Wagons Around the President

Tapes of White House conversations made public for the first time at the Watergate cover-up trial last week, as well as portions of other conversations edited out of earlier White House transcripts, show that Richard Nixon planned and participated in cover-up acts almost from the beginning, then grew increasingly suspicious of his aides as he sought frantically to protect himself. Some excerpts:

GRANTING PARDONS

April 14, 1973. President Nixon, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman.

P. You get them full pardons. That's what they have to have, John ... Do you agree?

E. Yep, I sure do.

Jan. 8, 1973. Nixon and a former aide, Charles Colson.

P. Basically I, uh, question of clemency ... Hunt's is a simple case. I mean, after all, the man's wife is dead, was killed; he's got one child that has --

C. Brain damage from an automobile accident.

P. We'll build, we'll build that son of a bitch up like nobody's business. We'll have [William] Buckley write a column and say, you know, that he, that he should have clemency, if you've given 18 years of service.*

PAYING HUSH MONEY

April 14, 1973. Nixon meets with Ehrlichman.

P. They've gotta have a straight damn line that of course we raised money. Be very honest about it. But, uh, we raised money for a purpose that we thought was perfectly proper.

E. Um hum. Uh hum.

P. But we didn't want to shut 'em up. These men were guilty ... We just didn't, we didn't want 'em to talk to the press.

E. Yeah, yeah,

P. That's perfectly legitimate, isn't it? Or is it? Legitimate not to want them to talk to the press.

E. I think it is. I, uh, I, I don't have a perfect understanding of the, of the law on that and I ... [Three days later, when the subject was brought up again, Ehrlichman added: "Before I get too far out on that, uh, I want to talk to an attorney."]

FEARING JOHN DEAN

April 19, 1973. Nixon and Ehrlichman discuss John Dean's meeting with Nixon on March 21,1973, in which Dean warned of "a cancer growing on the presidency" and Nixon approved paying money to silence Hunt. Dean is talking to the prosecutors.

P. Don't know what the son of a bitch is going to say ... He's obviously very upset. He's just lashing out. Goddammit ... I'm at a loss ... that goddam Dean.

E. I think you can very truthfully and logically and properly say that...

P. I was really trying to probe his thought process. I went down every road we possibly could ...

E. Exactly right. You see, you're the one who ... said ... "Send that man to Camp David ... and let's get it all down." That's when he was uncovered.

P. I suppose that really isn't true ...

Well, that's what we have to say.

April 25, 1973. Nixon, Haldeman and Ehrlichman.

E. Obviously, neither one of us wants to do anything to harm you in any way; we want to avoid harming you... I think it's entirely conceivable that if Dean is totally out of control and if matters are not handled adroitly that you could get a resolution of impeachment...

P. That's right.

E. ... My own analysis is that what he has falls far short of any commission of a crime by you ... so far as I know ... I don't know what you have talked about with him in those ten or twelve hours you and he spent there in ... February and March.

April 25, 1973. Nixon meets with Haldeman.

P. You, Ehrlichman and I have got to put the wagons up around the President on this particular conversation [the President's March 21 talk with Dean]. I just wonder if the son of a bitch had a recorder on him. I didn't notice any but I wasn't looking.

H. It's almost inconceivable that the guy would try that...

P. He was really coming in, in fact, to warn me.

H I think you probably surprised him enormously by, by even raising this point...

P. What, what?

H. Of, you know, well, we could get the money.

P. Yeah.

H. I think that's the last thing he expected you to say.

April 25, 1973 (later in the day). Nixon and Haldeman.

P. Is there any, uh, way that, uh, even surreptitiously or discreetly or otherwise, I mean, that, a way you could determine whether, uh, this matter of whether Dean might have walked in there with a recorder on him?

H. No, I don't think there is any way ... so remote as to be almost beyond possibility.

P. ... But the point is that that's, ah, that's a real bomb, isn't it?

H. Ah, ya.

P. Put that on the desk with [then Deputy Attorney General] Henry Petersen and says, "I gotta recording of the President of the United States and here's what he said." ... I didn't look at him that closely, but you were there, goddam, I mean ... even the smallest ones are bulky enough that ... with a fellow like Dean you'd sort of see that, wouldn't ya, where do you carry them, in your hip pocket or your breast pocket?

H. Oh, under your arm, you know, where they carry a pistol holster or something'7

P. ... The point is that, ah, now if he's going to have this pissing contest ... all right, bring it out and fight it out and it'll be a bloody goddam thing, you know in a strange kind of way that's life, isn't it ... be rough as a cob and we'll survive ... Despite all the polls and all the rest I think there's still a hell of a lot of people out there ... you know, they, they want to believe, that's the point, isn't it?

H. Why sure, want to and do.

*Asked about this by the New York Times, Buckley declared: "I don't need to be reminded to write columns urging clemency, even for sons of bitches, as Mr. Nixon would know by now from personal experience." Buckley in his syndicated column supported Ford's pardoning of Nixon.

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