Nixon's Secret (88 page)

   “I had certainly confirmed it months later [that no one on the White House staff knew of the break-in in advance] and still believed it was technically true based on all I knew. (p. 288)

   “Nixon noted that I had said, however, that I did not believe anyone at the White House had advance knowledge of the Watergate break-in (as I later testified, and find remains accurate to this day). (p. 591)

•     
No White House Receipt of Wiretap Information:
Dean concludes that, contrary to Magruder’s testimony, Strachan was never sent any wiretap information from the first break-in (May 28, 1972):

Whether the White House received information from the DNC before June 17, 1972, will forever remain unclear, because Haldeman instructed Strachan to clean their files. But it appears no such information, in fact, was received. Magruder later testified that he showed Strachan the fruits of Liddy’s DNC wiretapping operation, but in his testimony Strachan denied he was shown such material. At the time I was reporting to Nixon, Strachan believed he had seen it because the reports he had been sent and destroyed at Haldeman’s instruction, after the June 17, 1972, arrests read very much like wiretap reports; they used the language: “From a source believed to be reliable.” In the weeks ahead, Strachan and Haldeman would figure out that what had been destroyed were reports from a source planted by Magruder rather than wiretap information. (Footnote 5 at p. 312).

•     The
18½ minute gap
on the tape of June 20, 1972, is historically insignificant.

   “Haldeman’s note-taking procedures have been misunderstood; he did not make a record of or even cite the highlights of what was said at any given session but instead recorded only matters that called for further attention and follow up.” (p. 20)

   “ Who was responsible for the 18 ½ minute gap—leaving behind a shrill buzz—on the tape of the June 20, 1972, conversation between President Nixon and H. R. “Bob” Haldeman, and what was erased? Two observations should be made about these questions. First, the answers to them have virtually no historic significance whatsoever as they provide not information about or insight into Watergate that cannot already be found in abundance elsewhere.” (p. 653)

•     
The Smoking Gun tape
of June 23, 1972, has been totally misunderstood—and related only to an effort to keep the names of two Democrat donors confidential:

When revealed by order of the U.S. Supreme Court in late July 1974, this became known as the “smoking gun” conversation, because it was viewed as hard evidence, demonstrating beyond question, that Nixon’s final defense about the Watergate break-in in his April 30, 1973 speech, followed by his May 22nd statement, was bogus, which doomed the Nixon presidency. Ironically, this conversation has been mistakenly understood as an effort by Nixon and Haldeman to shut down the FBI’s entire Watergate investigation. This appears to be the case only when viewed out of context. In August 1974, when the conversation was revealed, and Nixon and his lawyers had to focus on this conversation, he had long forgotten what was actually involved; they assumed it had the same meaning as everyone else. In reality, it was only an effort by Haldeman to stop the FBI from investigating an anonymous campaign contribution from Mexico that the Justice Department prosecutors had already agreed was outside the scope of the Watergate investigation. In approving this action, however, Nixon slightly expanded the request, saying that the FBI should also stay out of Howard Hunt’s CIA-related activities. In fact, this conversation did not put the lie to Nixon’s April 30 and May 22, 1973, statements, and had Nixon known that he might have survived its disclosure to fight another day.” (Footnote at pp. 55–56)
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•     There was a
clear lack of intent
on behalf of the president and his advisors to break the law.

   “In short, Nixon viewed Watergate in terms of ‘politics pure and simple,’ and he played it ‘tough’ because that’s how the Democrats and their sympathetic news media partners played it.” (p. 95)

   “A striking number of lawyers found themselves on the wrong side of the law during Watergate, and almost all of them did so out of ignorance of criminal law.” (p. 95)

   “But [Nixon] was thinking politically, not legally. He understood that Magruder had largely cooked this story up by himself. There is no evidence suggesting that it ever occurred to him that this knowledge and approval of Magruder’s actions effectively placed him at the top of a conspiracy to suborn perjury. (p. 119)

   “[I]t struck me that, with the exception of Magruder’s perjuring himself . . . everyone else who had crossed the near-invisible lines onto the wrong side of the law had done so out of ignorance.” (p. 421)

   “Nixon did acknowledge that Haldeman and Ehrlichman had ‘collected money in the beginning for the defense attorney,’ although their ‘motives were proper, right?’ When no one responded Nixon conceded: ‘I think what you might say, in fairness, maybe they were trying to see that nothing blew the election. That makes sense. But I don’t think it was obstruction of justice.’ Surely [one of Nixon’s attorneys] understood what Nixon could not grasp: Obstruction is obstruction, regardless of motive.” (p. 593)
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•     President Nixon knew relatively little about the specifics of Watergate prior to his meeting with Dean on March 21, 1973: