Random Jottings 8 Random Jottings 8 “Watergate Considered as an Org Chart of Semi-Precious Stones” a fanzine by Michael Dobson Michael Dobson, 8042 Park Overlook Dr., Bethesda, MD 20817, [email protected] Available for “the usual,” with PDF available from http://efanzines.com/RandomJottings/ . Copyright © 2013 by Michael Dobson under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license: some rights reserved. All written material by Michael Dobson except as noted. Table of Contents Yes, This is a Fanzine (More or Less) ............................................................................ 3 Watergate and Me .......................................................................................................... 5 Origins of a Scandal ....................................................................................................... 7 The Enemies List .......................................................................................................... 11 Hunt/Liddy Special Project #1 ..................................................................................... 15 Watergate Considered as an Org Chart of Semi-Precious Stones ............................ 17 Duct and Other Tapes .................................................................................................. 37 Come Back to the Five and Dime Again, John Dean, John Dean .............................. 39 Let’s Go to the Tape, Johnny! ....................................................................................... 51 Saturday Night’s Alright (for Firing) ............................................................................. 55 By Hook or by Crook ..................................................................................................... 59 The Smoking Gun Goes Off ......................................................................................... 63 “My Nixon Dream” by Steve Stiles .............................................................................. 67 Spider-Man® in “Mr. Jameson Goes to Washington” ................................................ 68 What Would Nixon Do? ................................................................................................ 89 Random Jottings on Random Jottings (letters) .......................................................... 94 Watergate Cast of Characters .................................................................................... 99 Watergate Timeline ................................................................................................... 105 Acknowledgements and Credits ............................................................................... 111 - 1 - Richard Nixon just before reading a statement concerning the release of edited transcripts of the White House tapes “As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.” — Golda Meir - 2 - Yes, This is a Fanzine (More or Less) I’ve been planning the Watergate Special Issue of Random Jottings for a few years now, hampered primarily by my inability to find the original “Mr. Jameson Goes to Washington” script I submitted to Marvel back in the late 1970s. I planned to do it just like a regular fanzine, copied at the local FedEx Office and shipped to Corflu, just as I’d been doing for the last few years. But technology intervened. I started a new venture last fall, a projected series of 366 books covering each day of the year (February 29 included), using Amazon’s print-on- demand subsidiary, CreateSpace, for the physical copies — no inventory or upfront costs. I suddenly realized it would cost me just a bit more than half as much per copy, and that included a four-color perfect bound cover! The next step seemed fairly obvious. Extending the initial idea a bit, I also realized that this issue in particular also worked as a book. While it’s clearly not going to be the next 50 Shades of Gray (my own erotica hasn’t done nearly so well), it might well make a couple of dollars in the brave new world of online bookselling, and as I move closer to retirement age, every dollar counts. WATERGATE CONSIDERED AS AN ORG CHART OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES (this fanzine stripped of fannishness, such as it is) can be purchased from Amazon and other fine e-retailers as a perfect-bound 5.25” x 8” paperback with full color wrap-around cover, or as an e-book in all popular formats. Tell your friends. Book: https://www.createspace.com/4227033 Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/WatergateEbook Other ePub formats: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/304349 The print version of this issue is available at https://www.createspace.com/ 4229410. * * * Given that I normally send copies to a number of people who aren’t part of fandom, a few additional words of explanation may be in order. (Trufen may skip the next part.) - 3 - In my misspent youth, I was semi-active in the science fiction fan world. Although science fiction conventions have, to a significant extent, turned into media shows, it was once the case that science fiction fans focused on the world of books and magazines, and often shared a wide range of diverse interests. These interests were often expressed in “fanzines,” a poorly chosen name for amateur magazines that, whatever else they may be, are seldom about being a “fan” of anything in particular. I was a pretty awful fanzine publisher back in the day, and after a few terrible attempts, I moved on to other pursuits, although I have kept ongoing relationships with many of the people I met in my brief fannish career. A few years back, I began to attend a convention aimed at fanzines publishers, known as Corflu (short for “correction fluid,” a substance all too familiar to people who worked with mimeograph stencils, once the lifeblood of amateur publishing), and my interest in “pubbing my ish,” as we fans say, flared up like a bad case of herpes. I was also attracted by improvements in printing. The venerable mimeograph, producer of generations of classic fanzines, is now used only by the purest of the pure (as the saying goes, “The Enchanted Duplicator is the one with the trufan at the handle!”). I had always enjoyed the writing process of fanzine publishing, but wrestling with the recalcitrant and often messy process of mimeography was one of the less pleasant chores of amateur publishing (second only to collating), so the move to photocopying was more than welcome. I could prepare a PDF, upload it to the FedEx Office website, and within days, neatly collated and stapled copies appeared with no effort on my part. (Except for mailing, of course. That’s still a pain.) For the 2003 Corflu in Madison, Wisconsin, I rebooted my 1970s era title, Random Jottings, after a mere 32 year gap between issues, with a long piece on name dropping, in which I listed my every brush with fame or notoriety, no matter how slight. A mere five years later, Random Jottings #3 chronicled my adventures with the Samaritan people. With the bug raging once again, only a single year elapsed before the next issue. Random Jottings #4, the “Alternate History Issue,” for the Seattle Corflu in 2009, allowed me to publish the material I’d collected in 1971 and 1972, which had been languishing in my files for nearly four decades, under the conceit that it was the long-lost issue from another dimension. Random Jottings #5 was published as an obituary for my father, Odell F. Dobson, who died in 2010. It contained his true-life adventures as a waist gunner on a B-24 during World War II. Random Jottings #6 collected my blog writings on cognitive biases. And last year’s Random Jottings #7, for the 2012 Las Vegas Corflu, anthologized several random articles along with a portfolio of art by noted cartoonist Steve Stiles. As has been my custom for the past few years, this issue is being released for Corflu XXX (Boom-Chicka-Wow-Wow), with a few copies going in the mail shortly thereafter. Back issues of Random Jottings are available in PDF form for free by visiting Bill Burns’ essential www.efanzines.com. While you’re there, look around. There’s a wonderful, vibrant world of amateur publishing waiting for you. See you next Corflu! - 4 - Watergate and Me The great professional obsession of my adult life has been figuring out how people and organizations work. I write business books and military novels because nothing fascinates me more than people struggling with impossible situations, especially of their own making. Believe me, I know what it's like to screw up, and so when I look at a complex scandal like Watergate, I don't see the politics, I see the Nixon caricature by Edmund S. Valtman people, and I feel their pain. I’m a big fan. I followed every minute of the Watergate hearings, and devoured every book by a Watergate player, no matter how obscure. No, I didn't figure out who Deep Throat really was, but I wasn't interested in the detective story that much. Oh, I admire Woodward and Bernstein and all that, but my heart goes out to John Dean, freaking out as his shredder jams on notebooks of evidence, realizing in his heart that he had become a criminal — without ever noticing the exact moment he had crossed the line. I marvel at G. Gordon Liddy, the closest thing to a real-life James Bond (or Heinlein Individual) imaginable, presenting, in those pre-PowerPoint days, a complete project management plan on poster board for schemes worthy of Dr. Evil himself. His plan would cost -- finger on pursed lip and a drumroll – two million dollars! (They bargained him down to