Ten years later, the buffs are still on the case. AK WATERGATE!

BY RON R0SENBAUM

■AT AM AWARE," IL R. Haldeman writes, "that up in its wake lack the taint of ghoulishness that has J. there is a cult of people in this country who continued to plague grassy knoll theories, the most collect every scrap of information about Watergate recent excrescence of which (David Lifton's Best Evi- because of its many fascinating mysteries." He's more dence) insists on conjuring up a gruesome postmortem than aware: his memoir, The Ends of Power, is a seething surgical alteration of the fatal wounds to fit a favored nest of almost every conceivable scrap of Watergate bullet trajectory theory. Although certain Watergate conspiracy theory developed to date. The Democratic theorists venture equally far into fantasy (I have in my Trap Theory, the CIA Watergate collection a Trap Theory, the Black- curious vanity press mail Demand Theory: volume called The Jour- you name it, H. R. Bob nal of Judith Beck Stein, buys it. Indeed, the for- written by a former pa- mer chief of staff is tient in the Chesnut nothing if not a buff Lodge sanitarium, himself, and he spices which seems to allege his book with tantaliz- that the entire Water- ing buff-to-buff hints gate conspiracy and for further investiga- cover-up was engi- tion of the "fascinating neered to cheat her out mysteries." "111 only of a legacy and silence pause to bring out one her exposure of the more fact about the banking system), the $350,000," he teases, eyes of Watergate buffs "this one for the Water- tend to twinkle rather gate buffs.... " 1.2 M 4e J Dean, 3 Cox, 4 Liddy, than stare. Ours is a civ- Although such recog- 5 Jaworski, 6 Frank Wills, 7 Hunt, ilized passion. nition is welcome, the 8 Colson, 9-10 M k I Mitchell, 11 Ervin, Who, then, are the 12 Sirica, 13 Woodward, 14 Bernstein, tone of the reference is 15 Haldeman, 16 RN, 17 Ehrlichman, Watergate buffs? Not, regrettably uncharita- /8 . as you might expect, a ble. By calling serious coterie of Nixon-haters students of Watergate a still savoring each de- DRAWING St' ALLEN CARROLL FOR THE NEW REPUBLIC "cult" of "buffs," he is, lectable detail of his de- of course, lumping us with the much-abused "assassi- mise, "wallowing in Watergate," as the ex-President nation buffs" and the aura of bad taste and futility that put it. No, many of the most relentless and dedicated is associated with their efforts. Watergate buffs are pro-Nixon revisionists determined But there is a difference between these two domains to prove that the whole episode was a dirty trick of buffdom. Perhaps because—as Nixon partisans like perpetrated upon, rather than by, . to remind us—"nobody drowned at Watergate," the (Reed Irvine's Accuracy in Media newsletter has tire- conjectures and conspiracy theories that have sprung lessly pursued the Democratic Trap Theory for seven years now.) Ron Rosenbaum wrote the "Wallowing in Watergate" Some of us are reporters who were stationed in column for the Village Voice, and later a novel, Murder Washington for the thrilling Final Days, and have at Elaine's, in which the mystery is resolved by the developed a lasting taste for the arcana, however tan- contents of the eighteen-minute tape gap. His latest gential, of the case. I, for example, can claim credit for book is Rebirth of the Salesman: Tales of the Song & being the first to uncover both a prophetic mention of Dance '70s (Delta). Watergate in the Bible and an anticipation of the

JUNE 23, 1982 15 Plumbers Squad in the historical etymology of the analyzed? (See "How Nixon Got Strung Up," by Nich- Oxford English Dictionary. In the Book of Nehemiah olas von Hoffman, page 24.) (Ne:8:1) the people of Israel gather after their return Some buffs will stop at nothing in an effort to find from Babylonian exile to hear the prophet Ezra read some rational explanation for the actions of Richard the law of Moses to them for the first time since they Nixon. Consider the heroic efforts of Professor Doug- regained their freedom. Where do they gather to hear las Muzzio, author of Watergate Games, an attempt to the Word? At the entrance to Jerusalem known as "the translate major Watergate turning points into math- Watergate." And the D.E.D. offers an eerie foreshadow- ematical game theory decision matrixes. Game theory ing of the substance of the twentieth-century scandal proves, according to Muzzio, that far from acting as he in the eighteenth-century usage of the verb "water- did "because he was 'mad' or 'needed to fail,' " RN gate": to void urine. That "acted rationally in re- is, in effect, to leak. m. L1DDY-DEAN GAME sponse to events and ac- Though studies of BEFORE SILBERT DECEPTION tions by other Water- I-IDDY this sort may seem inad- DEAN (actual Preferences) gate players." Even if missibly mystical to COOPERATE DEFECT the professor's "payoff Dm Per AO dtlenkani some, there are hard- A. g B. 3.3 matrixes" and "decision COOPERATE (11 0.) 4- riTtiTl nosed investigators -Pooprolt" man,. trees" fall short of con- among the buffs as C. vincing us of that con- DEFECT C.1 D. D,2 well: former prosecu- (X) (4) clusion, he is an ex- tors, Congressional traordinarily well-read Liddy at 800411 staffers, politicians— -cooperate 80041. buff, and his analysis of even an ex-President, the other "Watergate S. APPARENT LIDDY-DEAN the greatest buff of AFTER SILBERT DECEPTION players" is often illumi- them all. All are united nating. Take, for in- • LIDDY DEAN (Silbert) by undiminished de- CIPAPP.RATF DEI-EcT stance, the game theory light in the "fascinating rationale he constructs A. 2,4 B. 1,4 t CPAPERAll mysteries" to which (I) 01 to rehabilitate the much H. R. Bob refers. And in maligned original Wa- C. 4,1 D. (,) III* ha, wporalLI fact there are genuine IJI.F1-t 1 Jornmsni "11r1.. tergate prosecutor, Earl It) (4) vrater, gaps in our knowledge Silbert. Muzzio claims that are more extensive Dato ha Paamma that a Silbert prose- • 1111,,ale% than anything any I.P.O• ■ chow.. ol cutorial "ploy"—trick- -dslat'..paapf eighteen minutes of ing Dean into believing tape could supply. NOTE: I. .k. y Liddy (Silbert), Dean. 2. Liddy's ranking of outcomes C and I) in I.9a is unknown. Any of three Liddy was already talk- There are obvious ques- puksible racking 1A,B.D.C1 or (A,H.C-131 produce the same ing—was the key to tions (quick: who or- result given the strip prCrOPOCC of both A and H so C and respectively, for Liddy. cracking the case. If you dered the break-in?) 3. I)can's percepkon of Liddy's ranking of the 1.4ts outcomes is assumed to he find that hard to be- and subtle ones (just IC. .A, H). 4 Silbert pfelerences (in parentheses) are 03.11.A1 in boll games. thnessene C is lieve, just study Profes- what was missing from nn,i LINPACICCI s■us-c Liddy's deleohion Is not Peal. Verner, 01. sor Muzzio's chart of the "Bay of Pigs report" 1. illy circled oulc es pre the FalioDal onocurnea. the game at left. that fi- While such reduc- FROM 'WATERGATE GAMES' ( UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1982) nally turned over to tionist efforts are good Richard Nixon, and how did it shape the outcome of for a chuckle, the idea that all Watergate mysteries the CIA cover story fabricated in the famous "smoking were "solved" by the smoking gun is no less laugh- gun" tape?). And there are more esoteric excursions able. In fact (and this is what raises Watergate cultists into the ambiguities of the evidence. Did the White from buffdom to scholarship) there is still uncharted House tamper with the birth certificate of the alleged territory to be explored. With that in mind, let's take a "love child" of George McGovern? Who was private brisk tenth anniversary wallow in the muddied fields eye Woolsten-Smith's source of information in The of Watergate theory and survey the state of the art in November Group? And what was the mysterious "red the kingdoms of conjecture built by the buffs. box" the President keeps harping on in his September 15, 1972, talk with ? ("What is the situation Foreknowledge Theory, in its many forms, has been on the little red box?" asks P. "Have they found the a consistent growth area of buffdom over the past ten box yet?" Could this be a childhood toy—Nixon's years—a steady performer compared to, say, Deep Rosebud?) Finally, of course, there are the larger moti- Throat Theory, which proceeds by fits and starts of vational questions: was the downfall of the President guesswork. Foreknowledge Theory has blossomed pure self-destruction, or was he undermined by sub- into a major revisionist heresy. In its "Democratic terranean power struggles which have yet to be fully Trap" variation, it's become a vehicle for the quest of

16 THE NEW REPUBLIC IQ 82.151 die-hard Nixon loyalists for historical vindication. one of them would have been able to get through to Trap Theory traces its origins to seven volumes of Officer Shoffler. But Shoffler flatly denies being executive session testimony taken by 's tipped off, and there is no smoking gun to contradict minority staff of the Senate Watergate committee. (The him. Foreknowledge Theory, in consequence, has seven volumes, which have come to be known among bogged down in fanciful embellishments of the sup- foreknowledge buffs as "The Seven Volumes," are not posed Democratic (or CIA or Jack Anderson) conspiracy to be confused with "The Baker Report," a separate to trick Dick Nixon. For the most part, foreknowledge minority staff investigation which, when reinvesti- has degenerated into inconclusive foreplay. gated by the Nedzi Committee of the House, devel- oped into the CIA Foreknowledge Theory.) The Seven NE PERSON who hasn't given up on foreknowl- Volumes tell a provocative and fairly well-corrobo- O edge, however, is Richard Nixon. In RN: The rated story of Watergate-eve intrigue among RN's Memoirs of Richard Nixon, a volume which is unques- enemies. The story begins with a British-born, New tionably the masterwork of Watergate buffery, RN York-based private eye named A. J. Woolsten-Smith, claims that shortly before he resigned he became who came to Kennedy Democrat William Haddad in aware of "new information that the Democrats had April 1972 with what he said was reliable information prior knowledge and that the Hughes organization that the Republicans had targeted a sophisticated spy might be involved.. . . And there were stories of operation against the Democratic National Committee. strange alliances" between his enemies and moles Haddad introduced Woolsten-Smith to Larry O'Brien's within the White House. It is easy to see the appeal of DNC deputy and to Jack Anderson. In conversations Foreknowledge Theory for Nixon. It's the embodi- with them, specific tips about the Watergate target and ment of the darkest Nixonian fantasies: a hideous the Cuban composition of the break-in team were congeries of his hypocritical enemies use dirty tricks to passed along. It also happened that Jack Anderson was lure him into essaying a dirty trick himself, then an old friend of and ran into him at stumble over themselves in the shadows in their haste National Airport the night before the break-in, just as to call the cops. Sturgis was arriving from Miami with the Cubans in In fact, the more you pursue Foreknowledge Theory, order to make their second entry into O'Brien's of- the more it begins to seem as if Richard Nixon was the fice—the one that would end with their arrest and the only person in Washington who didn't know about the beginning of Richard Nixon's fall. break-in ahead of time. Which brings us to a surpris- ingly stagnant and neglected subdivision of Fore- POINT, the foreknowledge scenario be- knowledge Theory, the Richard Nixon Foreknowledge comes more speculative. The man who led the Question: did RN order the break-in or approve it in cops into Watergate to arrest the burglars, one Officer advance? Shoffler, is said to have signed up for an unusual Of course, we have RN's word for it that he didn't. second eight-hour tour of duty that night. Shoffier Moreover, RN claims that this has been proved conclu- turns out to be the closest cop to the Watergate when sively. How so? The release of the White House edited the guard, Frank Wills, called police headquarters. An transcripts back in 1974, he writes in RN, "proved acquaintance of Officer Shoffler, one Edmund T. conclusively that I had not known about the break-in Chung, testifies that in a post-Watergate dinner con- in advance." In other words, because RN is not heard versation he got the "impression that Shoffler had confessing to ordering the break-in on tape, because he advance knowledge of the break-in." According to the denies it several times (when he knew he was being Trap Theory, the Democrats learned about the first, recorded), it's been proved that he didn't do it. RN May 27, break-in and bugging after it was over and frequently shores up this "proof" with copious cita- contrived a plan to lure the Committee to Reelect the tions from his "diary entries" immediately after the President (CREEP) team back into Watergate on June 17, break-in. Time after time, it seems, he confided to his at which point they tipped off the cops. How did they diary his total bewilderment at the strange and unex- lure them back in? With the malfunctioning bug on pected news that anyone would want to bug the Dem- Larry O'Brien's phone. According to Reed Irvine, that ocratic National Committee. bug "may not have died a natural death." In other Most Watergate investigators have been content to words, the Democrats exterminated the bug to lure the let RN by with this Big Surprise version of his reaction, CREEP repair team back to be trapped in the act. there being no concrete evidence to the contrary. Other possible tipsters to Officer Shoffler postulated Neither the Ervin Committee, the Impeachment Com- by other variations of Foreknowledge Theory include mittee, the Woodstein team, nor the Special Prosecu- Jack Anderson, the CIA, 's p.r. man tor's office had evidence or belief enough to conclude Robert Bennett, or a double agent on the break-in team that RN knew in advance. The only Watergate ob- itself (usually identified as McCord). If all the people server to take an unequivocal Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! with alleged foreknowledge had actually decided to tip stand on Nixonian foreknowledge has been Mary Mc- off the cops and trap the burglars, you'd think at least Carthy. Why so shy, the rest of them? Perhaps they

18 THE NEW REPUBLIC Ford's hand on the pardon by threat- WATERGATE THEORY & CONJECTURE ening to cause constitutional chaos with self-pardon power. On August [A COMPENDIUM] 1,1974, one week before resignation, Fred Buzhardt tells Haig (see The Fi- BIG BRIBE THEORY; The only explana- planning for related plots. By the nal Days) that he's researched the tion for the disproportion between time RN fired Helms in 1973, the question and the President has the the cover-up and the third-rate bur- agency had already engineered his power to pardon himself. RN writes glary is that RN was concealing— downfall by using its plants to ex- out pardon and puts it in sealed en- and still conceals—an even more pose "" and velope, then tells Haig if he gets brazen and corrupt act than any re- sowing confusion with false black- guarantee of pardon from Ford he'll ported. RN's professed fear that LBJ mail demands. (Ehrlichman, Halde- forget about self-pardon, resign, and bugged his '68 contacts with Dragon man, Colson, RN, and others) go quietly. Otherwise, even if he's Lady Claire Chennault is a clue to out of office, he'll produce envelope, the possibility that a big "gift" to RN COLORED SHIRTS AT THE FBI THEORY: revealing that while still President by South Vietnamese diehards to en- Rebellious deputies at FBI headquar- he pardoned himself and everyone else courage him to continue the war is ters, angry at RN appointee Pat Gray in the Watergate case. Checkmate. Ford the real "White House horror." (Re- for liberalizing Hoover's white- accepts, agrees never to discuss the nata Adler) shirts-only formality, leaked Water- negotiation. (R. R.) gate details to the press to show RN BIG CABAL THEORY: During "vaca- Gray couldn't control the Bureau, THE CAIN AND ABEL THEORY: Some- tions" in South Florida in the 1940s hoping thereby to get Gray fired and thing more than a big bribe or con- and 1950s, RN became part of nexus replaced by a no-colored-shirt tradi- ventional corruption is necessary to of gamblers, gangsters, and Cuban tionalist. (Edward Jay Epstein) explain RN's guilt-ridden response casino interests that included Meyer to almost everything—including Lanky, Howard Hughes, Bebe Re- GRASSY KNOLL CONNECTION THE- things of which he's not guilty. A bozo, and the CIA. Watergate was ORY: Howard Hunt and Frank Stur- shocking and disturbing suggestion fallout of falling out among these gis were the "mystery tramps" pho- about the "mysterious death" of factions in aftermath of JFK and Cas- tographed being arrested near the RN's younger brother Arthur by RN tro assassination plots. (Howard grassy knoll a few minutes after JFK biographer Fawn Brodie is her effort Kohn) was shot. (A. J. Weberman) to explain it all. Brodie cites RN's changing recollections of the cause BIG DEAL ON ROMAINE STREET THE- JAMES McCORD DOUBLE AGENT THE- of young Arthur's death (when RN ORY: RN was obsessed by fear that ORY: The break-in and bugging were was just a lad). In one version, Ar- defeated Hughes deputy Robert Ma- so thoroughly bungled it had to be thur was struck by a rock "thrown by heu would feed damaging info about deliberate. CIA loyalist McCort must another boy," according to RN. the Hughes loan and the secret Re- have been acting under Company Could the "other boy" be RN? Only bozo money channel to RN enemies instructions to sabotage RN's intelli- evidence Brodie offers to support such as Larry O'Brien. The damaging gence operation and later, in post- this are characteristic RN denials ("I Hughes/ Maheu documents which arrest communications, kept the am confident that if the rock throw- RN feared were stored in O'Brien's Company apprised of the cover-up. ing story is in fact true, it did not Watergate office or Hank Green- (Jim Hougan, Frank Sturgis) produce a fatal concussion and it had spurt's Las Vegas safe were actually nothing to do with Arthur's death stashed in Hughes's old Romaine OCCULT CURSE THEORY: Gordon which was from tubercular menin- Street headquarters in L.A. Two Liddy won his spurs as law-and-or- gitis," an RN spokesman told Brodie months before RN resigned, burglars der toughie by spying on and raiding after consulting with RN). In addi- broke into the Romaine Street place. Timothy Leary's Millbrook, N.Y., tion, Brodie cites RN description of They stole a huge treasury of hand- commune. Watergate is RN's punish- the devious nature of the Commu- written Hughes memos which has ment for cosmic bad karma incurred nist mind in Six Crises: "If we accuse reportedly ended up in the hands of by bringing Liddy into the White X of having killed his mother, two investigative reporter Michael Dros- House. (Timothy Leary) brothers, and five friends, X's friends nin whose forthcoming book will re- would shout back, 'That's a lie! X veal the material RN feared most. REVENGE OF HO CHI MINH THEORY: only wounded one brother.' The (Published reports) Almost all the "White House hor- counterattack would be on, with at- rors" can be traced to secret conduct tention diverted from the five friends CIA VENGEANCE THEORY: From the of the war and secret persecution of and the other brother X had indeed, beginning of his first term RN had war protestors such as Ellsberg. Im- actually killed." (Haldeman's notes been pestering CIA Director Richard morality of the war led to immoral on what was said during the 18- Helms to deliver the dirt implicating domestic actions exposed and pun- minute gap cite RN calling for a "p.r. JFK in Castro assassination plots. ished by Watergate. (Tom Hayden) counterattack" and demanding "di- Helms held out, threatening to ex- version." Could the gap contain the pose RN's own role in Eisenhower SELF-PARDON THEORY: RN forced smoking gun on the Arthur case?)

JUNE 23,1982 19 don't want to be perceived as knee-jerk Nixon-haters ates of mysteries, the passage was an eager to believe the worst about RN. Perhaps everyone innocuous bit of background on Clawson: "Wallace is still waiting for another smoking gun to surface. had been shot by Bremer about 4 p.m.," Woodward Well, another smoking gun has surfaced, it just and Bernstein write. "By 6:30 a Post editor had learned hasn't been obtained yet. I came across a clue to its the name of the would-be assassin from White House existence and whereabouts in Haldeman's book. If official Ken Clawson." Haldeman is to be believed, the decisive testimony on This sent me searching madly for Washington Post the RN Foreknowledge Question may be on tape—but (and Woodstein) editor 's book The Great not a White House tape. Haldeman writes that he Cover-up, where, I recalled, Sussman provides the only learned of this potentially explosive tape from Ken intra-Post clue to Deep Throat's identity. I found it. It Clawson, the former Washington Post reporter who'd looked like the clincher at last: "On May 15, 1972, become an aide to Chuck Colson and later was pro- hours after George Wallace was shot," Sussman writes, moted by RN to head the White House p.r. operation "we at the Post had not learned the name of the man during the Final. Days. According to Haldeman, an who shot the Alabama governor. Woodward men- anguished, conscience-stricken Clawson came to him tioned to me that he had 'a friend' who might be able in May 1973, shortly after the chief of staff was forced to help. As we began to get into the , to resign by RN, and told him: "Chuck Colson is 'my friend' as Woodward called him, came to play a blackmailing Nixon. He's got Nixon on the floor. mysterious, a crucial role. Over the months, 'Bob's Nixon didn't know that Colson was taping all of his friend' became more and more important to us and telephone calls with Nixon before and after Watergate gave him a new name: 'Deep happened. He's got on tape just what Nixon said all Throat.' " through the whole Watergate mess." Now, the novelty of this putative evidence is not in T LOOKED AS THOUGH I'd cracked the Throat the blackmail revelation (everyone in the White House I case: Clawson was the guy who got Bremer's name was blackmailing everyone else by that time), nor is it for a Post editor. Woodward's editor says the sotrrce in the fact there are tapes of Colson and RN. It is that, from whom Woodward got Bremer's name for the Post unlike the thousands of pages of White House tapes later became known as Deep Throat. In the movie we already have, RN did not know his Colson calls were version of All the President's Men, which was made in being taped. He made four calls to Colson from Key close consultation with Woodward, Robert Redford Biscayne in the twenty-four hours after he learned appeals to Deep Throat by reminding him, "You about the break-in arrests: nearly two hours of talk helped me out on the Wallace thing." with Colson would be on these Colson tapes, but not I was ready to tell the other Deep Throat theorists to on the White House tapes. RN tells us that, according close Lip shop. But I still had just enough doubt— to his "diary," Watergate was not discussed in those Clawson had a reputation as an unusually rabid Nixon four calls. He and Colson talked about George Meany. loyalist—that I decided to violate a cardinal rule of About the polls. About the press. He just can't recall buffdom: I made some phone calls. (Buffs, unlike mere anything about Watergate. "Watergate," RN writes, reporters, do not make phone calls except to other "was the furthest thing from my mind." buffs. They are content with the pleasures of the text, If Colson did make tapes of those calls, and if he the wealth of resonances already in the literature.) didn't destroy them as a relic of his sinful past when he When I tried to track down Clawson through fellow got religion, then it's safe to assume they're stashed in RN loyalist Victor Lasky (author of It Didn't Start With a Colson-controlled safe deposit box somewhere. The Watergate), I learned that Clawson had fallen ill several contents of that safe deposit box would probably prove years ago and Lasky had lost contact with him. Lasky in his own words whether RN had that all-important thought my clue intriguing but had his doubts about foreknowledge, and how actively and immediately he Clawson as Throat. "He was one of the last ones to go collaborated in the subsequent cover-up. It would down in the bunker," Lasky told me. "He was defend- change our entire understanding of the internal dy- ing the Old Man right down to the last minute. It namics of the collapse of a government. makes no sense to me—unless he was putting on the act of acts. " (My emphasis.) MONG THE DELIGHTS of buffdom are the unex- At the Post, Barry Sussman confirmed that Wood- A pected discoveries one makes about apparently ward had turned to his "friend" for help with the unrelated Watergate mysteries while tracing a single Bremer name, but wouldn't say for sure that "Bob's strand of the tangled web. And so it was that, while friend" had actually been the one to succeed in getting pursuing the question of Clawson's motives in telling the Wallace suspect's name—in other words, Deep the Colson blackmail story, I came across a surprising Friend wasn't necessarily Clawson. Clawson reference in All the President's Men which What about the line in the movie: "You helped me seemed to clinch the case for Clawson as the elusive with Wallace"? Sussman thought that the director of Deep Throat. To all but the most deeply versed initi- the movie, Alan J. Pakula, might have gotten that

20 THE NEW REPUBLIC detail from Sussman's own book rather than from ing his identity, our understanding of Watergate his- Woodward. Or that he might have been wrong about tory will be incomplete, although I have a feeling we the Bremer source being one and the same as Deep all prefer the continuing mystery to the inevitable Throat. Sussman didn't like the Clawson theory at all. disappointments of certainty. Of course, Sussman would not want it to be true, RN certainly does not consider Deep Throat specula- wouldn't want the clinching clue to have come from a tion an idle question. He's as big a buff as anyone on slight detail he inadvertently let slip in his book. He the subject. Haldeman gives us fascinating glimpses of did tell me that the only other person who had ever RN and his ex-chief of staff batting around Deep delved deeply enough to ask him about the relation- Throat theories in buff-to-buff chats. According to ship between the Bremer passage in his book and the Haldeman, RN's personal Deep Throat candidate is Wallace line in the movie was John Dean. Dean has Robert Bennett, the Hughes p.r. man who was Howard been a long-time Deep Throat buff, Sussman said, and Hunt's boss in a p.r. firm that also served as a CIA cover. in fact had called him recently to speculate about a According to Bennett's CIA case officer (cited in the new suspect. Nedzi Committee hearings), Bennett boasted that he "Oh, I know, Dean's candidate is Dave Gergen," I was feeding information and that said smugly, recalling that Dean's ghostwriter, Taylor Woodward was "suitably grateful," a quote which has Branch, had written about Dean's Gergen theory back become the basis for entire Robert Bennett theories of in November 1976. Not anymore, Sussman told me: Watergate, some of them spread by Chuck Colson and Dean has switched suspects, but not directly from all of them misguided. Gergen. There was another intermediary suspect be- As a buff, however, I find it troubling to see fellow fore he settled on his brand-new tenth anniversary buff RN mired in the dark ages of Deep Throat specu- Throat candidate. (Sussman didn't tell me either one.) I lation. All serious analysts of the question have long sympathize with Dean. Before I came upon the Claw- since abandoned the Bennett-as-Throat hypothesis. son clue, I'd been working the Henry Peterson angle, Bennett was a source for Woodward, but a source he and I'd never really given up my lingering Leonard acknowledges on the record in All The President's Men. Garment and Seymour Glanzer suspicions. It was com- In fact, J. Anthony Lukas, who boomed Bennett big in forting to know that Dean too suffered from similar a New York Times Magazine article, abandoned him and Throat-switching tendencies. It seems that after ten switched to lukewarm endorsement of (Ed- years his wily ex-antagonist is destined to continue to ward Jay Epstein's candidate), the Deputy FBI director elude definite detection. who was feuding with RN's pet, Pat Gray. Haldeman's own candidate is Fred Fielding, the OME SUGGEST that after ten years the real mystery former John Dean deputy who now serves President S of Deep Throat is his continued silence. "If he's Reagan as White House counsel in charge of ethical such a big national hero, why doesn't he step forward questions. There's a wonderful description of ethics and claim all the credit?" Victor Lasky asks. "I'll tell counsel Fielding in John Dean's book which depicts you why," Victor Lasky answers. "Because there is no the future arbiter of integrity drawing on "rectal Deep Throat." One possible explanation for the silence gloves" in order not to leave fingerprints on the of Throat—and it does lend support to the Henry potentially incriminating contents of Howard Hunt's Petersen theory—is that if Throat were, like Petersen safe. Fielding, by the way, is one of three key Deep or Glanzer, part of the Justice Department prosecutor- Throat candidates in powerful positions in the Reagan ial team, the disclosure of his identify might give all high command. He and the others (communications the Watergate felons cause to petition for a reversal of director Dave Gergen, John Dean's one-time choice, the verdicts on the grounds of prosecutorial miscon- and , a frequently mentioned con- duct. Who knows, they might have to restage all the tender) will be suitably grateful, I hope, now that my big Watergate trials. As John Dean said, "What an Ken Clawson solution has gotten them off the hook. exciting prospect." In defense of the non-dottiness of Deep Throat F COURSE, no survey of buffdom is complete speculation, let me point out that Watergate and its CI without an appreciation of the achievements of aftermath was a subterranean war of leaks, of attempts RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. Only fellow buffs can by one faction or another to divert press and prosecu- appreciate the indomitable, never-say-die spirit of torial attention to rival power centers. Several signifi- buffery in this work. If the White House transcripts are cant civil wars within the White House and within the the Bible for buffs, RN may be considered the Gnostic bureaucracies and agencies acted themselves out in Gospels, the great heretical reinterpretation of the deep background attacks. Deep Throat might have central sacred texts. One thinks of comparable heroic been a conscience-stricken loner seeking absolution in acts of real misinterpretation—William Blake's notion underground garage confessionals. But he also might that Milton's Satan is the true hero of Paradise Lost have been a cynical game-player trying to use the comes to mind. Washington Post for some factional gain. Without know- But for the most precise literary antecedent to RN,

JUNE 23, 1982 21 we must consider nothing less than Vladimir Nabo- keep the cover-up going. This, he explains, was his kov's Pale Fire; for the best parts of RN, like Nabokov's way of ensuring that the truth would come out "in an novel, take the form of an obsessive, elaborate explica- orderly and rational way." tion of an established text. In Pale Fire we have a mad But RN is not content with exegetical virtuosity. He professor misinterpreting his murdered friend's poem has brand new theories to offer buffs. Take his fasci- to fashion himself the central character. In RN we have nating suggestion about the real culprit in the creation a defrocked President doggedly taking on the tape- of the eighteen-minute gap. He knows that his ex- recorded text of his own words and, with a heroic act planation of the erasure is a kind of command perfor- of the explicative imagination, transforming guilt- mance. He knows we're expecting a dazzling effort laden utterances into evidences of utter innocence, from him on this one. But he's confident: "I know my raising explication to the level of high art. treatment of the gap will be looked upon as a touch- Consider the balletic leaps of ratiocination he takes stone for the candor and credibility of what I write," with the notorious "I don't give a shit what happens, I he begins. It's a breathtaking gesture, almost like Babe want you all to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Ruth pointing to the stands. He's convinced he can Amendment, cover up or anything else, if it'll save it, pull it off and make us believe that neither he nor Rose save the plan" passage in the tapes. It emerges from the Mary Woods had anything to do with erasing that smithy of RN's art as "my oblique way of confronting tape. the need to make a painful shift in our Watergate What he delivers is less an explication than an epic strategy." innuendo implying extended Secret Service conspir- Then there's his marvelous explication of the fam- acy and treason within the White House: ous March 21 "cancer on the Presidency" talk with I think we all wondered about the various Secret Service Dean, the one in which he repeatedly insisted he agents and technicians who had had free daily access to wanted to pay a million-dollar hush-money bribe to the tapes, and even about the Secret Service agents who

Friend." Problem: Felt did not have MELVIN LAIRD: good contacts, access. internal White House access. Problem: wouldn't he have told Ev- DEEP THROAT ans and Novak? FRED FIELDING: Dean's deputy. Hal- deman's candidate. Good access. CHARLES LICHENSTErN: candidate of FINALISTS Problem: doesn't fit the world-weary certain friends of Dave Gergen who man-of-many-battles Throat that were trying to convince writer Tay- BOB BENNETT: had big boom in '75 Woodstein depicts. lor Branch not to name Gergen as when tapped by Lukas and Kohn. All John Dean's Throat candidate. Was the right CIA-Hughes-RN connec- LEONARD GARMENT: a logieal choice, Dean Burch's deputy. Problem: con- tions. Problem: is a Mormon, and the liberal conscience of the Nixon vincing denial, too obscure. Woodward's Throat drinks scotch. White House—RN often complains of his softness. Problem: almost too RICHARD MOORE: close to RN inner : RN and obvious a suspect to have escaped circle, he had access, consulted with Haldeman suspect him of knowing detection. Dean over cover-up troubles. As arcane unrevealed secrets of Water- member, he shared gate. Had the right access. Problem: DAVE GERGEN: John Dean candidate secret society underground meeting why didn't he tell Woodstein about as of November 1976. Secret Society, place affinity with Yalie Woodward. the tapes (or would that have Yale residential college connection. Problem: no obvious motives. pointed the Deep Throat finger too Problem: convincing denial, Dean directly at him)? switched to someone else. HENRY PETERSEN: Ehrlichman's choice because of HP's Kennedy Jus- KEN CT-AWSON: former Past reporter; SEYMOUR GLANZER: if he was champ- tice background. Makes sense if Woodward-Sussman cross-refer- ing at the bit because of caution Throat is looked at as prosecutorial ences suggest him. Problem: flag- shown by eager-for-promotion fel- technique a la Absence of Malice: HP's waving RN loyalist. low prosecutor Silbert, he might hands are tied at the top, but he aims have tried an end run to the press to to spook out the truth by stirring up MARK FELT: according to Edward Jay prod his partner into greater vigor. press pressure. Problem: HP sounds Epstein, he's the candidate of the Problem: others have called Glanzer like RN dupe on White House tapes. Silbert-Glanzer prosecutorial team a Sy Hersh source. because Throat made one statement RAY PRICE speechwriter, ex-reporter about something only Felt could ALEXANDER HAIG: despite denials, old Nixon hand, but no friend of the have known. Bernstein is said to was clearly a major source for The Haldeman-Ehrlichman Dobermans . have spied the initials M. F. on Final Days. Problem: didn't have ac- Yale connection with Woodward. Woodward's Throat notes. Wood- cess to grand jury trivia on Segretti Problem: followed RN to Elba, ward claimed M. F. stood for "My that Throat apparently had. worked on memoirs.

22 THE NEW REPUBLIC had provided Rose with the new but apparently faulty had been with his plea for clemency. I told Ehrlichman Uher tape recorder just half an hour before she discovered that this was a painful message for me: 'I'd just put that the gap. We even wondered about Alex Butterfield, who in so that he knows that I have personal affection,' I had revealed the existence of the tape system.... But it said. 'That's the way the so-called clemency's got to be would have taken a very dedicated believer in con- handled.' " spiracies to accept that someone would have purposely erased 181/2 minutes of this particular tape in order to The single most tantalizing of these peeks into fu- embarrass me. ture revelations, however, is RN's teasing suggestion that he's got a hitherto unknown break-in in store for RN is just such a dedicated believer, and the more us, one that he personally ordered, presumably on you study RN, the more you realize just how dedicated tape. RN tells us that on Wednesday, June 21, 1972, he is. He suspected Watergate was a set-up from the with the cover-up still in its embryonic stage, he came first. Barely two weeks after the break-in, he was up with a bold counterattack proposal: "I said that entertaining "the possibility that we were dealing every time the Democrats accused us of bugging we with a double agent who purposely blew the opera- should charge that we were being bugged and maybe tion." even plant a bug and find it ourselves!" Indeed, RN is so preoccupied by the idea that he is He seems to have been mulling this idea over for ten the victim of the break-in and bugging of his oppo- days when, in a conversation with Colson for which nents that he repeatedly fantasizes that his own party RN feels compelled to offer a preemptive pre-tape- headquarters were bugged. He attributes to Haldeman, release explanation, he makes it sound as if he gave a in one of his "diary" entries right after the June 17 definite go-ahead order: "Colson and I talked about arrests, the story that "one of Chotiner's operatives the exaggerated publicity that was being given to the had said that a McGovern aide had told him that they break-in. In sheer exasperation I said it would help if had our committee rooms bugged." Curiously, he de- someone broke into our headquarters and did a lot of letes from his diary citation the name of this "Chotiner damage—then we could launch a counterattack. Col- operative" and that of the McGovern aide who con- son agreed.. .. " fessed to a Watergate-like crime against RN. RN seems to have an exclusive on this bombshell. HIS SOUNDS like the authentic RN. Two weeks RN's greatest strength as a buff is his generosity as a Tafter the Watergate break-in, he's champing at the guide to future 'Gate revelations—the ones destined to bit to order a break-in on himself to prove that his keep buffs busy for the next ten years of wallowing. break-in on his enemies was retroactively justified by RN's clues to what's in store take the form of elaborate the one he'd blame on them. Of course, no such break- denials of things he hasn't been accused of yet. When in at RN's campaign headquarters has been reported. one comes across one of these in the text of RN, one But would RN have brought up the subject in his senses that RN is signalling that there's a truly deli- memoirs and tried to excuse it ("in sheer exaspera- cious incriminating morsel on a tape he fears might be tion . ") in advance if the order did not sound serious released in the foreseeable future. on the yet-to-be-released tape? And it happens that not long after this conversation, NE OF THE BEST of these coming attractions is a break-in took place at the Long Beach office of RN's O the passage in which RN attempts to deny offer- former physician, Dr. John Lungren. ing clemency to about a year into According to RN, "No money or drugs were taken the cover-up. It's April 1973. RN is in the middle of his but my medical files were removed from a locked famous "personal investigation" of Watergate follow- closet and left strewn about the floor of the office." ing Dean's "cancer on the Presidency" talk. Magruder Note that RN's medical records were not removed is about .:o go back before the grand jury he lied to the from the office. And if the Lungren break-in team had summer before. If he tells the truth, he can put all the merely wanted to photograph the records, why leave President's men in jail and make a liar out of RN. them so conspicuously scattered around? From the Assured of clemency, however, he might be willing to description RN provides, it seems as if the only pur- risk continued protective perjury. And so, lurking pose of the Lungren break-in was to advertise the fact behind RN's unusually detailed account of a chat with that RN was the target. Such advertising comes in Ehrlichman back then, there must be a heretofore handy to RN. He cites it later as evidence that his unnoted offer of clemency to Magruder; and it's possi- enemies used the same tactics against him as he did in ble to glimpse in the pale fire of his preemptive having his men break into 's doctor's interpretation the reflected glare of the guilt he's office. The symmetry is so pleasing to RN that one trying to eclipse: "I had been thinking the night before wonders if he had a share in shaping it. RN seems not about Magruder's young children,"-RN tells us, saw- at all outraged that damage was done to his doctor's ing away at the heartstrings, "and about his wife. 'It office, only that just one network carried the news of breaks your heart,' I said. I thought back to Haldeman's the Lungren break-in while all three made a big deal comment two weeks before on how pathetic Magruder over a 1973 report of a break-in into JFK's doctor's

JUNE 23.1982 23 office during the 1960 campaign (another RN job?). just going to have to check it out further.' " Yes, while other investigators have retired from the Surprisingly, Haldeman has doubts about the good field, RN is still probing these baffling break-ins. faith of Inspector RN's continuing investigation: Haldeman provides us with a fascinating glimpse of And then I realized the situation. If Nixon had ordered Inspector RN at work on the Ellsberg break-in case. the break-in while in the Oval Office his order was Shortly after the November 1976 election (which preserved on tape. And those tapes might well become would soon put a Democratic Administration in public some day. Nixon was debating whether to reveal charge of the disputed storehouse of White House what he had really said in that office about the break-in or tapes), RN summoned Haldeman to San Clemente "to wait it out. It might be years before that particular tape probe my memory," Haldeman says. According to was unearthed. Haldeman, Inspector RN has been toying with the Now, it seems to me that this is an extremely unchar- hypothesis that he—RN himself—ordered the break- itable interpretation of Inspector RN's motives. If you in: "I was so damn mad at Ellsberg in those days. And recall, RN has told us that as soon as he heard the Henry was jumping up and down. I've been think- shocking news of a cover-up in the White House from ing—and maybe I did order that break-in." John Dean back in March 1973, he proceeded to launch But Inspector RN is not completely satisfied with his own intensive investigation of the entire affair. So this deft solution to the Ellsberg case. He'd called in this account of RN probing to see whether anyone Ellsberg operations chief , and Krogh told remembered him ordering the Ellsberg job is just an- him he didn't remember the President ordering him to other indication among many that after ten years, RN do it. "Again and again that afternoon Nixon returned is still on the case. And, at long last, he may be closing in to the subject," Haldeman recalls. "Finally he said, 'I'm on Mr. Big.

Tricky Dick had nothing on Honest Abe. How NIXON GOT STRUNG UP

BY NICHOLAS VON HOFFMAN

T HE TENTH ANNIVERSARY of the Watergate bur- an unreconstructed dark and ever shall be. But there is l. glary will be marked, celebrated, and observed by more to the Watergate saga than an ex-President's oh- liberals as the American version of Guy Fawkes Day, so-obvious dislikability. and by the minority of Republicans who still care as a Traveling back to the circumstances of January 1969, miscarriage of justice. Enough time has passed since when Nixon was sworn in, you have to wonder if any that silly band of ex-CIA Cubano-Americano hysterics man coming into office then could have escaped with broke into the offices of the Democratic National his hide intact. The remarkable thing is not that Nixon Committee and precipitated our only Presidential res- was thrown out of office but that it took the best part of ignation to do a bit of detached beard pulling. It's still six years, a landslide reelection included, before he too early for the historians to take over, but not too was given the gate. The man faced a problem which soon to dispense with the erroneous view that the might have defeated a loved and inspirational figure. exiled President was our second Benedict Arnold, the Nixon was the first American President since Lin- greatest traitor to the Constitution we've ever had. We coln to guide the nation through a war that funda- need to drop the notion that the defenestration of mentally divided the ruling classes. Lyndon Johnson Richard Nixon saved the Republic, and we need to take got out in time to suffer no more than a high degree of a fresh look at those events, because they tell us much denunciation. It was only when Nixon took office that about our political system and processes. the prestigious props and stays of every wartime Presi- Before proceeding to the argument, a personal di- dent began to bend and snap in great numbers. Har- gression, please. What follows is not Nixon revision- vard, that ivied nursery of cold war managers, gave the ism. I yield to no one in my abiding belief in Mr. new President Henry Kissinger and then began to Nixon's quintessential nerdliness. Old Swoop Nose is back away from policies that the most distinguished

24 THE NEW REPUBLIC 01q: 2- 151 RR 715 if?2-