2:34 -- Voting warning signal?
Ah ha! Butterfield will produce Dean-Nixon tape from September 15th?
T: No warning signal?
BF: No sir, not to my knowledge.
T: This taping was solely to serve historical purposes?
BF: Yes sir, as far as I know.
??: Key Biscayne and San Clemente?
BF: No recording devices there -- at least not by me.
NY Post headline: NIXON BUGS SELF (full page).
* The most obvious difference between being in the hearing room and watching TV is the scale -- sense of smallness like a football stadium. The players seem human-sized and the grass seems real (in some cases). Room 318 is only about 100 x 100 -- unlike the vast theater it looks on TV.
* Constant stream of students being run in and out behind us.
Kalmbach sitting right in front of me -- waiting to testify. $300 grey linen suit -- $75 wing tips -- lacquered black hair and tailored shirt -- thin blue stripes on off-white. Large, rich. Sitting with silver-haired lawyer.
* Ervin reads letter from Buzhardt. Sends buzz through room -- says LBJ did some taping.
Interesting -- sitting directly behind witness chair -- you can look right at Ervin and catch his facial expressions -- as if he was looking at me. Nodding -- fixed stare -- occasional quick notes with yellow pencil.
* Kalmbach/Ulasewicz phone calls -- from phone booth to phone booth -- like Mafia operations. -- Check Honor Thy Father for similar.
"Kalmbach ". . . It was about this time that I began to have a degree of concern about this assignment."
4:50: Tedium sets in
Sudden vision of reaching out with Ostrich Lasso and slipping it around Kalmbach's neck then tightening it up and jerking him backwards.
Sudden uproar in gallery
-- Cameras clicking feverishly as Kalmbach struggles with piano wire noose around his neck
-- falling backwards
Unable to control laughter at this image. . . forced to leave hearing room, out of control, people staring at me. . .
* Ron MacMahon, Baker's press Sec., ex-Tennessee newsman, "How can they not give 'em to us? [Nixon office tapes] Down in Tennessee we used to have a courthouse fire now and then. . ."
Burnhardt J. Leinan, 27, Jerseyville, Illinois 62052. Came to D.C. by train -- 13 cars pulled by steam locomotive, coal tender. With 100 people Chi-Wash. Private train -- Southern R.R. Independence Limited ("Watergate Special").
"Most people in Jerseyville only got interested when Dean produced the enemies list."
-- Why?
"Because they couldn't understand why certain names were on it -- Newman, Streisand, Channing, Cosby -- they couldn't understand why such a list was kept."
* Carol Arms Bar -- like a tavern full of football fans -- with the game across the street. Hoots of laughter in bar at LaRue's dead-pan account of Liddy's offer to "be on any street corner at any time -- and we could have him assassinated."
All Watergate Groupies seem to be anti-Nixon -- both in the hearing room and bars around Old Senate Building. Like fans cheering the home team -- "the seven Blocks of Jelly."
Tuesday July 24th Benton's studio, 8:00 PM
PBS in Aspen is off again -- even worse than PBS in D.C.
* Ehrlichman takes the oath with Heil Hitler salute/no laughter from spectators.
-- Boredom in hearing room, tedium at press tables.
Ehrlichman's face -- ARROGANCE. Keep the fucker on TV -- ten hours a day -- ten straight days.
E: We saw very little chance of getting FBI to move. . . very serious problem.
[Right! The nation's crawling with communists, multiplying like rats.]
Ehrlichman must have seen himself on Sixty Minutes -- so he knows how he looks on TV -- keeps glancing sideways at camera. Ehrlichman's "faulty memory". . . Brookings -- didn't remember who authorized fire-bombing -- didn't remember who he called to cancel Brookings bomb plot.
(Same backgrounds -- Civic Club, Country Club, JCC, USC/UCLA -- law school, law firms, ad agencies.)
* Attitudes of Thomp-Baker & Gurney are critical -- they related to Nixon's survival chances -- rats sneaking off a sinking ship.
* E has insane gall to challenge Ervin on constitutional issues -- Nixon's right to authorize Ellsberg burglary.
Dan Rather says Nixon wants a confrontation NOW -- and also wants Cox to resign -- Nixon, by withholding tapes, makes conviction of Haldeman, Erhlichman, Dean, etc. impossible. . . thus holding this over their heads -- to keep them from talking.
"Hang together or hang separately."
-- Ben Franklin
EDITOR'S NOTE:
The following conversation between Ehrlichman and Herb Kalmbach arrived as a third generation Xerox in a package with Dr. Thompson's notebooks. The transcript was released by Ehrlichman himself -- he hadn't told Kalmbach he was taping their phone call for possible use in his defense. This was not one of those documents ferreted out by the Select Committee investigators. According to Thompson, the following transcript is "the single most revealing chunk of testimony yet in terms of the morality of these people. It's like suddenly being plunged into the middle of the White House."
Conversation with Herb Kalmbach -- April 19th, 1973, 4:50 PM.
E: Ehrlichman
K: Kalmbach
E: Hi, how are you?
K: I'm pretty good. I'm scheduled for two tomorrow afternoon.
E: Where -- at the jury or the US Attorney?
K: At the jury and I'm scheduled at 5:30 this afternoon with Silver.
E: Oh, are you?
K: Yeah. I just wanted to run through quickly several things, John, in line with our conversation. I got in here last night and there was a call from O'Brien. I returned it, went over there today and he said the reason for the call is LaRue has told him to ask him to call me to say that he had to identify me in connection with this and he wanted me to know that and so on.
E: Did he tell you about Dean?
K: Nope.
E: Well Dean has totally cooperated with the US Attorney in the hopes of getting immunity. Now what he says or how he says nobody seems to be able to divine but he.
K: The whole enchilada?
E: He's throwing on on Bob and me heavily.
K: He is?
E: Yep.
K: He is.
E: And taking the position that he was a mere agent. Now on your episode he told me before he left, so to speak, he, Dan, told me that really my transaction with him involving you was virtually my only area of liability in this thing and I said, well, John, what in the world are you talking about? He said, well I came to you from Mitchell and I said Mitchell needs money could we call Herb Kalmbach and ask him to raise some. And I said, and Dean says to me, and you said yes. And I said yep, that's right. And he said well that does it And I said well that's hard for me to believe. I don't understand the law but I don't think Herb entered into this with any guilty intent and I certainly didn't and so I said I just find that hard to imagine. Now since then I've retained counsel.
K: Oh, you have?
E:. . . very good and who agrees with me that it is the remotest kind of nonsense but the point that I think has to be clarified, that I'm going to clarify if I get a chance, is that the reason that Dean had to come to me and to Bob where you were concerned is that we had promised you that you would not be run pillar to post by Maurice Stans.
K: And also that you knew I was your friend and you knew I was the President's attorney.
E: Sure.
K: Never do anything improper, illegal, unethical or whatever.
E: Right.
K: And. . .
E: But the point is that rather than Mitchell calling you direct Mitchell knew darn well that you were no longer available.
K: Yep.
E: Now this was post April 6th, was it not?
K: Yep, April 7th.
E: So that Mitche
ll and Stans both knew that there wasn't any point in calling you direct because we had gotten you out of that on the pretext that you were going to do things for us.
K: That's right.
E: And so it was necessary for Dean to come to me and then in turn to Bob and plead a very urgent case without really getting into any specifics except to say you had to trust me, this is very important, and Mitchell is up his tree, or, you know, I mean is really worked, he didn't use that phrase, but he is really exercised about this. And; John if you tell me it's that important, why yes.
K: You know, when you and I talked and it was after John had given me that word, and I came in to ask you, John is this an assignment I have to take on? You said, yes it is period and move forward. Then that was all that I needed to be assured that I wasn't putting my family in jeopardy.
E: Sure.
K: And I would just understand that you and I are absolutely together on that.
E: No question about it, Herb, that I would never knowingly have put you in any kind of a spot.
K: Yeah. Well, and when we talked you knew what I was about to do, you know, to go out and get the dough for this purpose; it was humanitarian.
E: It was a defense fund.
K:. . . to support the family. Now the thing that was disquieting and this thing with O'Brien was that he said that there is a massive campaign evidently under way to indict all the lawyers including you and me, and I was a little shocked and I guess what I need to get from you, John, is assurance that this is not true.
E: Well, I don't know of any attempt to target you at all. My hunch is that they're trying to get at me, they're trying to corroborate. See what they said to Dean is that he gets no consideration from them unless they can corroborate Haldeman and my liability.
K: God, if I can just make it plain that it was humanitarian and nothing else.
E: Yeah, and the point that I undoubtedly never expressed to you that I continually operated on the basis of Dean's representation to me.
K: Yep. It was not improper.
E: Right.
K: And there was nothing illegal about it
E: See, he's the house lawyer.
K: Yep, exactly and I just couldn't believe that you and Bob and the President, just too good friends to ever put me in the position I would be putting my family on the line.
K: And it's just unbelievable, unthinkable. Now shall I just -- I'll just if I'm asked by Silver I'll just lay it out just exactly that way.
E: Yeah, I wouldn't haul the President into it if you can help it.
K: Oh, no, I will not.
E: But I think the point that which I will make in the future if I'm given the chance that you were not under our control in any sort of a slavery sense but that we had agreed that you would not be at the beck and call of the committee.
K: And, of course, too, that I acted only on orders and, you know, on direction and if this is something that you felt sufficiently important and that you were assured it was altogether proper, then I would take it on because I always do it and always have. And you and Bob and the President know that.
E: Yeah, well, as far as propriety is concerned I think we both were relying entirely on Dean.
K: Yep.
E: I made no independent judgment.
K: Yep. Yep.
E: And I'm sure Bob didn't either.
K: Nope and I'm just, I just have the feeling, John, that I don't know if this is a weak reed, is it?
E: Who, Dean?
K: No, I mean are they still going to say well Herb you should have known.
E: I don't know how you could have. You didn't make any inquiries.
K: Never. And the only inquiries I made, John, was to you after I talked to John Dean.
E: And you found that I didn't know just a whole helluva lot.
K: You said this is something I have to do and. . .
E: Yeah, and the reason that I said that, as you know, was not from any personal inquiry but was on the basis of what had been represented to me.
K: Yeah, and then on -- to provide the defense fund and to take care of the families of these fellas who were then. . .
E: Indigent.
K: Not then been found guilty or not guilty.
E: And the point being here without attempting to induce them to do a damn thing.
K: Absolutely not and that was never, that was exactly right.
E: OK.
K: Now, can I get in to see you tomorrow before I go in there at two?
E: If you want to. They'll ask you.
K: Will they?
E: Yep.
K: Well, maybe I shouldn't.
E: They'll ask you to whom you've spoken about your testimony and I would appreciate it if you would say you've talked to me in California because at that time I was investigating this thing for the President.
K: And not now?
E: Well, I wouldn't ask you to lie.
K: No, I know.
E: But the point is. . .
K: But the testimony was in California.
E: The point is. Well, no, your recollection of facts and so forth.
K: Yes, I agree.
E: See, I don't think we were ever seen together out there but at some point I'm going to have to say that I talked to O'Brien and Dean and Magruder and Mitchell and you and a whole lot of people about this case.
K: Yeah.
E: And so it would be consistent.
K: Do you feel, John, that calling it straight shot here, do you feel assured as you did when we were out there that there's no culpability here?
E: Yes.
K: And nothing to worry about?
E: And Herb, from everything I hear they're not after you.
K: Yes, sir.
E: From everything I hear.
K: Barbara, you know.
E: They're out to get me and they're out to get Bob.
K: My God. All right, well, John, it'll be absolutely clear that there was nothing looking towards any cover-up or anything. It was strictly for the humanitarian and I just want. . . when I talked to you I just wanted you to advise me that it was all right on that basis.
E: On that basis.
K: To go forward.
E: That it was necessary. . .
K: And that'll be precisely the way it is.
E: Yeah, OK. Thanks, Herb. Bye.
5:00 PM Monday, July 30th
Hearing Room
Old Senate Office Building
* Haldeman opening statement
-- Terrible heat from TV lights turned back towards press and gallery. Barking (sounds of dog kennel) in press room as Haldeman comes on. Not on Nat TV, but audible in hallway.
"Nor did I ever suggest. . . [The Super Eagle Scout wounded tone of voice-- ] I had full confidence in Dean as did the President at that time. . ."
Haldeman's 1951 burr-cut seems as out of place -- even weird -- in this room as a bearded Senator would have seemed in 1951. Or a nigger in Beta Theta Phi fraternity in the late 1940s.
Haldeman's head on camera looks like he got bashed on the head with a rake.
Total tedium sets in as Haldeman statement drones on. . . his story is totally different than Dean's on crucial points. . . definite perjury here. . . which one lying?
"If the recent speech [August 15th] does not produce the results the President wants, he will then do what he has already come to doing. He will use all the awe-inspiring resources of his office to 'come out swinging with both fists.' Divisive will be a mild way of describing the predictable results."
-- Joe Alsop, Washington Post, 8/17/73
"The clear warning: Mr. Nixon will not do any more to clear himself of the taints of Watergate because he cannot: If the Democrats do not allow him to get back on the job of President, but continue what one high presidential aide called the 'vendetta' against him, his next move will be full retaliation."
-- Evans & Novak,
Washington Past, 8/17/73
"'When I am attacked,' Richard Nixon once remarked to this writer, 'it is my instinct to strike back.' The President is now clearly in a mood to obey his instinct. . . So on Wednesday, July 18th, at a White House meeting, it was agreed unanimously that the tapes should not be released. This decision, to use the sports cliches to which the President is addicted, meant an entirely new ball game, requiring a new game plan. The new game plan calls for a strategy of striking back, in accord with the presidential instincts, rather than a policy of attempted accommodation. . ."
-- Stewart Alsop, Newsweek, 8/6/73
Cazart! It is hard to miss the message in those three shots. . . even out here in Woody Creek, at a distance of 2000 miles from the source, a joint-statement, as it were, from Evans & Novak and both Alsop brothers hits the nerves like a blast of summer lightning across the mountains. Especially when you read them all in the same afternoon, while sifting through the mail-heap that piled up in my box, for three weeks, while I was wasting all that time back in Washington, once again, trying to get a grip on the thing.
Crouse had warned me, by phone, about the hazards of coming east. "I know you won't believe this," he said, "so you might as well just get on a plane and find out for yourself -- but the weird truth is that Washington is the only place in the country where the Watergate story seems dull. I can sit up here in Boston and get totally locked into it, on the tube, but when I go down there to that goddamn Hearing Room I get so bored and depressed I can't think."
Now, after almost a month in that treacherous swamp of a town, I understand what Crouse was trying to tell me. After a day or so in the hearing room, hunkered down at a press table in the sweaty glare of those blinding TV lights, I discovered a TV set in the bar of the Capitol Hill Hotel just across the street from the Old Senate Office Building, about a three-minute sprint from the Hearing Room itself. . . so I could watch the action on TV, sipping a Carlsberg until something looked about to happen, then dash across the street and up the stairs to the Hearing Room to see whatever it was that seemed interesting.