Watergate: A New History, Graaf - A*

              "At its simplest, Watergate is the story of two separate criminal conspiracies: the Nixon world's dirty tricks that led to the burglary on June 17, 1972, and then the subsequent cover-up." The story is of course bigger and more complicated. The genesis of Watergate was the administration's anger with ongoing leaks to the press. After eighteen wiretaps of WH staff came up empty, Nixon ordered an expansion of the taps when the Pentagon Papers release in the summer of 1971 burst onto every front-page in the country. Although the Nixon administration was not even mentioned, an enraged Kissinger demanded an aggressive WH response to the Papers. Thus, the Plumbers, managed by Egil Krogh and reporting to Ehrlichman, were born. A Hunt/Liddy burglary of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office came up empty. Throughout the planning for the 1972 election Liddy, now charged with Intelligence for CREEP,  pushed Mitchell for approval of an endless list of burglaries, wiretaps, dirty tricks and illegal acts. Mitchell later swore he never approved anything, and it's likely that the okay for the Watergate break-in came from Magruder. The first entry into the DNC headquarters came on May 28th. They came back to replace a failed bug on June 16th. A little after midnight, Barker, McCord, Gonzalez, Martinez, and Sturgis were arrested. Liddy and Hunt, watching from across the street, quickly fled. "By the time dawn rose in Washington, the cover-up had begun."

            With McCord on the CREEP payroll and Hunt, a WH employee whose name was in a burglar's notebook, stress pulsed through the administration. The Post assigned Woodward to the case and by late Sunday, he knew that Hunt worked for Colson. The first official lie came that same day when Mitchell disavowed McCord. It was soon determined that all of the burglars had CIA connections, leading Nixon to suggest that the CIA be told to call off the FBI in the interests of national security. Dean was sitting in on some of the FBI interviews and reading all the FBI interview files from June until the following April. The president pointed out that the place to get money for the burglars was the Miami Cuban community. 

            The FBI was in management turmoil. When Hoover died in May, Nixon appointed L. Patrick Gray as acting director. Gray was a capable former submarine officer with no familiarity with law enforcement. His acting deputy, Mark Felt, was a career agent who believed he should be in charge. He undermined Gray at every turn, and began leaking prodigiously to the press. Almost four decades later, he would acknowledge that he was Deep Throat.

           The WH had Mitchell resign for personal reasons, an idea that was readily accepted because of his wife's erratic conduct, while Dean was successful in raising the money for the burglars and E. Howard Hunt. Within a few weeks, the story died. But, the FBI, the Post and the Times continued to plug away. The administration stated that everyone should cooperate with the investigation, and then spent the summer "constructing an elaborate series of lies, suborning perjury, and constructing half-truths to obfuscate the campaign's darkest corners.'' The President acknowledged to his staff that the hush money was keeping Hunt et. al. quiet. The first indictments came in September with the five burglars, Liddy, and Hunt the only ones to face justice. Nixon, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Dean gloated over the success of the containment. The Post, Time, and the LA Times continued to find suspicious kernels of extensive impropriety, but were not yet able to tie it all together. Walter Cronkite mused on CBS that there may be more to Watergate than we know, but the election came without the affair having any impact on the nation or the outcome. Nixon won in a massive landslide. He seemed untouchable.

           Five defendants pleaded guilty and two mounted virtually no defense. Barely any information about motive or all the money floating around surfaced. Judge John Sirica felt that the wool was being pulled over his eyes. In the Senate, a Select Committee On Presidential Campaign Activities was created under the chairmanship of Sam Ervin.  As the committee began its work, and while John Sirica was trying to get the seven convicted men to talk, Dean met with Nixon on March 21st and mentioned the "cancer" on the presidency. Dean detailed at length all that he had done throughout the cover up, as well as Haldeman's and Ehrlichman's involvement. It was the same meeting where Nixon said he knew where to get millions in cash. As March 1973 came to an end, the unravelling began. James McCord told Sirica that Mitchell, Magruder, and Dean authorized the burglary, and orchestrated the payoffs to the burglars. Dean began to realize there was no way out and hired counsel. He met with the prosecutors, as did Magruder  a few days later. Nixon announced there would be new details forthcoming because he was now investigating. Acting Director Gray resigned after acknowledging he destroyed evidence. Nixon summoned Haldeman and Ehriclman to Camp David and asked them to resign. AG Kleindienst also resigned. Dean's secretary called to tell him he'd been fired. Mitchell and Stans were indicted.

        On May 17, 1973, the Watergate Committee began its public hearings. McCord, Magruder and quite a few others preceded the star, John Dean, in June. He spent nine hours reading a 245 page statement. After hearing Dean, Tip O'Neill began to consider how the House would handle an impeachment. One of the WH lawyers told  a colleague about the president,"I've listened to some of the tapes, and he was in the cover-up right up to his eyeballs from the beginning." On July 16, likely the most stunning revelation of Watergate came when Alexander Butterfield, formerly Haldeman's assistant, was speaking. He made the committee, and the world, aware of the extensive recording system in the WH. No longer was Dean's testimony the only source of information about the cover up. Immediately, Ervin issued a subpoena as did Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor. Over the summer, the Committee presented 257 hours of testimony that was carried on all three networks. Watergate dominated America as millions watched daily. Sirica ordered that the subpoenaed tapes be turned over to him so he could determine the merits of Nixon's executive privilege claims. Tension was building for the president on the issue of the tapes and, in particular, the tactics of Cox. A Gallup poll showed less than 9% of the country thought Watergate was important, and Nixon kept preaching that he had nothing to do with the break-in or the cover-up. He said that he needed to get back to running the nation.

      "October 1973 would prove to be perhaps the most historic single month in the history of the American presidency..." Agnew pleaded guilty to bribery charges and resigned the vice-presidency. In the Middle East, Egypt and Syria started what would be known as the Yom Kippur War and placed a first-class foreign crisis on Nixon's desk. Israel was on the threshold of defeat. Nixon ordered an airlift that gave the Israelis the material they needed to safeguard their borders and take the offensive. An appeals court rejected Nixon's arguments and ordered the tapes turned over. Dean pleaded guilty to a one count felony charge. Nixon focused on the idea of having a third party review the tapes, summarize them and make a decision about executive privilege. Cox rejected the idea. On the evening of the 20th, the attorney general and his deputy resigned rather than follow Nixon's order to fire Cox. The deed was done by the solicitor general. The event became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

      "Condemnation of the president's actions flowed from political allies and foes alike, and even from church pulpits across the nation." The country was outraged. The president's approval rating was 24%. In the House, eighty-four members proposed impeachment. On Tuesday, the president's lawyer announced that he would turn over the tapes. Leon Jaworski was appointed the new special prosecutor and Peter Rodino's House Judiciary Committee began impeachment hearings. Editorials around the country began calling for the president to resign. His lawyers even suggested he resign. Then, the WH went public with the eighteen minute erasure of a Watergate conversation that Nixon and Haldeman had the previous June. When the special prosecutors finally listened to the subpoenaed tapes, they knew they had compelling evidence of crimes by Nixon. An investigation by the IRS^ revealed that the president had paid virtually no taxes because of a gift of papers to the National Archives and that the gift had been illegally backdated. At years end, Sirica graced Time's cover as its Man of the Year. Only fifty-two weeks earlier, it had been Nixon.

     The wheels of justice turned slowly. In March, the grand jury convened by the special prosecutor indicted Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson, Strachan, Mardian, and Parkinson. Nixon was an unnamed, unindicted co-conspirator. In late April, the president released 1300 pages of transcripts that he told the nation showed that he knew nothing of the cover-up until March 21, 1973, the day of his meeting with Dean. Upon examination, the prosecutors noted that the WH had released a fraction of what they asked for. Even so, the country was appalled at what they read."Congress was furious, Nixon defenders dumbstruck, and the general public was repulsed." His former lawyer said, "Nixon released a thousand pages of mumbled plotting, twisting, turning, and double-dealing, all the numbing sleaziness of political men in desperate trouble, the whole mess compounded by countless transcription mistakes, arbitrary omissions, and perhaps worst of all, innumerable references throughout to expletive deleted." Most importantly, the Judiciary Committee and the special prosecutor subpoenaed tapes, and got transcripts. Starting in May, the committee heard testimony three days per week for ten weeks, and then began public testimony in early July. A unanimous Supreme Court affirmed that Nixon had to turn over all the subpoenaed tapes. On July 27, the committee voted 27-11 to impeach the president. A few days later, the transcript of the June 23rd meeting in which Nixon fully endorsed a cover up was released, and the committee's votes switched to make the recommendation unanimous. The WH concluded they probably had seven votes in the Senate. He resigned in a nationally televised broadcast on August 8th. He acknowledged no wrongdoing, just a lack of political support.

      On September 8, Ford pardoned Nixon. It was a very unpopular decision. Perhaps the most important long term consequence of Watergate was that the nation no longer trusted Washington. A noted observer said,"If Nixon's has bequeathed to his presidential successors a permanently hostile news system, he has cursed them all." The author closes with a most ironic observation. We still don't know who ordered the break in or what the burglars were trying to achieve. 

     I am struck by Mark Felt's duplicity and motivation after remembering his rather positive treatment in 'All The President's Men'. I am amazed by Kissinger's balancing act having called the WH staff "maniacs in a madhouse" and knowing full well that the president despised Jews. I am surprised that John Mitchell tried to stop John Dean from joining the WH staff which he characterized as a bunch of "looneys." As for the staff, they just seem grossly incapable and disconnected from reality. And for the president, I find it incomprehensible that he spent hours upon hours rambling on and on while he bathed in his unique mix of paranoia, anti-semitism, and delusion. My most important takeaway is that this book is a masterpiece, and I'd be shocked if it doesn't rack up some very serious awards.

     

        

*Although it would be almost thirty-five years before Deep Throat was identified, Mitchell told Haldeman it was Felt, and the WH decided it couldn't do anything about it without facing Felt's ire and disclosure of all he knew.

^Nixon was assessed a $440,000 tax bill.