The Nation: The Evidence: Fitting the Pieces Together

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Also on April 14 Ehrlichman, at Nixon's request, taped a conversation with Mitchell. The apparent purpose: to get Mitchell to admit that he had approved the Watergate break-in and engineered the original coverup, and thus take the heat off the White House. Mitchell took a commercial flight to Washington that afternoon. Ehrlichman quickly ushered him into his office without giving him a chance to see the President. Also, Ehrlichman pulled a chair close to his desk so that Mitchell would be close to the hidden microphone.

Nixon, Ehrlichman said, would get the credit if Mitchell would only confess his guilt to the U.S. Attorney. But Mitchell proved to be too shrewd to say anything that would incriminate himself. According to a transcript of his conversation, he denied his own guilt and accused the White House of responsibility. "Well let me tell you where I stand," he told Ehrlichman. "Uh, there is no way that I'm going to do anything except staying where I am because I'm too far, uh, far out. Uh, the fact of the matter is that, uh, I got euchred into this thing, when I say, by not paying attention to what those bastards were doing, and uh, well, you know how far back this goes . . . this . . . whole genesis of this thing was over here—as you're perfectly aware."

That put Ehrlichman, who knew the meeting was being recorded, on the immediate defensive. "No, I didn't know that," he replied.

Some Light On the Origins

The Judiciary Committee evidence shed a bit of light on the origins of Watergate by recounting some of the practices, power relationships and internal rivalries in the Nixon political camp during the months before the break-in and coverup. What is clear is that the White House kept the tightest control over even the smallest details of President Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign.

The control was exercised by Haldeman. He gave his orders to Strachan, his liaison at the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, who is currently under indictment for covering up the Watergate burglary. A lot of ordinary and extraordinary campaign decisions were made through a long series of "Political Matter" memos that Haldeman got from Strachan; Haldeman indicated a preferred course of action in specific situations by placing the initial H next to an alternative.