The Wars of Watergate (73 page)

Alexander Butterfield’s public testimony had disrupted the carefully channeled flow of witnesses that the committee staff had charted. Following Dean’s revelations of the cover-up and Mitchell’s acknowledgment that CREEP had authorized operations by its “security” team, the next witnesses confirmed the implementation of the cover-up. Herbert W. Kalmbach, Fred C. LaRue, and Anthony Ulasewicz all testified after Butterfield to their varied roles in the payment of “hush money.”

Kalmbach poignantly talked of his trust in Dean and Ehrlichman, who had repeatedly encouraged his money-raising efforts for the Watergate defendants. “The fact that I had been directed to undertake these actions by the No. 2 and No. 3 men on the White House staff made it absolutely incomprehensible to me that my actions in this regard could have been … improper or unethical.” He described how Ehrlichman, a friend, specifically reassured him and told him that Dean had been authorized to direct him to raise money. All this gave the lie to Ehrlichman’s portrait of a John Dean who operated on his own writ, without the knowledge of his superiors. In a taped telephone conversation, Ehrlichman assured Kalmbach that the money paid was only for “humanitarian” purposes. That call, not coincidentally, came just before Kalmbach testified to the grand jury and clearly reflected Ehrlichman’s concern for the damage Kalmbach could do.
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LaRue’s testimony was marked by confession and contrition: his actions, he said, were wrong “ethically and legally,… and I am prepared to accept the consequences.” He described his delivery of cash payments, as well as his part in destroying records at CREEP. Like Mitchell, LaRue stressed the importance of re-electing the President, but with a sober sense of proportion markedly different from Mitchell’s.

Damon Runyon might have written the script for Ulasewicz’s testimony. The former New York policeman’s comic descriptions of driving on the Washington Beltway, carrying a money changer for telephone calls, putting keys and envelopes in phone booths, lurking around corners, behaving in an exaggeratedly surreptitious manner, and delivering cryptic messages would have been the stuff of Broadway comedy except for the serious implications of his efforts. “Who thought you up?” Baker asked, much to the amusement
of the audience. But Inouye soberly demanded to know whether Ulasewicz actually believed that he had delivered money for the legal defense of the Watergate conspirators. “Not likely,” Ulasewicz admitted.
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Gordon Strachan, the key Haldeman staff assistant, established the relationship of Haldeman and CREEP and further described the workings of the Nixon White House. Strachan acknowledged at the outset of his testimony that his information would be “politically embarrassing” to himself and to the Administration, and he obliquely allowed that he had “closely associated” with confessed criminal elements. Blond-haired, well dressed, polite in demeanor, Strachan epitomized the dedicated young-man-in-a-hurry type embodied in many White House aides. He shamefacedly told Inouye that the White House staff had “an overwhelming and frequently inappropriate” sense of loyalty.

Near the end of Strachan’s testimony, Joseph Montoya (as he often did) led the witness through a sackcloth-and-ashes expurgation of his sins. Were you “thrilled and enthused” about working in the White House? Montoya asked. “To be 27 years old and walking into the White House and seeing the President on occasion, and Dr. Kissinger … [is] a pretty awesome-inspiring [
sic
] experience for a young man,” replied Strachan. Montoya then reviewed Strachan’s “soldierly obedience” to his superiors and his “fall into the Watergate pit,” all of which, he noted, provoked disappointment and disillusionment in younger people and affected their attitude toward public service. What advice could Strachan give them? “Stay away,” he retorted, probably not offering quite the penitent statement Montoya desired.
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Strachan described Haldeman’s vaunted efficiency, detailed the Chief of Staff’s intimate involvement with campaign matters, and explained his use of Dean. He was certain that Dean disclosed his doings to Haldeman and never would have operated on his own. Perhaps not inadvertently, Strachan testified as to Dean’s “remarkable facility” in remembering facts. Aside from attacking Magruder for continuing to perjure himself, Strachan carefully avoided incriminating anyone. He admitted that, just three days after the break-in, he had destroyed numerous memos regarding the campaign and Haldeman’s links to it, but he denied that the contents reflected illegal activity. The material simply was “politically embarrassing.” Strachan acknowledged that he had shredded documents at Haldeman’s request but would not confirm Ervin’s allegation that one of the memos described a “sophisticated intelligence operation” before the break-in.
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The committee moved closer to the Oval Office when Ehrlichman and Haldeman testified from July 24 through August 1. For the first time in the hearings,
the committee confronted formidable adverse witnesses who had prepared well for their appearance and doggedly defended their actions and those of the President. As if by prearrangement, the two men switched their public personae before the Senate committee. Haldeman, generally portrayed as a cold, ruthless, and rude
fonctionnaire
, appeared as reasonable and courteous. Ehrlichman, often considered the more amiable and gracious, and less dogmatic, of the two, responded defiantly, even contemptuously, to the committee. His body language and facial expressions reflected disdain for the committee’s intellectual and political qualities. He made no effort to disguise his low opinion of the senators and their staff.

Egil Krogh, one of the Plumbers, who regarded Ehrlichman as something of a father-figure, had described him as “an intensely proud, vain man,” unable to tolerate being proven wrong on anything. Krogh saw Ehrlichman as the master of the “one-line putdown” and described him armed with a “razor-sharp wit” to skewer his antagonists. In later years, Ehrlichman acknowledged that his behavior before the Ervin Committee had been a tactical error: “I offered everyone an example of how not to do it.”
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When Ervin quoted a Biblical parable, Ehrlichman snapped back: “I read the Bible, I don’t quote it.” He used Sam Dash as a foil, alternately responding with mock amusement and outrage to Dash’s questions, generally treating the interrogation as pedantic and simplistic. Tapping anti-intellectual currents, Ehrlichman would refer to Dash as “Professor,” especially when (as often was the case) Dash would present a rather convoluted question. Altogether, Ehrlichman appeared as a man sometimes in error but rarely in doubt.

Ehrlichman and Haldeman figured to be the President’s main line of defense. Yet White House Counsel J. Fred Buzhardt uncannily gauged their vulnerabilities. In a memo prepared for Nixon or Haig, Buzhardt expressed concern because of Ehrlichman’s aggressive manner. He realized that Ehrlichman would wrap himself in the blanket of national security to defend his actions with the Plumbers and worried that this reliance upon the President’s special role constituted danger for Nixon himself. Haldeman, on the other hand, had a “good demeanor,” but he was known as an inveterate note-taker and thus would accentuate the President’s “document denial problem.”
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Ehrlichman’s testimony underscored the Administration’s basic defense: John Dean was a “vital link in a chain of delegation” who failed the President because of his desire to protect Mitchell and to cover up his own participation in criminal wrongdoing. In his opening statement, Ehrlichman challenged Dean’s credibility on almost every point. With typical effrontery, he dismissed the description of the fear and paranoia that Dean had contended gripped the White House. The reality, Ehrlichman insisted, involved the need to have critical positions staffed by loyalists, the need to prevent
leaks that would jeopardize delicate negotiations, and the need to prevent the “terrorism” that reflected “a highly organized attempt to shut down the Federal Government.” Ehrlichman testified that the President was “not paranoid, weird, [or] psychotic on the subject of demonstrators or hypersensitive to criticism.”

That defense was at odds with the analysis of Richard Nixon that Ehrlichman and Haldeman later offered in their memoirs. But in July 1973, Ehrlichman consistently defended the President as a man determined to conduct foreign policy on his terms, who refused to be influenced or intimidated by contrary opinions, and who initiated or considered activities including the use of the Plumbers, wiretapping, and the Huston Plan to prevent anarchy and subversion. Any successful defense of Nixon, of course, absolved Ehrlichman himself of culpability, but as Buzhardt realized, the game was a dangerous one for the President.

Despite Ehrlichman’s desire to discredit Dean—the “star witness,” as he scornfully described him—the committee’s concern with Ehrlichman did not go directly to Dean’s testimony but centered on the nature of the Plumbers, his own connections to that group, and the President’s knowledge of their operations. Ehrlichman labored to depict Nixon as a President bent on fashioning a foreign and defense policy tailored to the national interest, who was thwarted and diverted from his mission by political enemies equally determined to fulfill their agendas, and even to force upon him a foreign policy “favorable to the North Vietnamese and their allies.” Such political expressions, Ehrlichman insisted, “were more than just a garden variety exercise of the first amendment.” Perhaps Ehrlichman was correct: clinical judgments of paranoia were beside the point. The conflict centered, from the White House perspective, on political divergence that was quite real. The only overuse of the imagination may have been in the Administration’s perception of their foes’ motivation, especially as it appeared in the more sinister overtones of Ehrlichman’s comments.
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Ehrlichman defended the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, finding nothing “completely irrational” in the action. Even if the deed had become public knowledge, he believed it could not have been “seriously embarrassing” to the Administration. Why? First, it was “part of a very intensive national security investigation” and second, the Plumbers were operating under “express authorization” in carrying it out. In short, the President had dictated the mission; and as a national-security matter, it could not be questioned.

The actions of the Plumbers, Ehrlichman maintained, fit “well within the President’s inherent constitutional powers”—inherent powers that Ehrlichman confidently asserted were “spelled out” in the U.S. Code. Almost unnoticed in his testimony was that Ehrlichman took issue with his old antagonist John Mitchell, who had contended that the Plumbers represented
part of the “White House horrors” and that Nixon would have “lowered the boom” had he learned of them. But Ehrlichman could speak firsthand for the President, correctly recalling Nixon’s contention that the Fielding break-in was “a vital national security inquiry,” well within the constitutional functions of the presidency. Meanwhile, Ehrlichman, recognizing the specter of a criminal indictment, fenced with Dash over his own role in the Fielding burglary: he was not conducting a “covert entry” but a properly authorized “covert investigation” of the psychiatrist’s offices. Still, the committee offered in evidence Ehrlichman’s August 11, 1971, memorandum to the Plumbers’ principals, Krogh and Young, approving a “covert operation” if done under their assurance “that it is not traceable.”
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Ehrlichman strikingly contrasted the Watergate break-in with that of Dr. Fielding’s offices. The former he dismissed as “dumb, shocking, irredeemable”—words similar to those used by nearly every Administration witness. That righteous indignation did not extend to the action against Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Ehrlichman’s condemnation of the Watergate burglary in effect said, “I had nothing to do with it.” His criticism was that it was “dumb,” not wrong. But if Watergate was wrong because it was a burglary, then the same was true for the Fielding venture.

Ehrlichman’s spirited defense abandoned the higher ground to those who would advocate a traditional notion of constitutional purity. None did that more effectively than Herman Talmadge. The exchange between the Senator and the witness offered one of the hearings’ most unforgettable moments—and marked a decisive, irretrievable setback for the Administration. What had started with Ehrlichman’s theoretical excursions into the higher reaches of inherent-powers doctrine had turned into a bald statement that the President might determine his own power, with no recognizable checks or accountability. Talmadge asked Ehrlichman to recall some fundamental principles:

Ehrlichman stared across the table, eyebrows furrowed, jaw set, and replied:

Talmadge never hesitated:

Spontaneous applause from the audience left Ehrlichman momentarily stunned. The President’s confident aide had touched upon a tender, treasured principle, one not as readily dismissed as the less well understood First and Fifth amendments.

Committee members also forced Ehrlichman into political dark corners when he attempted to equate the “defense fund” for the burglars with similar funds raised for political activists opposed to the Vietnam war. Ervin insisted that people in such cases openly gave money, knowing the purpose of the funds and believing the cause correct. Certainly, Ervin argued, those who contributed to the President’s re-election campaign neither had knowledge of, nor probably would they have approved, payments to burglars. Ehrlichman hastily retreated to a discussion of his own lack of involvement in those payments. Weicker turned on Ehrlichman’s defense of employing such “investigators” as Caulfield and Ulasewicz. Ehrlichman contended that the White House had a legitimate interest in unmasking unfit political figures, for example, those with drinking problems—a daring ploy to discredit unnamed senators. Weicker also raged at Ehrlichman for equating an FBI investigation, duly authorized by statute, with the free-lance techniques of Ehrlichman’s private investigators.