’s the whole story about him.”
    Haldeman advised Nixon that they had been dealing with this situation as best they could, which satisfied the president, who again raised the subject of Colson. “You’re convinced, though, this is a situation where Colson is not involved, aren’t you?”
    “Yup, I’m completely convinced of that as anything. As far as I can determine, it is,” Haldeman assured him. Relieved to hear this, the president said, “I’m not concerned at all, I am just concerned, or I just want to be sure we know what the facts are.”
    At this point Haldeman cleared his throat, unconsciously telegraphing that he felt he had a duty to convey important information. While it is not clear how much Haldeman actually knew at this stage about Liddy, Hunt, and the Cubans’ prior activities on behalf of the Nixon White House, he had certainly been told by Ehrlichman that they were a potential time bomb, and accordingly decided he must at minimum warn the president: “The problem is that there are all kinds of other involvements, and if they started a fishing thing on this, they’re going to start picking up threads. That’s what appeals to me about trying to get one jump ahead of them.”
    The president interrupted to probe for more information, but Haldeman was not inclined to share more bad news, though Haldeman remained in control of the conversation and tried to diminish the problem by quickly adding, “Hopefully, cut the whole thing off and sink all of it. See, Ehrlichman paints a rather attractive picture on that, in that that gives you the opportunity to cut off the civil suit. The civil suit is potentially the most damaging thing to us, in terms of those depositions.” Haldeman apparently believed the FBI could be controlled.
    “You mean you’d have Liddy confess and say he did it un-, or authorized?”
    “Unauthorized,” Haldeman clarified. “And then, on the civil suit, we’dplead whatever it is, and you get a summary judgment or something. I forget what the legal thing is. But Ehrlichman saw that as the way to cut it off, too, and then let it go to trial on the question of damages, and that would eliminate the need for the depositions.”
    The president went silent, digesting “other involvements” and the “unauthorized” Liddy, since he knew that Mitchell typically ran tight operations. When he finally spoke after a long pause he asked, “What do you think that they have to show as far as White House involvement is concerned? I am not too concerned about the committee.”
    “Well, we’re getting a bad shot to a degree, because it’s one hundred percent by innuendo. The only tie they’ve got to the White House is that this guy’s name was in their address books, Howard Hunt, and that Hunt used to be a consultant—”
    “And he worked for the CIA,” the president added. “He worked in the Bay of Pigs. I mean, he’s done a lot of things.” The president wanted to make Hunt’s activity an “isolated instance.”
    Again Haldeman sought vaguely to warn him, without volunteering any hard information. “You’ve got to be careful of pushing that very hard, because he was working on a lot of stuff.”
    “For Colson, you mean? Well, the declassification, then?” Nixon was using a code word—declassification—referring to a project that