Watergate, page 82
Even as Gray and Nixon spoke: Magruder, An American Life, 240.
“was in regard to a man talking”: “Watergate: Part 19 of 101,” FBI Records: The Vault, https://vault.fbi.gov/watergate/watergate-part-19–20-of, 17–31.
“He gave us some very valuable evidence”: Earl J. Silbert, interview by William F. Causey, February 29 and March 7, 1992, Oral History Project, The Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit, https://dcchs.org/sb_pdf/complete-oral-history-silbert/.
“In our view, [Liddy] and Hunt”: Ibid.
“I need some time to think about that”: Magruder, An American Life, 236.
“I was beginning to sense”: Ibid., 244.
“soldier of fortune”: “Watergate: Part 19 of 101,” 237–38.
“My own feeling was that Henry”: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 81.
Gray at one point even brought Felt: Felt, The FBI Pyramid, 212.
“silent obstruction”: Ibid., 202.
Chapter 18 The Dahlberg Check
“From the moment McCord was identified”: Salisbury, Without Fear or Favor, 421.
“just dreadful”: Ibid., 416.
Early in July, he flew: Robert H. Phelps, God and the Editor: My Search for Meaning at the New York Times (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2009), 170.
On July 25, the New York Times published: Walter Rugaber, “Calls to C.O.P. Unit Linked to Raid on the Democrats,” New York Times, July 25, 1972, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/07/25/83449290.html.
“Why didn’t we have that?”: David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (New York: Knopf, 1979), 618.
“[Simons was] the day-to-day agitator”: Carol Felsenthal, “Ben Bradlee’s Secret Weapon,” Politico, October 28, 2014, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/howard-simons-ben-bradlees-secret-weapon-112291/.
“I don’t have anything good to say”: Shepard, Woodward and Bernstein, 84.
Rugaber’s latest scoop: Walter Rugaber, “Cash in Capital Raid Traced to Mexico,” New York Times, July 31, 1972, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/07/31/90718114.html?pageNumber=1.
“arguably the most important decision”: Himmelman, Yours in Truth, 161.
“Whatever you said about Bernstein”: Ibid., 152.
“I don’t have the vaguest idea”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 44.
“It was, as Rugaber said, the smoking pistol”: Salisbury, Without Fear or Favor, 425.
Based on the reports: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 86; Robert M. Smith, “Elections Agency and F.B.I. Examine G.O.P. Unit Funds,” New York Times, August 2, 1972, http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/Watergate/Watergate%20Items%2000001%20to%2000180/Watergate%2000074.pdf.
“The President’s view”: “Nixon Gives OK to Probe,” San Francisco Examiner, August 2, 1972, http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/Watergate/Watergate%20Items%2000001%20to%2000180/Watergate%2000075.pdf.
“I’m not that worried about it”: “ ‘If It Blows, It Blows,’ ” Tape 758–011 A, Miller Center, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/secret-white-house-tapes/if-it-blows-it-blows.
He had escaped: Magruder, An American Life, 251.
Nixon fared just as well: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 20.
“As the cover-up progressed”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 127.
“buried even on the Post’s front page”: James M. Perry, “Watergate Case Study,” Columbia School of Journalism, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/j6075/edit/readings/watergate.html.
That August, Democratic candidate: O’Brien, No Final Victories, 319–21.
“Until you made your argument”: Evan Thomas, The Man to See: Edward Bennett Williams: Ultimate Insider, Legendary Trial Lawyer (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1991), 270.
In the next morning’s newspaper: Walter Rugaber, “Stans Asserts He Doesn’t Know How Suspect Got G.O.P. Funds,” New York Times, August 25, 1972, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/08/25/93418168.html?pageNumber=1.
Adding insult to injury, the GAO: Bernard Gwertzman, “G.A.O. Report Asks Justice Inquiry into G.O.P. Funds,” New York Times, August 27, 1972, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/08/27/91341857.html?pageNumber=1.
“a rat’s nest”: Graves, Nixon’s FBI, 167–68.
“Anything less can only destroy”: “Nixon Gifts Case Sent to Justice Department,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, August 27, 1972, https://www.newspapers.com/image/140691296/.
“Our efforts to make Watergate”: O’Brien, No Final Victories, 333.
“an honest man and one who is very meticulous”: Richard Nixon, “The President’s News Conference,” August 29, 1972, American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/the-presidents-news-conference-90.
“damn near fell off the bed”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 129.
Chapter 19 The Patman Probe
Speaker of the House Carl Albert: Carl Albert, Little Giant: The Life and Times of Speaker Carl Albert (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), 358.
“To Wright Patman,” the New York Times explained: Eileen Shanahan, “Wright Patman, 82, Dean of House, Dies,” New York Times, March 8, 1976, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1976/03/08/96992398.html?pageNumber=1.
“He’s something of a crank”: Ibid.
From the start, Patman saw the markers: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 88.
Accusing the labor union CIO’s political action committee: “National Affairs: New Faces in the House,” TIME, November 18, 1946, https://web.archive.org/web/20130721150928/ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,777278,00.html.
“As soon as we asked the question”: Leon Neyfakh, “The Defeat of Wright Patman,” Slow Burn, December 6, 2017, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/slow-burn-season-1-episode-2-transcript.html.
“The case had begun to resemble”: “Republicans: Watergate, Contd.,” TIME, August 14, 1972, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,906203,00.html.
“The ‘revelations’ in newspaper and magazine stories”: Gray, In Nixon’s Web, 197.
“The answer is, I don’t know”: Holland, Leak, 54.
Baldwin’s role in the burglary: Ibid., 77.
“It did not occur to them”: Ibid.
“The article which appeared in the Washington Post”: Ibid.
“wanderings of Republican campaign funds”: United Press, “GOP Complaints to Bring House Committee Probe of Dem Headquarters Break-In,” Sandusky (OH) Register, September 7, 1972, https://newspaperarchive.com/sandusky-register-sep-07–1972-p-6/.
Chapter 20 “A Hell of a Story”
John J. Sirica, a scrappy and streetwise: John J. Sirica, To Set the Record Straight: The Break-In, the Tapes, the Conspirators, the Pardon (New York: Norton, 1979), 32.
“regarded near the bottom”: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 140.
“Well, you had quite a day today”: “Transcript of a Recording of a Meeting Among the President, H. R. Haldeman, and John Dean, on September 15, 1972, at 5:27 to 6:17 P.M. (First Installment),” Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/museum/exhibits/watergate_files/document_transcript_4_2.pdf.
“lonely, frustrating, tedious”: Downie, The New Muckrakers, 10.
Sussman grew used to the sight: Shepard, Woodward and Bernstein, 65.
“Don’t you guys work together?”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 50.
“Reporters didn’t do that then”: Shepard, Woodward and Bernstein, 46.
“It was like selling magazine subscriptions”: Havill, Deep Truth, 77.
“Well how did they harass them?”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 63.
“It can safely be said”: Ibid., 70.
“No one employed by this committee”: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, “Spy Funds Linked to GOP Aides,” Washington Post, September 17, 1972, https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/washington-post.
“I went down in good faith”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 75.
“Oh my god”: Holland, Leak, 82.
“wanted no part”: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, “2 Linked to Secret GOP Fund,” Washington Post, September 18, 1972, https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/washington-post.
“I haven’t talked to the press”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 81.
“a massive ‘house-cleaning’ ”: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, “Watergate Data Destruction Charged,” Washington Post, September 20, 1972, https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/washington-post.
“The sources of the Washington Post”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 90.
“the biggest lot of crap”: Ibid., 91.
“Sir, I’m sorry to bother you”: Ibid., 105.
“Leave everything in”: Ibid., 106.
“We thought, ‘If this is such a hell of a story’ ”: Carol Felsenthal, Power, Privilege, and the Post: The Katharine Graham Story (New York: Putnam’s, 1993), 315.
“What they didn’t realize is that you can’t ruin”: Elaine Woo, “Jack Nelson Dies at 80,” Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2009, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-21-la-me-jack-nelson22–2009oct22-story.html.
Nelson had worked the Watergate beat: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, 634.
Even coming from the normally conservative paper: Ibid., 636.
the paper didn’t endorse: “L.A. Times Gives First Presidential Endorsements Since Nixon,” East Bay Times, February 2, 2008, https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2008/02/02/l-a-times-gives-first-presidential-endorsements-since-nixon/.
seemed accurate: Felsenthal, Power, Privilege, and the Post, 315.
“Nobody is paying any attention”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 79.
“Everyone wants to talk to Al”: Ibid., 109.
As their meeting wound down: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, 639.
Around noon, Judge Sirica: Robert L. Jackson and Ronald J. Ostrow, “Congressmen Attack Watergate ‘Gag’; Support by U.S. Hinted,” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1972, https://www.newspapers.com/image/386000087/.
His order enjoined the Justice Department: Sirica, To Set the Record Straight, 50; Nomination of Earl J. Silbert, 11.
“Across the street in the Democratic National Committee”: Alfred C. Baldwin III, “An Insider’s Account of the Watergate Bugging,” Los Angeles Times, October 5, 1972, https://www.newspapers.com/image/385989532/.
The story rocked Washington: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 141.
“perhaps the most important Watergate story”: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, 640.
Hunt’s lawyers subpoenaed: Walter Rugaber, “Los Angeles Times Is Ordered to Give Court Tape of Interview,” New York Times, December 15, 1972, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/12/15/83452217.html?pageNumber=35.
When the Times refused to turn over the tapes: Walter Rugaber, “Newsman Jailed in Refusal to Yield Watergate Tapes,” New York Times, December 20, 1972, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/12/20/79484694.html?pageNumber=29.
“This was supremely cynical”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 143.
“This is a serious case”: Summary of Information: Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary Pursuant to H. Res. 803, 93rd Congr. 118 (1974), https://books.google.com/books?id=g6AnAAAAMAAJ.
“Politics should stay out”: “House Panel Bars Pre-Nov. 7 Inquiry into Bugging Case,” New York Times, October 4, 1972, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/10/04/90720543.html?pageNumber=1.
Patman lost his bid: Ibid.
“I predict that the facts will come out”: Ibid.
“It would be absolutely crazy”: “Patman Bids 4 Nixon Aides Testify on Watergate Case,” New York Times, October 11, 1972, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/10/11/79431617.html?pageNumber=27.
“This is a sad spectacle”: “Nixon Aides Balk on Watergate Hearing,” New York Times, October 12, 1972, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/10/12/91352321.html?pageNumber=40.
Chapter 21 “I Can’t Talk About Segretti”
Subsequent evidence has indicated: Holland, Leak, 89.
“You guys are causing big trouble”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 175–76.
Bernstein also used a confidential source: Ibid., 112–22.
“This is ridiculous”: Ibid., 124.
“This is material for a good novel”: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 112.
“I can’t talk about [Segretti]”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 126.
“I was shocked when I learned”: Ibid., 129.
“Why don’t we put it on paper”: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 113.
The identity of Woodward’s source: Ibid., 111.
“Remember, you don’t do those 1,500 [FBI] interviews”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 135.
“Our understanding of Watergate”: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 113.
“FBI agents have established”: Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats,” Washington Post, October 10, 1972, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/101072–1.htm.
Woodward, even in the heat of Watergate: Shepard, Woodward and Bernstein, 42.
“absolutely false”: Gray, In Nixon’s Web, 128.
for months, Simons would bug: Phelps, God and the Editor, 173.
As it came out later, they both: John M. Crewdson, “Sabotaging the G.O.P.’s Rivals: Story of a $100,000 Operation,” New York Times, July 9, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/07/09/99155189.html?pageNumber=1.
After the article ran: Gray, In Nixon’s Web, 129.
“You know, materials are leaked”: Richard A. Moss, ed., Conversation 370–9, Segment 1, National Security Archive, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB156/370-09.pdf.
It’s not clear from the conversation: Holland, Leak, 235 (note 26); Kutler, Abuse of Power, 173; Woodward, The Secret Man, 87.
“We found the FBI leak”: H. R. Haldeman, “Diaries Collection, January 18, 1969-April 30, 1973,” National Archives and Records Administration, https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/virtuallibrary/documents/haldeman-diaries/37-hrhd-audiocassette-ac26a-19721020-pa.pdf
“He’s leaking, Pat”: Gray, In Nixon’s Web, 129.
“There are leaks in the FBI”: Ibid., 131.
“While the White House has tried”: “The FBI: Political Orders,” TIME, November 6, 1972, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,942582,00.html.
Playing both arsonist and firefighter: Gray, In Nixon’s Web, 132.
“[Woodward and Bernstein’s] stories”: W. Mark Felt to Robert Gebhardt, memorandum, February 21, 1973, National Security Archives, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB156/1935.pdf.
An October Gallup poll: Alicia C. Shepard, “If Walter Cronkite Said It Was a Story, It Was,” NPR, July 20, 2009, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106806208.
“It was from Baldwin that I first got a sense”: Daniel Schorr, Clearing the Air (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), 25.
“How is Larry O’Brien’s press corps?”: Ibid., 22.
“authorized to approve payments”: Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “Testimony Ties Top Nixon Aide to Secret Fund,” Washington Post, October 25, 1972, http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/B%20Disk/Bugging%201971/Item%2018.pdf.
“We categorically deny”: Peter Osnos, “White House, GOP Flay ‘Fund’ Story,” Akron (OH) Beacon Journal, October 26, 1972, https://www.newspapers.com/image/152470500/.
“my lowest moment in Watergate”: Schorr, Clearing the Air, 29.
In a later, lengthy statement to the FBI: “Cable, Washington Field Office to Acting Director, ‘James Walter McCord, Jr., etal; Burglary, Democratic National Committee Headquarters, Washington, D.C. June Seventeen Seventy Two,’ ” National Security Archive, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB156/1414.pdf.
“The numbers [are] getting”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 179.
“Your inquiry is based on misinformation”: Ibid., 181.
“shabby journalism”: Ibid., 184.
“Your story is wrong”: Ibid.
“This is no fucking joke”: Ibid., 189.
“one of the agent’s superiors”: Ibid., 190.
“You’re getting no answers”: Ibid., 190–91.
“You don’t know where you are”: Ibid., 192.
“I never said it before”: Ibid., 193.
“Well, Haldeman slipped away”: Ibid., 195.
“Bernstein and Woodward have obviously gotten themselves”: “Cable, Washington Field Office.”
Across town at the New York Times: Phelps, God and the Editor, 186.
“They were writing stuff”: Salisbury, Without Fear or Favor, 429.
He was the embodiment of journalistic gravitas: Shepard, “If Walter Cronkite.”
“a kind of extra-legal shadow government”: Schorr, Clearing the Air, 32.
“You saved us”: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, 662.
“There are still no definitive, conclusive answers”: Walter Rugaber, “The Watergate Mystery,” New York Times, November 1, 1972, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/11/01/110096820.html?pageNumber=28.
Chapter 22 Landslide
Thirty thousand people or more: White, The Making of the President 1972, 1.
“I believe that we have the chance”: Richard Nixon, “Remarks at Ontario, California,” November 4, 1972, American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-ontario-california.
“The only sour note”: Nixon, RN, 714.
“like coming home from an easy win”: White, The Making of the President 1972, 7.
Ziegler joked that the next day: Ibid.
At home in the White House: President Richard Nixon’s Daily Diary, November 1–15, 1972, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/virtuallibrary/documents/PDD/1972/087%20November%201–15%201972.pdf.
