12 liTHE SMOKING GUN" IN the previously accepted version of Watergate history, June 23, 1972, is the day on which the event occurred that would eventually sink the Nixon presidency, an event chronicled on a White House tape known as "the smoking gun." This tape was concealed by the White House for some time after many other taped conversations in the Oval Office and Nixon's EOB office had been released in written form to Congress and the press, and was only forced out by a decision of the Supreme Court in the summer of 1974; shortly after it had become public knowledge, Nixon resigned. The reason for the long conceal- ment seemed immediately obvious: On this tape, the president is heard directing the obstruction of justice by instructing Haldeman to have the CIA impede the FBI's investigation into the Watergate burglary. Since the tape contains the discussion of the problem, the acknowledg- ment that there is no reason to deter the investigation other than political expediency, and the issuance of the order, the tape is a "smoking gun," that is, in police and prosecutorial slang, direct evi- dence of criminal guilt. What has not been understood until now is that the Nixon remarks 195 196 GOLDEN BOY on the smoking gun tape are the products of John Dean's deceptions that tricked Haldeman and Nixon into joining a conspiracy to obstruct justice. As we have seen in earlier chapters, by June 22 Dean had already constructed his big lie to conceal his instigation of the Watergate burglary, and had begun to cover all traces of his involvement in events prior to June 17. At 8: 15 A.M. on Friday, June 23, the phone on Bob Haldeman's desk rang, startling him a bit, since he generally expected no calls before a regular, early morning meeting with the president. John Dean was on the line. As Haldeman recounted in his book The Ends of Power, in that conversation Dean told him that the FBI was "out of control," and that Acting Director Gray "doesn't know what the hell to do, as usual," because one check in Bernard Barker's account bore the signature of Kenneth Dahlberg and others had come from a Mexican bank that the FBI already had found. "They'll know who the depositors are today," Dean warned Haldeman, who responded sarcastically that this was "great news." Haldeman made notes on a pad (which he later used to reconstruct this conversation) as Dean continued on to tell him that "our problem now is to stop the FBI from opening up a whole lot of other things," especially the names of contributors who had been guaranteed anonymity. Mitchell and Stans, Dean said, "are really worried about that," and "they say we have to turn off that investigation of the Mexican bank fast, before they [the FBI] open up everything and spread this mess a lot wider than it is." Having softened up Haldeman with the bad news-and, indeed, it was alarming news that could adversely affect the outcome of the president's bid for reelection-Dean now offered Haldeman a lifeline, telling him, Haldeman wrote in his book, that the FBI "is convinced" that the people behind the break-in were the CIA, and that "Gray has been looking for a way out of this mess. I spoke to Mitchell, and he and I agree the thing to do is for you to tell Walters [Deputy Director of the CIA General Vernon Walters] that we don't know where the Mexican investigation is going to lead. Have him talk to Gray-and maybe the CIA can turn off the FBI down there in Mexico." (Italics added for emphasis.) In an interview, Haldeman recalled that conversation, in which Dean not only said he had spoken with Mitchell but that ''Mitchell had suggested" calling in the CIA, and that Dean had simply "concurred on it." (Italics added for emphasis.) Thus was the idea planted in Haldeman's mind and the responsibil- ity for the suggestion affixed to John Mitchell. The chain of logic was "The Smoking Gun" 197 most powerful: use the CIA to block the FBI so that the FBI would not stumble upon and publicize the politically explosive fact that the burglary had been committed with money given to the eRP that had been laundered. Dean was able to sell Haldeman on the idea principally because he lied on two most important points. First, he embellished what Gray had told him on the twenty-second, picking out of a grab bag of theories being developed by the FBI the one that could be best used to shut down or at least to hinder seriously its investigation. Second, and more important, he invoked "John Mitchell" to mask a desperate need to cover his own misdeeds. John Dean was able to use Mitchell's name with impunity because he understood the president's confidence in the former attorney gen- eral, and because Dean himself was believed at the White House to be a Mitchell man. Since Dean had worked at Justice, he was thought to be in Mitchell's own confidence, even a Mitchell protege-which he was not. In fact, Dean did not even speak to Mitchell on the twenty-second, nor on the morning of the twenty-third. Before going into the events of the twenty-third, and the tape itself, let's examine this crucial point. In Dean's own later testimony to the Senate Watergate committee, he dated his supposed conversation with Mitchell as having taken place on the afternoon of the twenty-third or the twenty-fourth, well after the conversation recorded on the "smok- ing gun" tape had occurred. But Dean testified to the committee before the White House's taping system itself had become known to the committee, and a year before the "smoking gun" tape was made public, and thus could not have known that evidence on the tape could ever be used to refute his story oj having been uninvolved. When that evidence became available, after Dean had finished his jail sentence and was writing Blind Ambition, he sidestepped the whole issue, lest it come back to haunt him. In that book, Dean did not even mention the all- important conversation with Mitchell to which he had testified, or the conception and transmittal of an idea that had such a devastating effect on the presidency. In a recent interview after the death of John Mitchell, we asked Dean four times to explain the inconsistency between his testimony and the "smoking gun" tape. He could not. First, he tried to tell us it was a matter of dates, on which "it could well be that my memory is wrong. I don't know. I don't want to go back and try to figure this out; it doesn't affect my life a second." When we pointed out that there was no discussion of the supposed Mitchell conversation or the tape of the 198 GOLDEN BOY twenty-third in his book, he responded, "I'm sure there's a lot of things that are not in the book," and pleaded that he was no longer able to fix his mind on what had happened in those days. On a third try, Dean did acknowledge that the issue of CIA involvement in Watergate and a meeting with Mitchell had been raised by the Watergate prosecutors, but that he had said then, "Guys, this is the way I remember it and, you know, that's all lean tell you." When asked a fourth time if he recognized the seriousness of having accused Mitchell of counseling that the CIA obstruct the FBI, Dean was unable to address the point at all, suggesting only that we not rely on his current memory, which was spotty, and instead go back to his testimony and book. "People can pick at it," he said, referring to the testimony, but he still stood by it. We recently asked Haldeman about the contradictions between the tape and Dean's statements. After reviewing our evidence, Haldeman told us, "I don't know how he [Dean] can deny that he fabricated Mitchell's involvement in his conversation with me on the morning of the twenty-third ... The implications are grave for everything he said about Watergate." Wasn't Dean taking an incredible chance that Halde- man would not check with Mitchell before seeing the president? "He knew I wasn't checking with Mitchell on any of this stuff. It wasn't an incredible chance, really," Haldeman allowed. Dean knew, Haldeman added, that "Whatever reports I got [on Watergate] I got from Dean." As for Mitchell himself, the former attorney general told us that "Dean's whole gambit" was "to drop my name wherever he found it could work." Mitchell has always denied any conversation with Dean in which he counseled or condoned the use of the CIA to deter an FBI investigation. Mitchell's logs of meetings and phone conversations confirm this. On the twenty-second, he had called Dean at 11: 15 in the morning, but had not connected with him. That evening Mitchell left his office at 7:05 P.M., went home to his apartment accompanied by LaRue, and had no telephone conversations before an early bedtime. Next morning at 8: 15, when Dean was selling the idea to Haldeman and invoking Mitchell's name, Mitchell was at the White House for his first meeting of the day, and had had no opportunity to speak to Dean before it.