Unidentified Leg Found in Bomb Rubble
When the Pentagon Papers were leaked in 1971, Richard Nixon initially wasn’t all that concerned.
But that was before Secretary of State Henry Kissenger complained to the president that the leaks were compromising secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese.
And that could’ve jeopardized Nixon’s re-election.
Dean says this is when Nixon began ordering break-ins. Dean learned about one such plan from an underling who had just come to him from former White House Counsel Chuck Colson’s office.
“And he said, ‘Chuck had asked me to firebomb the Brookings Institute.’"
"I said, ‘What?'"
“He said, ‘He thinks I should firebomb the Brookings Institute. When the fire department is responding it’ll be a diversion. And I’m to send a safecracker in to break into the safe at the Brookings and get out the Pentagon Papers.’”
Dean thought the plan was absurd. And he also knew there was no point arguing with Colson. So he went straight to his superior and top Nixon aide John Ehrlichman.
“He was in San Clemente, I jumped on the next plane, flew out there, told him of this," Dean said. "And he simply picked up the phone, called Chuck Colson, and said, ‘Young Counsel Dean is out here, doesn’t think the Brookings plan is a very good one, Chuck. Cancel it.’ Turned to me and said, ‘Anything else, Counselor?’ I said, ‘No, that’ll handle it.’”
As it turned out, Colson wasn’t the originator of the idea.
“It isn’t until years later when the tapes come out," Dean says, "That I learn the order for the break-in really came from Richard Nixon, who is at one point literally pounding on the desk, saying, ‘I want a break-in! I want it yesterday, nobody’s exercising, nobody’s following through.’”
Dean’s adamant that Nixon didn’t directly order the Watergate break-in. But he also says that outbursts like that made it clear to the staff what was expected.
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (1976)
John Dean, the President's former counsel had been fired on April 30 and was now busily leaking stories all over Washington about the Watergate scandal. Some of them hinted that the President was involved in the cover-up. Dean seemed to have some record of White House misdeeds; he told Judge John Sirica that he had removed certain documents from the White House to protect them from "illegitimate destruction". Dean had put them in a safe-deposit box and given the keys to the judge. The New York Times, also citing anonymous informers, said that one of its sources "suggested that Mr. Dean may have tape-recorded some of his White House conversations".
William Sullivan, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI (1979)
"I suppose the Kennedys did that kind of thing with Hoover," Dean said. I told him truthfully that the Kennedys had been so wary of Hoover that they never used the FBI at all if they could help it. Dean didn't look as if he believed me. "What about Johnson?" he asked quickly.
Once again I answered truthfully. "Compared to Lyndon Johnson," I told him, "the current administration is spartan in its use of the FBI." Dean's tongue was practically hanging out of his mouth as I talked. I couldn't tell him about every one of Johnson's illegal uses of the FBI-DeLoach was the one who could - but I could tell him enough. I told him about the FBI surveillance I'd helped to set up on Madame Chennault. I told him how Johnson had praised Hoover and the FBI for keeping tabs on Bobby Kennedy at the Democratic convention in Atlantic City by tapping Martin Luther King's phone. I told him about the behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing done by LBJ, Abe Fortas, and Deke DeLoach after Walter Jenkins was arrested in Washington, and I told Dean that Johnson had asked the FBI to dig up derogatory information on Senator Fulbright and other Democratic senators who had attacked Johnson's policies. Of course, the FBI wasn't chartered to do that kind of work, but Hoover loved to help his friends - and those he wished were his friends.
Dean asked if I would write a confidential memo for "White House use only" detailing some examples of previous illegal political use of the FBI. He didn't tell me, and I certainly never guessed, that Dean would give the "confidential information I'd supplied to the Watergate prosecutors. I did realize, though, that I could be heading into stormy waters, so I told Dean I'd send the memo, but that I'd only write about events that I would be willing to testify to publicly. Dean readily agreed.
Then he sat back in his chair and said, "I'd like you to write a second memo after you've done that one. I'd like to pick your brains. You've been around Washington for years, and I'd like your opinion on how we should cope with the situation we have with the Plumbers."
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