The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate (90 page)

28. SSC, IV: 1614–15; SSC, V: 1854 (practically).

29. HJCW, II: 188; HJC summary, July 7, 1974; UMV, 8035, 8149–50.

30. CI, July 10, 1986 (vehement, regardless), June 10, 1988 (hand), September 21, 1988 (Key Biscayne).

31. Christopher Lydon, “Nixon’s Advice to Mitchell in April, 1972: ‘Start a Fight Right Now,’”
New York Times
, July 12, 1974.

DNC

1. Price,
With Nixon
, p. 369.

2. SSCFR, 28–31; HJCFR, 56–60 (emphasis added). The House report also concluded that H. R. Haldeman “concurred in” Mitchell’s authorization of the break-in.

3. Lukas,
Nightmare
, p. 256; Kutler,
The Wars of Watergate
, pp. 204, 275; Martin, “Fred LaRue, Watergate Figure.” Among the Nixon biographers and historians who traced the DNC wiretapping to Mitchell were Ambrose,
Nixon
, p. 562; Summers,
The Arrogance of Power
, pp. 402, 411; Brodie,
Richard Nixon
, p. 549n60; Melvin Small,
The Presidency of Richard Nixon
(University Press of Kansas, 1999), p. 256 (who got Key Biscayne’s date wrong); and Tom Wicker,
One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream
(Random House, 1991), p. 681 (who blamed Mitchell and Magruder jointly). In a league of his own, however, was Aitken,
Nixon
, who found (pp. 334–35) that “with the establishing of the Nixon-Mitchell relationship came the first seeds of the later troubles of Watergate.” Aitken, who conducted numerous exclusive interviews with the ex-president, continued:

The cynicism of mind, brevity of tongue, and ruthlessness in executing decisions that were Mitchell’s trademarks became artificially stamped on the president-in-waiting…. By encouraging the macho side of Nixon he created an atmosphere in which bad judgments were too easily made. Nixon the hater; Nixon the profane; Nixon the furious; Nixon the unscrupulous player of hardball were demons in his nature which had surfaced comparatively rarely during the first fifty-four years of his life. By contrast, there was Nixon the idealistic, the thoughtful, the sensitive, the kind-hearted and the thoroughly decent son of Hannah…. It was the arrival of John Mitchell as the strong peer relationship in his life that began shifting the balance of these conflicting forces.

Yet while Aitken reckoned Mitchell “a bad influence, the Mephistopheles to Nixon’s Faust,” the Briton also found Mitchell’s “reach was limited,” that the Nixon-Mitchell alliance, though marked by “considerable mutual trust…never deepened into great mutual intimacy,” and that while Mitchell “had a great deal to do with building Nixon up and bringing Nixon down…[he] did not have a lasting impact on those more personal characteristics that constituted ‘the real Nixon.’” This analysis is both inherently contradictory and unsupported by the evidence. One cannot argue that Mitchell was the catalyst for Nixon’s great psychic shift, from the kind-hearted “son of Hannah” to the mean-spirited character heard on the tapes, while arguing simultaneously that Mitchell exerted “no lasting impact…on ‘the real Nixon.’” Moreover, most of Nixon’s biographers, friendly and hostile alike, would likely quarrel with Aitken’s observation that “Nixon the unscrupulous player of hardball…surfaced comparatively rarely” before 1967. Asked if Nixon himself propounded this view of Mitchell’s influence on him, Aitken said “the paragraphs…which suggest that Mitchell helped to bring out the dark side of President Nixon are my own interpretation” see letter to the author from The Rt. Hon. Jonathan Aitken, M.P., May 3, 1995.

4.
Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary on the Nomination of Earl J. Silbert, of the District of Columbia, to Be United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session
(U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974), p. 65.

5. SSC, VI: 2441 (sophisticated); WH memorandum to H. R. Haldeman from Gordon Strachan, Subject: talking paper, April 4, 1972, H. R. Haldeman Alphabetical Name File, [Lawrence] Higby Subject File, Copies of Gordon Strachan Memos, Box 281, NARA.

6. SSCEX, Strachan; SSC, VI: 2503 (frequently). On Magruder’s failure to tell Strachan explicitly that it was Mitchell who approved Gemstone, see SSC, VI: 2441–52.

7. Emery,
Watergate
, pp. 104–5; SSCEX, H. R. Haldeman, January 31, 1974 (rarely); SSC, VIII: 3180–81.

8. SSCEX, Magruder; SSC, II: 532–33, 697; SSC, IV: 1618; Lukas,
Nightmare
, pp. 195–96; Liddy,
Will
, pp. 214–15. Emery cast the Mitchell-Stans discussion as an opportunity for Mitchell to have “countermanded” the Liddy disbursements, and Mitchell’s failure to do so as evidence he never “truly disapproved of Liddy’s plan.” This reading ignores the fact that Stans never specified the disbursements’ purpose, and, too, Magruder’s executive session testimony, which showed Mitchell expressing concern about Liddy’s budgetary requests; see Emery,
Watergate
, p. 105.

9. UVM, 4147 (public record); Liddy,
Will
, pp. 188–220. Liddy’s recollection that the DNC’s Watergate offices were never targeted in any of his original Gemstone proposals conflicted with Fred LaRue’s memory that the plan reviewed at Key Biscayne had indeed specified the DNC. The discrepancy is perhaps explained by LaRue’s recollection that Magruder’s secretary typed up the Key Biscayne documents, which may have misrepresented Liddy’s actual proposals.

10. E. Howard Hunt,
Undercover: Memoirs of an American Secret Agent
(G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974).

11. Kurt Singer, “James McCord Was My Boss” (undated [1973], unpublished manuscript), BP Singer Features, Inc.; Jim Hougan, “The McCord File,”
Harper’s
, January 1980; Hougan,
Secret Agenda
, pp. 10–31; Schoenebaum,
Profiles of an Era
, p. 397; SSCEX, James McCord, March 28, 1973; Fletcher Prouty on
CBS Morning News
, April 2, 1973 (Dulles); Baldwin interview (fear, one of us).

12. Liddy,
Will
, pp. 217–20; SSCEX, McCord; FBI memo to Mr. Tolson from J. P. Mohr, Subject: Protection of the Attorney General, February 28, 1972, FBIM. In this heavily censored FBI document, McCord’s name was blacked out, as was the word “intelligence”—the only redaction concealing something other than a name; but the context and typography make clear McCord was the speaker, and that he spoke of shifting to an intelligence role. Also suggestive of a “secret agenda” was the fact that just prior to the break-in, McCord, a man of meager personal finances, engaged in a series of transactions involving suspiciously large sums of money. The FBI later found that he opened a bank account on February 22 for a group called Dedicated Friends of a Better America, through which more than $90,000 passed before McCord closed it on April 17—still more than two weeks before Liddy recruited him for the Watergate mission. McCord claimed Liddy asked him to join the mission on April 12; but Liddy’s first conversation with Magruder about burglarizing DNC did not occur until “late April” see FBI memo to the Attorney General from Acting Director, FBI, [Subject:] James W. McCord Jr./And Others/Burglary of Democratic Party/National Headquarters/ June 17, 1972/Interception of Communications, July 21, 1972, FBIM.

13. A veteran intelligence analyst reported leading CIA officials were “thunder-struck” by Nixon’s establishment of his own spy apparatus; Nixon’s men, in turn, “underestimated both the bitterness and the subtlety of the CIA hierarchs, and it is conceivable that the CIA arranged a trap at the Watergate.” See Andrew St. George, “The Cold War Comes Home,”
Harper’s
, November 1973. CIA’s deceptions hardly ended with Nixon; the agency’s inspector general later disclosed that from 1986 to 1994, CIA sent to successive presidents and Pentagon officials almost 100 reports from foreign agents whom Langley “knew or strongly suspected” were controlled by Moscow; see “White House Fed Flawed Data by CIA,”
Chicago Tribune
, November 1, 1995, and Tim Weiner, “Presidents Got 11 Tainted Reports, Senator Says,”
New York Times
, November 10, 1995.

14. Hougan,
Secret Agenda
, pp. 20–25 (Ruiz-Williams); SSCEX, Felipe DeDiego, June 18, 1973.

15. SSCEX, Hunt, December 18, 1973 (emphases added).

16. CIA memo from [Richard] Helms to [redacted], Subject: Clarification of the Yeoman Story, December 4, 1973, CIA FOIA Case Number EO-1994-00130 (emphasis added).

17. CI, November 24, 1987 (knew more), February 27, 1988 (whole thing).

18. FBI report of SA William C. Hendricke Jr., [Subject:] Interception of Communications, June 22, 1972 (Baldwin’s education and employment); and FBI interview of Alfred Carleton Baldwin by SAs Angelo J. Lano and Daniel C. Mahan, [conducted] July 10, 1972, [filed] July 11, 1972, [hereinafter “BFBI”], both in RG 460, WSPF—WGTF Investigative Files—Witness File, Howard-Jablonsky, Baldwin correspondence, Box 105, NARA (security work, immediate need);
Los Angeles Times
transcript of interview of Alfred C. Baldwin III by Jack Nelson, October 3, 1972 (joke [hereinafter “BLAT”]).

19. BFBI; Itinerary for Mrs. John N. Mitchell, May 2–6, 1972, RG 460 WSPF, U.S. Attorney File, Documentary Evidence, Martinez, Eugenio—Mitchell, John, Box 31, NARA.

20. Baldwin, interviews August 19 and September 9, 1995 (Scotch); SSC memo of Interview with Alfred Baldwin by Bill Shure, [conducted] March 30, 1973, [filed] April 1, 1973 (reports, team), NARA.

21. Memo by Alan Galbraith [lawyer for Williams and Connolly], [Subject:] Interview with “Al” [conducted] August 26, 1972, [filed] August 28, 1972, NARA. Questioned closely on this issue twenty-five years later—after rereading his previous accounts to the FBI, the
Los Angeles Times
, and the Senate Watergate committee—Baldwin reaffirmed that McCord’s surveillance of DNC began
before
the burglars’ first successful entry there. “There’s no doubt in my mind,” Baldwin said, “there was [
sic
] conversations being monitored…either on the night of the twenty-fifth or on the twenty-sixth” see Baldwin interview, September 9, 1995. Baldwin later repeated this under oath: “The Thursday, May 25th, the day I returned from Connecticut…that was the first conversation…. There had been an entry [into DNC] prior to my getting back from Connecticut” see DVS, Deposition of Alfred Baldwin, July 26, 1996.

22. BLAT (we can talk).

23. Walter Rugaber, “Watergate Trial Is Told G.O.P. Got Wiretap Data,”
New York Times
, January 20, 1973 (gag order).

24.
Lawrence F. O’Brien v. James W. McCord, et al.
, Civil Action No. 1233–72, Deposition of John N. Mitchell, September 5, 1972; SSC, IV: 1619–20.

25. Liddy,
Will
, pp. 239–40. Reminded of the version in Liddy’s memoir, Mitchell, less than two months before his death, asked caustically: “What the hell has he got that in his book for? Is that a figment of his imagination, or what—that he put that envelope on my desk?” See CI, September 21, 1988.

26. Magruder,
An American Life
, pp. 248–49; Glanzer notes (this idiot). Strachan denied seeing the wiretap data; see SSC, VI: 2451. However, on this specific point, the usually unpersuasive Magruder passed a polygraph test, and Strachan failed one; see HJCW, III: 102, and the previously unpublished WSPF memo to Files from Earl J. Silbert, Subject: Gordon Strachan, April 24, 1973, RG 460 WSPF—WGTF, Investigative Files, Defendant Files, Gordon Strachan, Box 124, NARA. John Dean testified that Strachan privately acknowledged having seen the logs; see SSC, II: 934 and SSC, III: 955. And Strachan’s boss, Haldeman, told Nixon in April 1973 that Strachan had confided: “I stopped reading the synopses, and they were—we had ’em here” see WHT, 382.

27. Glanzer notes; Ehrlichman-Magruder tape; SSCEX, Magruder; SSC, II: 797; Frampton notes and memo; Magruder,
An American Life
, pp. 248–49; UVM, 4521–24, 4819–21. Magruder told Ehrlichman that Mitchell thought the wiretap data “so bad he
picked up the phone and called Liddy
and chewed him out” see WHT, 382. (emphasis added).

28. SSC, IV: 1619.

29. Ibid., VI: 2360 (Mardian); SSC, VI: 2304 (LaRue).

30. Liddy,
Will
, pp. 236–37. Two decades later, Magruder confirmed Liddy’s account; see DVS, Magruder deposition.

31. CI [John F. Rudy II], April 14, 1989, and April 28, 1989; DVS, Deposition of John F. Rudy II, April 11, 1996.

32. DVS, Deposition of John F. Rudy II, June 19, 1996.

33. WVL, I, Deposition of Alfred C. Baldwin III, July 28, 1997 (eight of ten); Baldwin interview, September 9, 1995 (sexual nature, arrangements). Baldwin, in 1995, also recalled McCord ordering him to patronize the Democratic lounge at Watergate and observe “senators leaving with any of the young girls.” Both Oliver and his secretary, Ida Wells, have repeatedly denied they had anything to do with prostitution. Oliver declined to be interviewed for this book. As the Watergate break-in trial approached, E. Howard Hunt, exhorting his fellow defendants to plead guilty, warned burglar Bernard Barker that “things like accusations about prostitutes would come out at trial” see WSPF memo to The File from G. Goldman, Subject: Interview of Bernard Barker, September 13, 1973, RG 460, NARA.

34. “U.S. Hints Blackmail as Motive in Watergate Case,”
New York Times
, January 19, 1973. All known references to the conversations overheard on the DNC wiretaps aver to amorous or sexual content. Unsealed portions of the
U.S. v. Liddy
trial transcript show Judge Sirica was informed, in chambers on January 11, 1973, that Baldwin had overheard discussion of “Mr. Oliver sleeping with a woman in Greenville, Mississippi” see UVL 981-982. Meeting with John Ehrlichman in April 1973, Magruder said the wiretap had picked up Oliver “calling girls in Mississippi, saying, ‘Honey, I’ll be down for the weekend’” see author’s transcript of recorded conversation between John Ehrlichman and Jeb Magruder, April 14, 1973, NARA. During Magruder’s briefing, Ehrlichman scribbled: “Oliver—ph[one]…sex” see SSC VII/2940. Ehrlichman then reported to Nixon that “what they were getting was mostly this fellow Oliver phoning his girlfriends all over the country and lining up assignations” see WHT 382. Magruder told Watergate prosecutors the logs “dealt with Spencer Oliver’s extra-marital affairs,” specifically his relationship with a “Miss[issippi] girl” see Glanzer notes op. cit. Ida “Maxie” Wells hailed from Mississippi. Magruder told the Senate the GEMSTONE logs recounted “very personal” conversations in which one party told another she had “a date tonight” see SSCEX Magruder, op. cit. In his memoirs, H. R. Haldeman said he learned “the chatter about love” picked up on the GEMSTONE wiretap reflected “Maxie” and other DNC secretaries “calling boyfriends all over the country—and using vivid details” see Haldeman (1978), op. cit., p. 174.