Watergate by Jules Archer

Author:Jules Archer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Published: 2015-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

In May 1974, Jeb Stuart Magruder was sentenced to the Federal prison at Allenwood, Pennsylvania.

Mitchell retreats from his own earlier sworn denial that he knew in advance about the Watergate break-in. He now blames the White House for authorizing it. Dean implicates him, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Magruder in the cover-up, to Silbert.

“It’s all over…. A lot of people are going to jail,” Magruder tells Porter dejectedly. “Mitchell, LaRue, Mardian, myself, Dean, Colson, Strachan and maybe Haldeman. Silbert may indict you.”

“The Watergate, the Watergate,” moans Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. “It’s beginning to be like Teapot Dome. I mean, there’s a smell to it. Let’s get rid of the smell.”

Even hard-line Nixon loyalist Ronald Reagan admits, “Watergate is starting to hurt. People are disturbed.”

On April 14 the president, Ehrlichman, and Haldeman hold anxious consultations. Ehrlichman reports that Colson wants Nixon to tell Liddy to talk: “He wants you to be able to say afterward that you cracked the case.” New “scenarios” are discussed to explain away the incriminating evidence that the Watergate prosecutors and the Senate investigating staff are now hearing.

Nixon’s aides suggest that payments were made to Hunt not to keep him silent but out of compassion for his motherless children. “That’s right …,” agrees the president. “That’s got to be the story.”

Ehrlichman wants Mitchell told that “the jig is up” and that he must go to the prosecutors and accept responsibility for the Watergate break-in. Then a press release is to be issued stating, as Ehrlichman phrases it, “‘Charges of cover-up by the White House were materially dispelled by the diligent efforts of the president and his aides in moving on evidence which came to their hands … the previous week.’”

“I’ll buy that,” says the president.

He agrees with Ehrlichman’s view that if a “big fish” is offered as a sacrifice, the demands for full disclosure may be quieted. Ehrlichman points out another useful purpose Mitchell’s indictment would serve: “Mitchell’s lawyers are going to somehow move to stop the Ervin hearing … on the point that they can’t [otherwise] get a fair trial.”

Segretti, who had surfaced after election day, is now scheduled to testify about his dirty tricks campaign before a Florida grand jury. The president wonders whether it’s better to “stonewall” Segretti’s testimony or concede it. “Well,” Ehrlichman points out, “we’ve got the option of caving [in] at any time.”

Ehrlichman says that the president must convince the nation he didn’t just sweep the truth about Watergate under the rug, but took action after having Ehrlichman investigate and report the facts. Nixon muses, “Now, in the scenario I sort of go out and tell people I have done this.”

Summoning Mitchell from New York, Ehrlichman reveals that the president has decided he must step forward and make his admission to the prosecutors. But Mitchell demurs, “There is no way I am going to do anything except staying where I am because I’m too far out…. I got euchred into this thing by not paying attention to what those—were doing.”

He makes it clear that he has no intention of being the fall guy for the White House.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.