Watergate, page 84
“I was too embarrassed to let McCord”: Dash, Chief Counsel, 31.
“For the time being, I thought it best”: Ibid., 32.
“I, in addition to my own sworn testimony”: Ibid., 34.
“The whole cover-up depended”: Ibid., 36.
“The truth might persuade him”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 218.
“News leaks of massive proportions”: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 189.
“We’ve been protecting Mitchell”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 221.
“What is Mitchell’s option?”: “Transcript of a Recording of a Meeting Among the President, H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Ronald Ziegler on March 27, 1973, from 11:10 A.M. to 1:30 P.M.,” Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/forresearchers/find/tapes/watergate/wspf/423–003.pdf.
“They were sitting on the hottest committee”: Dash, Chief Counsel, 45.
“It was the first solid indication”: Thompson, At That Point in Time, 19.
“His testimony was damaging”: Ibid., 23.
“People’s lives and futures”: Dash, Chief Counsel, 59.
“The chronology of the affair”: Magruder, An American Life, 288.
“a sense of stoic dignity”: Dash, Chief Counsel, 59.
“Never!”: Ibid., 60.
“Frankly, under the regular rules”: Ibid., 67.
“Nonsense”: Ibid., 70.
“If the members of the committee”: Thompson, At That Point in Time, 28.
“What do you think?”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 227–28.
“I think Shaffer can help us”: Ibid., 230.
In fact, Liddy in some ways seemed: Liddy, Will, 309.
“Remember that once the toothpaste”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 235.
“The thrust of what he was saying”: Silbert, interview.
“The hell with Dean”: Kutler, Abuse of Power, 292.
“The whole thing had become ridiculous”: Magruder, An American Life, 292.
“Dean was as involved [in Watergate]”: Rosen, The Strong Man, 295.
“It was too much”: Silbert, interview.
“Would [his new testimony] be inconsistent”: Kleindienst, Justice, 159.
“When we arrived at his home”: Ibid., 161.
The next day, Kleindienst went directly: Impeachment of Richard M. Nixon, 415.
“Absolutely not”: Kleindienst, Justice, 163.
“I was the last senior White House staffer”: Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm: My Journey from Brooklyn, Jazz, and Wall Street to Nixon’s White House, Watergate, and Beyond (New York: Times Books, 1997), 256.
“Whoever was the culprit”: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 75.
“It’s just a question of putting together”: Statement of Information, 4:684, https://books.google.com/books?id=xcVPOY-i-9YC.
“We had already heard a lot of shocking disclosures”: Silbert, interview.
“I hope someday you’ll know”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 261.
Chapter 28 “What Meat Do They Eat?”
Joseph Montoya, for one, never seemed: Lenzner, The Investigator, 108.
“Except you, Danny”: Ibid.
The committee’s two rank-and-file Republicans: Weicker, Maverick, 46.
“I don’t think he’s afraid”: Thompson, At That Point in Time, 14.
The Ervin Committee staff inherited: John A. Farrell, Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century (Boston: Little, Brown, 2001), 337.
“[We] had more jurisdiction”: Lenzner, The Investigator, 136.
“The Nixon White House probably put down”: Dash, Chief Counsel, 135–36.
Ervin called a rare press conference: Ervin, The Whole Truth, 66; Walter Rugaber, “Ervin in a Clash with White House Over Watergate,” New York Times, April 3, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/04/03/99138454.html?pageNumber=1.
“What meat do they eat”: Rugaber, “Ervin in a Clash.”
“You don’t have to tell me why you called”: Woodward, The Secret Man, 95.
On March 21, as a result: “Text of Nixon’s Statement,” New York Times, April 18, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/04/18/79852630.html?pageNumber=97.
that he’d worked on frantically: “Transcript of a Recording of a Meeting Among the President, John Ehrlichman, Ronald Ziegler, and H. R. Haldeman, in the Oval Office on April 17, 1973, from 3:50 to 4:35 P.M.,” Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/forresearchers/find/tapes/watergate/wspf/898-023_899-001.pdf.
On Capitol Hill, Dash immediately wondered: Dash, Chief Counsel, 71.
“We’re cognizant Dean’s going to make”: “Transcript of a Recording, April 17, 1973.”
“the fear of God”: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 90.
“Some may hope or think”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 270.
“inoperative”: R. W. Apple, Jr., “Nixon Reports ‘Major’ Findings in Watergate Inquiry He Made,” New York Times, April 18, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/04/18/79852136.html?pageNumber=1.
“They had not thought of their conduct”: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 99.
“Goddamn, I think of these good men”: “Excerpts from New Transcripts.”
“How can you possibly expect”: Dash, Chief Counsel, 73.
“The only thing Liddy appeared”: Ibid., 75.
“Kalmbach’s tale sounded like a combination”: Ibid., 78.
“John, I’m looking”: Statement of Information, 1:269, https://books.google.com/books?id=GNlFYAKTRNMC.
“The focus is on the president”: Thompson, At That Point in Time, 38.
“Don’t know what the son of a bitch”: “The Nation: Wagons.”
“Good morning, John”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 272.
Chapter 29 “Voice of Doom”
“If Mitchell really planned Watergate”: Curtis Prendergast, The World of Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Changing Enterprise, 1960–1980 (New York: Atheneum, 1986), 355.
“Only in his disgrace”: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, 688.
“offended a sense of justice”: Martin Arnold, “New Trial Barred,” New York Times, May 12, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/05/12/79855703.html?pageNumber=1.
“Let me tell you something, Pete”: Fields, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, 28.
Gray wanted to make sure he ended up: Gray, In Nixon’s Web, 239.
“I could not accept the fact”: Ibid., 240.
“A director of the FBI destroying”: Bernstein and Woodward, All the President’s Men, 307.
“the intensifying Watergate crisis”: Walter Rugaber, “A Sudden Decision,” New York Times, April 28, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/04/28/79854621.html?pageNumber=14.
“No matter who is involved”: Ibid.
“faith in Dean began to waver”: Jack Anderson, “Watergate Scandal Burst Like Bubble,” Daily Reporter (Dover, OH), April 26, 1973, https://www.newspapers.com/image/19831009/.
“I think it’s entirely conceivable”: Brinkley and Nichter, The Nixon Tapes: 1973, 604–5.
“You, Ehrlichman, and I”: White, Breach of Faith, 217.
“one jump ahead of the fucking sheriff”: Tom Mathews and Nicholas Horrock, “ ‘One Jump Ahead of the Sheriff,’ ” Newsweek, May 9, 1977, http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/Watergate/Watergate%20Items%2022753%20to%2023027/Watergate%2022876.pdf.
“Now if he’s going to have this pissing contest”: “Transcript of a Recording of a Telephone Conversation Between the President and H. R. Haldeman on April 25, 1973, from 7:46 to 7:53 P.M.,” Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/forresearchers/find/tapes/watergate/wspf/038–156_038–157.pdf.
“Do you think the people”: Mathews and Horrock, “ ‘One Jump Ahead of the Sheriff.’ ”
“My god—what the hell”: Kutler, The Wars of Watergate, 315.
“The press has got to realize”: “Excerpts from New Transcripts.”
“Voice of doom”: Haldeman, The Ends of Power, 291.
“Just explain all this”: Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 390.
“the toughest thing I’ve ever done”: Elliot L. Richardson, The Creative Balance: Government, Politics, and the Individual in America’s Third Century (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976), 4.
Richardson, the fifty-two-year-old defense secretary: Bart Barnes, “Elliot Richardson Dies at 79,” Washington Post, January 1, 2000, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2000/01/01/elliot-richardson-dies-at-79/ff53334e-07a2-4f79–9d97-399ab74f7821/.
“It had come to be the cliché”: Elizabeth Drew, Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon’s Downfall (New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2014), 64.
“I had no knowledge of any of this”: Ken Gormley, Archibald Cox: Conscience of a Nation (Reading, MA: Perseus, 1997), 248.
“I wish somehow deep inside”: Thompson, The Nixon Presidency, 54; Richardson related a slightly different version of this quotation in The Creative Balance, 5.
James Polk, a reporter for the Washington Star-News: Matt Schudel, “James Polk, Pulitzer Winner for Watergate Reporting, Dies at 83,” Washington Post, July 24, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/james-polk-dead/2021/07/24/a62f2b5c-ec14–11eb-8950-d73b3e93ff7f_story.html; Peter Kihss, “Pulitzers Given for Reporting on Vesco and Nixon Tax; No Play or Novel Cited,” New York Times, May 7, 1974, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/06/specials/boorstin-pulitzer.html.
“How do you like them apples?”: James McCartney, “The Washington ‘Post’ and Watergate: How Two Davids Slew Goliath,” Columbia Journalism Review 12, no. 2 (July 1973), https://search.proquest.com/openview/38d52575720f0f009f30d44e09ef748e/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1817229.
“I want to talk to you tonight from my heart”: Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation About the Watergate Investigations,” April 30, 1973, Miller Center, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/april-30–1973-address-nation-about-watergate-investigations.
“It’s a tough thing, Bob”: Tom Curry, “Angry Nixon: New Tapes Reveal an Overwrought President in Grips of Watergate,” NBC News, August 21, 2013, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/angry-nixon-new-tapes-reveal-overwrought-president-grips-watergate-flna6C10972359.
Chapter 30 The End of Mark Felt
The agents, armed: Unger, FBI, 549.
“It’s bad enough I have to see”: Bill O’Reilly, unpublished interview by Adam Higginbotham, 2014.
“You’re wrong about me”: Kleindienst, Justice, 170.
“The paper had its cock”: Shepard, Woodward and Bernstein, 73.
After months of tentativeness: Ervin, The Whole Truth, 62.
“an unimaginable explosion”: Hersh, Reporter, 180.
On May 2, he published: Ibid., 180–81.
“Tell him I’m writing a story”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 72.
“Tell Strachan to watch”: Downie, The New Muckrakers, 86
“became particularly fascinated”: Ibid., 85.
The competitors met with Bernstein: Ibid., 85–86.
“This was a turning point”: Shepard, Woodward and Bernstein, 70.
“There has been an obscene affection”: Ibid., 85.
“It’s a little hard to just come off”: Thompson, At That Point in Time, 42.
“All right, Ron”: Ibid., 43.
“Jim, I have the feeling”: Dash, Chief Counsel, 92.
“He’s told me a fantastic story”: Thompson, At That Point in Time, 26; Doug Walker, “Weicker Gets Wickens: Watergate Probe Helps Taft Ease Aide Off Staff,” Dayton (OH) Daily News, April 1, 1973, https://www.newspapers.com/image/405338375/.
“Just think Sam”: Dash, Chief Counsel, 93.
“That’s the damndest conversation”: Dean, Blind Ambition, 279.
“I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit down”: Ibid., 291.
“I couldn’t break his story”: Dash, Chief Counsel, 116.
As his mid-May deadline to start: Ibid., 87.
“It was my plan”: Ibid., 88.
Haig had been a below-average student: Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 101.
His time on Kissinger’s staff: Marjorie Hunter, “4-Star Diplomat in the White House,” New York Times, May 5, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/05/05/90938809.html?pageNumber=14.
“a phenomenal individual”: Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Inner Circles: How America Changed the World: A Memoir (New York: Warner, 1992), 271.
“the most outstanding flag officer”: Ibid., 272.
Haig’s calculating nature: John Herbers, “Haig to Quit Army to Hold Haldeman Post as Civilian,” New York Times, June 7, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/06/07/90443204.html?pageNumber=1.
“The original crime was stupid”: Haig, Inner Circles, 338.
“We were in for a long and bloody struggle”: Nixon, RN, 857.
“The changes were fundamentally”: Colodny and Gettlin, Silent Coup, 293.
“My God,” Haig replied: Kutler, Abuse of Power, 407–8.
“He’s a hell of a competent guy”: Ray Locker, Haig’s Coup: How Richard Nixon’s Closest Aide Forced Him from Office (Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2019), 31.
Buzhardt, known behind his back as “Buzzard”: Peter Kihss, “Fred Buzhardt Jr., Nixon’s Counsel in Watergate, Dies,” New York Times, December 17, 1978, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1978/12/17/112826381.html?pageNumber=44.
“If you need a job done with no traces”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 141.
“She thought President Nixon was lying”: Dale Van Atta, With Honor: Melvin Laird in War, Peace, and Politics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 441.
“[He’s] somebody to go out”: Ibid., 442.
“Nixon was too shattered”: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 106.
On May 10, John Mitchell was indicted: Arnold H. Lubasch, “$200,000 Donation: Charge Said to Involve Effort to Obstruct S.E.C. Inquiry,” New York Times, May 10, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/05/10/90950137.html?pageNumber=1.
“They couldn’t wait”: McLendon, Martha, 237.
“All this crap”: Kutler, Abuse of Power, 448.
A few days later, John Crewdson published: John M. Crewdson, “ ’69 Phone Taps Reported on Newsmen at 3 Papers,” New York Times, May 11, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/05/11/79855277.html?pageNumber=18.
came directly from the most knowledgeable anonymous source: Holland, Leak, 8.
He had drafted and assembled: Calvin Woodward, “ ‘Deep Throat’ Touted to Lead FBI,” Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, MA), November 29, 2007, https://www.telegram.com/article/20071129/NEWS/711290424.
“Yes, the president mentioned it”: Holland, Leak, 141.
“just very concerned about the situation”: Ibid., 7.
“Bad guy. Now last night”: Ibid., 146–48.
It wouldn’t be long before Nixon announced: John Herbers, “Nixon Names Kelley for F.B.I.,” New York Times, June 8, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/06/08/79860798.html?pageNumber=1.
“Don’t it seem like”: Kutler, Abuse of Power, 507.
“Everyone’s life is in danger”: Woodward, The Secret Man, 98–99.
Seymour Hersh had been finishing: Seymour M. Hersh, “Kissinger Said to Have Asked F.B.I. to Wiretap a Number of His Aides,” New York Times, May 17, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/05/17/99144829.html?pageNumber=1.
“You’re Jewish, aren’t you”: Hersh, Reporter, 190. A shorter, less colorful version of this same exchange was reported in Hersh, The Price of Power, 400.
“It was a bombshell”: Gray, In Nixon’s Web, 248.
“Helms hoped to keep”: Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA (New York: Pocket Books, 1981), 342.
Chapter 31 “A No-Win Job”
“It had the appearance of a grand old downtown railroad terminal”: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 233.
“If the many allegations to this date”: Dash, Chief Counsel, 128.
“The gut question for the committee”: Presidential Campaign Activities of 1972, 1:8.
“If you like to watch grass grow”: Jules Witcover, “The First Day of Watergate: Not Exactly High Drama,” Washington Post, May 18, 1973, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-first-day-of-watergate-not-exactly-high-drama/2012/06/04/gJQAsqjDJV_story.html.
The committee agreed to recall: Dash, Chief Counsel, 132.
“Presidential involvement in Watergate”: Ibid., 133.
“He’s our biggest asset”: Locker, Haig’s Coup, 78.
“If he ever retired, I think he’d go dig”: Linda Charlton, “ ‘Perfectionist’ Watergate Counsel: Samuel Dash,” New York Times, May 18, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/05/18/90959270.html?pageNumber=19.
“Did you ever hear of the Watergate affair?”: Nomination of Elliot L. Richardson to Be Attorney General: Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, 93rd Congr. 3–4 (1974), https://books.google.com/books?id=uYqWBfd9uSIC.
“arbitrary or capricious or irrational”: Ibid., 99.
The White House suggested two former Democratic governors: “NBC Evening News for 1973-05-14,” transcript, Vanderbilt Television News Archive, https://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/programs/470222.
Meanwhile, his own first four choices: George Lardner, Jr., “Richardson Narrows Field for Prosecutor,” Washington Post, May 15, 1973, https://osupublicationarchives.osu.edu/?a=d&d=LTN19730515–01.2.16.
“scorecard on refusals”: David E. Rosenbaum, “Tyler Turns Down Job as Prosecutor in Watergate Case,” New York Times, May 16, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/05/16/93289446.html?pageNumber=27.
“The smart ones knew”: Gormley, Archibald Cox, 235.
The former US solicitor general: Ibid., 234.
“unfailing fairness and firmness”: Richardson, The Creative Balance, 37.
“This is probably a no-win job”: Gormley, Archibald Cox, 241.
