All the President's Men

The next piece of the story comes from an unsolicited tip provided by Alex Shipley. Tips have become increasingly common as the Post’s reporting become the topic of most American conversations. However, these tips are almost always useless; many want the Post to prove their pet theories regarding the Martin Luther King and John Kennedy assassinations, or to connect Watergate to any number of other tangential news items. Shipley, on the other hand, has a story to tell. A lawyer by training, Shipley spent time working as counsel in the Army Judge Advocate General’s office. A short time after his retirement, sometime in mid-1971, Shipley was approached by one of his old Army colleagues, Donald Segretti, who said that he was recruiting lawyers for an unusual campaign operation. The project was an effort to disrupt and derail the primary campaigns of leading democratic candidates like Ted Kennedy and Edmund Muskie by playing “dirty tricks” on their campaign staff. For example, an operative might pose as an agent for the Kennedy campaign and tell a Kennedy supporter to infiltrate a different democratic campaign to obtain intelligence. If the information was good, it could be given to the Nixon administration. If it was bad or if the was agent found out, they would simply ruin the arrangement and make the Kennedy campaign look bad in the process. In another example, Segretti proposed calling in threats of protests or violence to venues where Democratic candidates were to speak in the hopes that venue owners would cancel appearances at the last minute. The purpose of these games was to create a Democratic primary so angry, acrimonious, and filled with mutual suspicion that the party would be unable to rally around any nominee. To finance this operation, Shipley was told “There would be as much money as needed. I was promised the pie in the sky […] expenses plus salary” (70). Segretti also made no secret that this was to be done in support of the Nixon campaign. Indeed, Segretti targeted Southern Democratic lawyers who had served with him in the Army, a demographic he felt would feel disenchanted with the radical direction that Segretti felt the party was moving in. Lawyers were another key, as Segretti hoped his operation would flirt on the boundary of legality. Segretti also proudly proclaimed that he had learned this trick from the CIA, where it was called a “mindfuck” operation, though members of his team called it “ratfucking” (70).

Shipley’s loyalty to the Democrats ran too deeply to join Segretti’s dirty tricks squad, and he eagerly turns over Segretti’s contact information to the reporters. In following up on the dirty tricks squad, Bernstein has a disturbing conversation with a Justice Department lawyer. The lawyer claims that CRP and Mitchell were in charge of implementing the dirty tricks strategy, not creating it. The implication is that the reelection strategy went directly to the top; as Nixon said in 1970, “When I am the candidate, I run the campaign” (79). Woodward contacts Deep Throat to follow up on this claim. In a wide-ranging conversation, Deep Throat confirms the lawyer’s claims and more. He suggests that in the immediate aftermath of the botched break-in, Mitchell was tasked with conducting a true investigation of CRP’s activities. What he found were dozens of dirty tricks squads and as many as 50 paid agents conducting operations that even CRP was unaware of. The scope of this strategy is clearly well beyond what the Post reporters had considered, and even what was known to the people supposedly controlling the spy ring. In response to the investigation, Howard Hunt is fired from CRP by John Ehrlichman. Ehrlichman is a significant connection because unlike many who have been connected to Watergate before, Ehrlichman is an important member of the President’s staff in the White House. Moreover, Ehrlichman’s close relationship with Nixon’s chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, is well known and often mythologized by Washington press; the two men are of German decent and are collective referred to in the papers as the “Berlin Wall.” The revelations are vital, confirming what the reporters have long suspected: The break-in was part of a substantial dirty tricks plot, and it was coordinated at the highest levels by very senior members of the White House and maybe the President himself.

This chapter begins by expanding on the dirty tricks scheme. Like with the Shipley story, this development comes from an unexpected source: Marilyn Berger, a veteran fellow reporter for the Post who worked on national security and State Department. Berger says that Ken Clawson, a former reporter for the Post who quit in 1971 to join the White House, came over to her apartment for drinks. During the course of their chat, he bragged to her that he forged the Canuck letter, a racially charged memo that destroyed the candidacy of then promising Democratic candidate Edmund Muskie. Clawson further defended the letter, saying that while he had been an honest reporter, now that he was working for the White House politics had different rules (84). What mattered more was loyalty to the president, not to any norm or institution. Woodward and Bernstein write a story based on the conversation and then call Clawson for comment. He flatly denies the report, but immediately afterwards Clawson calls Berger and demands she recant portions of the story. Interestingly, he is more concerned with the context of the call—drinks alone in Berger’s apartment—than with the substance of the claims. Clawson pleads, “Marilyn, I have a wife and family and a dog and a cat” (86). She responds saying, “it’s incredible that you [are so upset] about that when this other thing is really substantive” (86). Clawson’s concerns are misplaced, though, because for Ben Bradlee and the other Post editors, the real concern with the story is the source, Berger herself. While Berger is a reporter with impeccable credentials and a long record of solid reporting, the nature of Clawson’s story makes her a key component of the story in a way that muddles the line between the Post’s reporters and the story they are working on. It also opens up the Post to impropriety, and to some it might suggest that the paper is pursuing a personal crusade against the White House rather than acting as a neutral and impartial actor. To Nixon’s defenders, the role of Berger in the story might suggest some kind of entrapment or otherwise invalidate the reporting. The Clawson story is worked into the other reporting on the connection between CRP and the White House, and the exact nature of the revelations are concealed to the relief of both Clawson and the newsroom. The incident, though, highlights just how sensitive the Post is to the reception of its stories. Its caution will soon be proven wise.

In following up on the topic of anti-Muskie dirty tricks, the reporters identify a number of curious incidents at campaign events. Campaign representatives are eager to blame them on the Nixon campaign, but there is not enough evidence to write a story on these tricks. The investigation does produce one more interesting clue regarding the FBI investigation. Various sources, including Deep Throat, make it clear that the FBI’s investigation uncovered many of the connections that Woodward and Bernstein are now developing. Sources in many cases confirm that they told the FBI about their relationship to mid-level White House officials, and yet the FBI had seemed disinterested in following up on even the most obvious and explicit references (95). Instead, it seems that the Justice Department consciously decided to limit its investigation to the Watergate break-in, the burglars, and their direct handlers. Bradlee considers the accusation of an FBI coverup too strong to be supported by existing evidence—though with hindsight it was correct—and so it is not published in the story. The stakes, however, are once again raised as it becomes clear that they are publishing stories that would otherwise never receive attention or comment.

The stories about Segretti’s dirty trick squads and its connection to White House officials batters the doors of the Oval Office itself. In response the administration declares war on the Washington Post and its reporters. Instead of refuting the facts of the story, the White House press secretary, Ronald Ziegler, focuses on attacking the credibility of the reporting. Ziegler suggests in a press conference that because the Post’s stories heavily feature anonymous sources they should be treated more as office gossip put out by disgruntled employees. About the content of the stories, Ziegler resorts to whataboutism, a logical fallacy in which an accused party attempts to distract from their wrongdoing by accusing the other party of a similar act and thus painting them hypocrites. Why, Ziegler wonders, did the Post choose to investigate an insignificant incident in which 200 pizzas were falsely sent to a Muskie rally when it could have been investigating vandalism perpetrated against Nixon campaign offices (100)? Because, he speculates, the Post was a part of a last-ditch effort by Democratic nominee George McGovern to discredit the Nixon administration and cast doubt on the validity of the President’s reelection. Additional Nixon surrogates, including sitting senators, pick up the attacks on the Post, often employing fiery rhetoric and passionate speeches decrying these unsubstantiated attacks on the President. These attacks also expand outward from discrediting just the Post stories to targeting New York Times reporting and indeed every story on Watergate. An anonymous White House aide explains the strategy to a Times reporter: “[w]e believe that the public believes that the Eastern press really is what [Vice President Spiro] Agnew said it was—elitist, anti-Nixon and ultimately pro-McGovern” (103).

Increasingly Woodward and Bernstein become convinced that White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman played a direct role in planning the Watergate break-ins. The chief of staff’s direct responsibility is to coordinate policies formed by the president and to make sure they are implemented properly by administration officials. The chief of staff also screens the president and controls his schedule, making the position incredibly powerful. In a very real sense, Haldeman is the gatekeeper to the President. He also has an iron reputation and is feared like a medieval executioner. If the reporters can connect Haldeman to the dirty tricks program and the break-in, they will be in effect attributing the scandal to President Nixon himself.

Yet Haldeman’s reputation precedes him. When the reporters contact Hugh Sloan about Haldeman, he suggests that a White House official was indeed involved in managing payments to the burglars and tells the reporters that he testified to that in a grand jury hearing. However, when they ask him if it was indeed Haldeman as they suspect, Sloan refuses to say. This kind of silence has been commonplace between the reporters and their sources, including Sloan, and they rely on a classic trick. They say they are going to write a story that suggests that Haldeman was involved and if Sloan disagrees, he should say so. He does not, and so they concluded they are right (105). Next Woodward runs the story by Deep Throat. Normally confident, even Deep Throat seems to be afraid of Haldeman’s long reach and significant power over the President. He, too, refuses to directly explain Haldeman’s role in the Watergate affair. He makes it clear that Haldeman was involved but refuses to comment either way on any specific fact or accusation (106).

With two confirmations in hand, the reporters look to produce a few more yes-or-nos for their story. First they contact a Justice Department official whom they have not previously used as a source and who proceeds to play games with Bernstein. He suggests that Haldeman may have been involved, but in the course of framing a theory the official makes several obvious mistakes regarding the facts of the case (108). Lastly the reporters call another contact and ask him directly to confirm what they intend to print. The contact says he is not allowed to comment. Returning to the old game, Bernstein tells the contact that if he thinks the story should go ahead, then he should stay on the line to the count of 10. On reaching 10, the contact hangs up the phone (110). Woodward and Bernstein are exuberant. Deep Throat all but confirmed the involvement of Haldeman in the break-in, and they have three more seemingly reliable sources backing up that information, including Sloan’s grand jury testimony. Importantly, they lead with this testimony, claiming in print that Sloan testified under oath that H. R. Haldeman had accessed the money in CRP’s slush fund.

The very next day, the story begins to unravel. Sloan, through his newly hired lawyer, refutes the direct wording of the story. When a local television reporter confronts the lawyer on a DC street corner, the lawyer says clearly that his client did not testify about Haldeman to the grand jury. Reeling, Woodward and Bernstein realize that their reporting did not actually confirm that specific fact. Both Sloan and Deep Throat suggested that Haldeman had been involved but did not confirm that he had taken money from the slush fund as the story said. Indeed, the only one who came close, the Justice Department official, was the most unreliable in his narrative. It was perhaps a minor mistake in phrasing, not in the broader outlines of the theory, but the White House is at war. They latch on to such a clear and public mistake to discredit not just that story, but the entirety of the Post’s coverage to date. Ziegler devotes an entire press conference to the story, calling it “shabby journalism […] the Post is getting to the point, really, of absurdity” (112). He later says that “[the story] is a blatant effort at character assassination” (112). Ben Bradlee calls it “my lowest moment in Watergate” (111).

Not only does the mistake tarnish the reputation of the Post and its reporting, so critical since so much of its reporting is anonymously sourced, but it turns the piece into a personal vendetta against Haldeman. In a single press conference, Ziegler eliminates the possibility that Woodward and Bernstein will be able to publish follow-up stories to explain their mistake or prove their theory. By making the story personal, Ziegler successfully painted all future reporting on the issue as a witch hunt—which is ironic as, in retrospect, both the reporters and their sources were correct about Haldeman’s role in the dirty tricks scheme. The failure of the story marks a major turning point in the course of the Post’s investigation.