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that the issue of the payments to the Watergate defendants and Haldeman's role in this and other matters were being investigated by the Grand Jury. (WHT 994–95)

On April 25, 1973, the President directed Haldeman to listen to the tape of the March 21 conversation with Dean. (Book IX, 108, 114) Dean had been speaking to the prosecutors during April; Haldeman in listening to the tapes would be able to prepare a strategy for meeting whatever disclosures Dean might make.

On April 25, 1973, pursuant to the President's direction, Haldeman requested and received twenty-two tapes of Presidential conversations during February, March and April 1973. (Book IX, 108, 114-15, 123) On the afternoon of April 25, 1973, Haldeman listened to the March 21, 1973 morning conversation. In listening to the recording of this meeting, Haldeman made twenty pages of detailed notes on its contents. (Book IX, 116) At 4:40 p.m. on April 25, 1973, Haldeman met with the President and reported to him on the contents of the tape. (Book IV, 1558, 1562) The President instructed Haldeman to listen to the March 21 tape again. (Book IX, 118, 126)

The meeting between the President and Haldeman on April 25, 1973 ended at 5:35 p.m. (Book IV, 1558) Two minutes later, at 5:37 p.m., Petersen entered and met with the President for more than an hour. (Book IV, 1618) The President did not inform Petersen of the taping system, the contents of the March 21, 1973 tape, or of the fact that Haldeman had been directed to listen to it and had done so that very day. (Petersen testimony, 3 HJC 102)

On April 26, 1973, Haldeman again received the group of tapes, including the March 21 tape. (Book IV, 1560, 1563) He listened again to the March 21 tape and reported to the President. (Book IX, 119-21) On April 26, 1973, Haldeman and the President met for more than five hours.26 (Book IX, 126) Haldeman's review and his meeting with the President also were not reported to Petersen.

XI

APRIL 27, 1973, MEETINGS WITH PETERSEN

On April 27, 1973, the President met twice with Petersen. (Book IV, 1633) They discussed the Grand Jury investigation and the President's concern about rumors that Dean was implicating the President in the Watergate matter. (WHT 1257-93) Petersen assured the President that he had told the prosecutors that they had no mandate to investigate the President. (WHT 1259) In this context, and one day after discussing with Haldeman the contents of the March 21 tape, the President made the following statement to Petersen about his conversation with Dean about the payment to Hunt:

... let me tell you the only conversations we ever had with him, was that famous March 21st conversation I told you about, where he told me about Bittman coming to him. No, the Bittman request for $120,000 for Hunt. And I then finally began to get at them. I explored with him thoroughly, "Now what the hell is this for?" He said, "It's because he's blackmailing Ehrlichman.”

26 On May 30, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the tape recordings and other materials related to the conversations of April 25, 1973 and April 26,1973. The President refused to produce these recordings. (Book IX, 1036, 1060-64)

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Remember I said that's what it's about. And Hunt is going to recall the seamy side of it. And I asked him, "Well how would you get it? How would you get it to them?" so forth. But my purpose was to find out what the hell had been going on before. And believe me, nothing was approved. I mean as far as I'm concerned-as far as I'm concerned turned it off totally. (WHT 1259)

At his second meeting with Petersen on April 27, 1973, the President provided Petersen with another version of the events occurring on March 21 and March 22, 1973:

Dean. You will get Dean in there. Suppose he starts trying to impeach the President, the words of the President of the United States and says, "Well, I have information to the effect that I once discussed with the President the question of how the possibility, of the problem," of this damn Bittman stuff I spoke to you about last time. Henry, it won't stand up for five minutes because, nothing was done, and fortunately I had Haldeman at that conversation and he was there and I said, "Look, I tried to give you this, this, this, this, this, and this." And I said, "When you finally get it out, it won't work. Because, I said, "First, you can't get clemency to Hunt." I mean, I was trying to get it out. To try to see what that Dean had been doing. I said, "First you can't give him clemency." Somebody has thrown out something to the effect that Dean reported that Hunt had an idea that he was going to get clemency around Christmas. I said, “Are you kidding? You can't get clemency for Hunt. You couldn't even think about it until, you know, '75 or something like that." Which you could, then because of the fact, that you could get to the-ah-But nevertheless, I said you couldn't give clemency. I said, "The second point to remember is 'How are you going to get the money for them?' If you could do it, I mean you are talking about a million dollars." I asked him-well, I gave him several ways. I said, "You couldn't put it through a Cuban Committee could you?" I asked him, because to me he was sounding so damned ridiculous. I said, "Well under the circumstances," I said, "There isn't a damn thing we can do." I said, "It looks to me like the problem is John Mitchell." Mitchell came down the next day and we talked about executive privilege. Nothing else. Now, that's the total story. And-so Dean— I just want you to be sure that if Dean ever raises the thing, you've got the whole thing. You've got that whole thing. Now kick him straight." (WHT 1278–79)

XII

CONCLUSION

After March 21, 1973, the President acted to avoid the indictment of Haldeman, Ehrlichman and others at the White House by concealing what he knew about their involvement in Watergate and the cover-up, by personally misleading Attorney General Kleindienst and Assistant Attorney General Petersen, by personally obtaining information from Petersen in order to convey that information to subjects of investigation, by personally planning false and misleading explanations for Haldeman and Ehrlichman, by personally urging Petersen not to grant immunity to Dean in order to make it more difficult for the Department of Justice to build a case against Haldeman and Ehrlichman, by personally directing the coaching of witnesses corruptly using information in preparing a defense strategy, and by personally instructing witnesses to give untrue testimony.

THE PRESIDENT'S INTERFERENCE WITH THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ACTIVITIES

I

INTRODUCTION

The President's strategy in March and April, 1973, was not only directed at blocking the investigation by the Department of Justice, but also at narrowing and thwarting the hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (SSC).

II.

POLICY TOWARD SSC PRIOR TO MARCH 21, 1973

On February 7, 1973, the SSC was established by unanimous vote of the Senate to investigate 1972 Presidential campaign fundraising practices, the Watergate break-in and the concealment of evidence relating to the break-in. (Book III, 522-25).

On February 10 and 11, 1973, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Dean and Special Counsel to the President Richard Moore met at La Costa, California to discuss strategy to deal with the proposed SSC hearings. The President wanted to know what strategy should be adopted on executive privilege and other similar matters. The meetings lasted between 8 and 14 hours. (Book III, 536) The President decided that CRP rather than the White House would take primary responsibility for the defense on Watergate-related matters and that John Mitchell should be asked to coordinate activities. (Book III, 546) They discussed possible dilatory tactics with respect to the SSC hearings, such as monetary assistance to the attorneys for the Watergate defendants in seeking judicial delay of the hearings. They agreed Moore would go to New York to speak to Mitchell about the group's discussions and Mitchell's role in preparing for the hearings. (Book III, 539–40)

On February 28, 1973, the Senate Judiciary Committee opened its hearings on the nomination of L. Patrick Gray to be FBI Director. The Gray hearings focused on the initial FBI investigation of Watergate and especially upon the actions of Gray and Dean. During the hearings, committee members discussed Dean's being called to explain his receipt and use of FBI files during the investigation.

Prior to February 27, 1973, and again in the first week of March, Dean explained to Ehrlichman that the President would not be able to assert executive privilege with respect to Dean because Dean had so little personal contact with him. (Book III, 598-604, 610–11) On February 27. the President met with Dean and directed him to assume responsibility for Watergate-related matters. (Book III, 600, 608) On February 28, 1973, the President instructed Dean that his staff

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would not testify before the SSC or the Senate Judiciary Committee, but would answer written interrogatories. The President directed Dean to tell Attorney General Kleindienst, who was to meet with Senator Ervin, about the President's policy as to executive privilege. The President said ". . . our position is written interrogatories, which they will never probably accept, but it may give us a position, I mean it'd be reasonable in the public mind." (HJCT 20) The President told Dean to tell Attorney General Kleindienst, "you keep it at your level; don't say the President told you to say. ... [T]his is the position, Dick, you should take." (HJCT 26)

In a March 2, 1973 news conference the President stated that Dean's investigation showed that no member of the White House staff had knowledge of or was involved in Watergate. (Book III, 745) The President asserted executive privilege for Dean and said that he would not allow Dean to testify before any congressional committee. When asked if he would change that position in light of allegations of illegality and impropriety against Dean, the President said he would answer that question when the issue arose. The President also promised to provide a statement on executive privilege. (Book III, 746)

The President and Dean met nineteen times in March, at the President's request; they had not met at all in the months from December, 1972 to February 27, 1973, had never before met alone, and had been together on only nine occasions since January, 1972. (Book III, 969-75) On March 6 and 7 the President and Dean discussed executive privilege guidelines that would cover former as well as present White House personnel. (Book III, 756, 761) On March 10 the President told Dean the statement on executive privilege should be released before Dean was called as a witness by the Senate Judiciary Committee so that it would not appear to be issued in response to the Gray hearings. (Book III, 786-87, 791)

On March 12, 1973, the President issued his policy statement on executive privilege. The statement said that executive privilege would not be used to prevent disclosure of embarassing information and would be invoked only in "the most compelling circumstances where disclosure would harm the public interest...." (Book III, 796)

On March 13, 1973, the President, Haldeman and Dean discussed listing Colson and Chapin, both of whom had left the White House, as private "consultants" to the President so that they could continue to claim executive privilege with respect to the future communications with the White House regarding Watergate:

HALDEMAN. Say, did you raise the question with the President on, on, uh, Colson as a consultant?

DEAN. No, I didn't.

HALDEMAN. Was that somebody [unintelligible]?

DEAN. It was the thought was—

PRESIDENT. [Unintelligible]

DEAN. well [unintelligible] it's a consultant without doing any consulting— Yeah.

HALDEMAN. He wanted it [unintelligible]

DEAN. He wants it for continued protection on, uh

HALDEMAN. Solely for the purpose of, of executive privilege protection. So

that

DEAN. One of those things that's kept down in the personnel office, and nothing's done on it.

PRESIDENT. What happens to Chapin?

DEAN. Well, Chapin doesn't have quite the same problems appearing that Colson will.

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HALDEMAN. Yeah but-you have the same, you, you have the same problems as Chapin appearing versus Colson.

PRESIDENT. Well, can't-That would be such an obvious fraud to have both of them as consultants, that that won't work. I think he's right. Uh, you'd have to leave Chapin—

HALDEMAN. Well, you can't make Chapin a consultant, I—we've already said he's not.

PRESIDENT. Yeah.

DEAN. Yeah. (HJCT 47)1

Haldeman suggested that the consulting agreement be back dated to the previous Saturday, so that Colson's relationship with the President would be continuous. (HJCT 48)

On March 13, 1973, during his meeting with the President, Dean discussed his role in the cover-up (HJCT 50–51); the perjury of Strachan, Magruder, and Porter (HJCT 67, 71): Segretti's activities. and their supervision by Chapin (HJCT 50, 74-75); Colson's relationship with Hunt (HJČT 70-71); and Kalmbach's fundraising and campaign contributions activities. (H.JCT 50) On March 15, the President reiterated his refusal to allow Dean to testify at the Gray hearings, claiming there was "a double privilege, the lawyer-client relationship, as well as the Presidential privilege." (Book III, 899)

On March 20, 1973, the President asked Dean to prepare a general statement about the involvement of White House staff members in Watergate. The President wanted to refute charges that executive privilege was part of the cover-up. The President explained to Dean:

You've got to have something where it doesn't appear that I am doing this in, you know, just in a—saying to hell with the Congress and to hell with the people, we are not going to tell you anything because of Executive Privilege. That, they don't understand. But if you say, "No, we are willing to cooperate," and you've made a complete statement, but make it very incomplete. (WHT 168; Book III, 987)

On the afternoon of March 21, 1973, the President held another extensive discussion of using the report to be drafted by Dean to mislead and divert the SSC's inquiry into the Watergate matter. (HJCT 132, 136-39, 143-44) The Dean report was to describe generally the White House investigation of Watergate and to minimize the involvement of White House personnel. (See Deception and Concealment, p. 82.) At the afternoon meeting on March 21, Ehrlichman said that the Dean report might have the effect of reducing the scope of the SSC inquiry.

... the big danger in the Ervin hearings, as I see it, is that they will, they will run out, uh, leads into areas that, that it would be better not to have to get into. But, uh, if, uh, Baker, you know, under his direction-Uh, and if you could put out a basic document that would, uh, define a limited set of issues, uh, even if you, you don't try to concentrate on target, you just might have something. . . . (HJCT 132)

III

POLICY AFTER MARCH 21, 1973

On March 22, 1973, Mitchell came to Washington for a meeting with the President, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Dean to develop a

1 Colson testified that sometime around March 8 or 9, 1973, he discussed with Dean and Haldeman the possibility of being retained as a White House consultant. He further testified that he signed a consulting agreement either at the time he left the White House (March 10, 1973) or shortly thereafter. (Colson testimony, 3 HJC 322)