The Nixon Conspiracy: Watergate and the Plot to Remove the President

By Geoff Shepard

Geoff Shepard’s shocking exposé of corrupt collusion between prosecutors, judges, and congressional staff to void Nixon’s 1972 landslide reelection. Their success changed the course of American history.

Geoff Shepard had a ringside seat to the unfolding Watergate debacle. As the youngest lawyer on Richard Nixon’s staff, he personally transcribed the Oval Office tape in which Nixon appeared to authorize getting the CIA to interfere with the ongoing FBI investigation, and even coined the phrase “the smoking gun.” Like many others, the idealistic Shepard was deeply disappointed in the president. But as time went on, the meticulous lawyer was nagged by the persistent sense that something wasn’t right with the case against Nixon.

The Nixon Conspiracy is a detailed and definitive account of the Watergate prosecutors’ internal documents uncovered after years of painstaking research in previously sealed archives. Shepard reveals the untold story of how a flawed but honorable president was needlessly brought down by a corrupt, deep state, big media alliance—a circumstance that looks all too familiar today. In this hard-hitting exposé, Shepard reveals the real smoking gun: the prosecutors’ secret, but erroneous, “Road Map” which caused grand jurors to name Nixon a co-conspirator in the Watergate cover-up and the House Judiciary Committee to adopt its primary Article of Impeachment.

Shepard’s startling conclusion is that Nixon didn’t actually have to resign. The proof of his good faith is right there on the tapes. Instead, he should have taken his case to a Senate impeachment trial—where, if everything we know now had come out—he would easily have won.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bombardier Books
• Release date: Nov 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781642937169

Geoff Shepard

GEOFF SHEPARD joined the Nixon administration as a White House Fellow directly out of Harvard Law School and became a senior member of the Domestic Council staff. Later, as Deputy Defense Counsel, he had a front-row seat for the political drama that toppled a president and sent his closest aids to prison.

Book preview

BOMBARDIER BOOKS

An Imprint of Post Hill Press

ISBN: 978-1-64293-715-2

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-716-9

The Nixon Conspiracy:

Watergate and the Plot to Remove the President

© 2021 by Geoff Shepard

All Rights Reserved

Cover Design by Tiffani Shea

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

../black_vertical.jpg

Post Hill Press

New York • Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

To the hundreds of men and women who served honorably and well in the Nixon Administration

Table of Contents

Introduction 

Major Players and Events 

CHAPTER 1

The Gathering Storm: Events Culminating in the Watergate Break-in

CHAPTER 2

The Watergate Break-in: Tempting the Deep State

CHAPTER 3

Origins of the Cover-up

CHAPTER 4

Sirica’s Search for Truth: The Break-in Trial

CHAPTER 5

Dean Switches Sides: The Collapse of the Cover-up

CHAPTER 6

Nixon Cleans House: Senior Staff Casualties

CHAPTER 7

Cox’s Army: The Watergate Special Prosecution Force

CHAPTER 8

The Ervin Committee: Conduct of a Legislative Trial

CHAPTER 9

Butterfield Spills the Beans: Revelation of Nixon’s Taping System

CHAPTER 10

The Saturday-Night Massacre: Richardson’s Showy Resignation

CHAPTER 11

The Eighteen-Minute Gap: An Unresolved Conundrum

CHAPTER 12

Indict and Impeach: Jaworski Gets Rolled

CHAPTER 13

The Road Map: The Secret Report that Sank Nixon

CHAPTER 14

Nixon Unveiled: How Releasing the Tape Transcripts Backfired

CHAPTER 15

U.S. v. Nixon: The Supreme Court Weighs In

CHAPTER 16

The House Impeachment Inquiry: Congress Piles On

CHAPTER 17

Nixon’s Demise: Two Weeks That Changed the World

CHAPTER 18

The Cover-up Trial: Prosecuting Nixon in Absentia

CHAPTER 19

The Real Smoking Gun: Unsealing the Road Map

CHAPTER 20

It Didn’t Have to Happen: What if Nixon Hadn’t Resigned?

Acknowledgments 

Cast of Characters 

Notes and Sources 

Endnotes 

INTRODUCTION

The East Room is the largest gathering space in the White House but seems a lot smaller when it’s packed full of people and TV cameras. It gets stuffy. It was midmorning and the sun was shining outside, but the massive drapes had been shut. Through the few shafts of sunlight that managed to sneak in, we could see dust particles floating in the air. We were waiting for the boss.

At noon exactly, some two hours hence, Richard M. Nixon’s resignation would take effect, and we would return to the East Room to watch Vice President Gerald R. Ford be sworn in to take his place. We of Nixon’s White House staff had been assembled that fateful morning to hear from the chief for the last time, before he was to board the helicopter on the South Lawn that would take him away, into exile in California.

I was standing along the back. As a young lawyer on the White House domestic policy staff, I didn’t merit a front-row seat like Henry Kissinger or other senior members of his administration. People were crowded in wherever they could get space, even spilling out the open doors and into the hall. There was a low murmur as people talked nervously amongst themselves. Now and then I heard a muffled sob or sniffle or caught a flash of white as a handkerchief was drawn toward a moistened eye. There were certainly a lot of emotions running through the room. At least for me, it was all anger and disappointment.

It shouldn’t have come to this. I had worked on the president’s defense team as we weathered the storms of criticism stemming from the 1972 Watergate break-in. I’d lost friends and spent years of my life refuting sensational media claims, fighting off unscrupulous prosecutors, reporters and congressional staff, and working to clear the good name of Richard Nixon, a man I’d known and admired since college and for whom I’d come to Washington and was honored to serve.

With release of the smoking gun tape earlier that week, all my work to defend him had come to naught. It contained, I thought, irrefutable proof of guilt. Woodward and Bernstein, those cocky Washington Post reporters, Jaworski and his team of special prosecutors, all the people I’d fought against for so long—they’d been vindicated, and I felt like a dupe. So maybe my president was a crook after all.

The thoughts raced through my head. How, I thought, could he have done this to us, all of the people who’d signed on to work for his administration, all of us who believed in him through the darkest of nights? And now he had the nerve to call us together for one last grand oration? There wasn’t a hint of a tear in my eye. I gritted my teeth and waited.

The applause started with the people out in the hall, signaling the president’s approach, which led to a standing ovation. He took the stage smiling, accompanied not only by First Lady Pat Nixon, but by his two daughters and their husbands: Mr. and Mrs. David Eisenhower and Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cox.

Good heavens, I thought, he’s dragged the whole family up there with him. The girls, their husbands—all close to tears. He’s making them stand there as props to show someone still loves him. He thinks this is just another political show. That only upset me more. How dare he, I thought.

Everyone was still on their feet, applauding. I suppose I clapped along with them. It seemed like the right thing to do. He let the standing ovation go on for five painful minutes, actually basking in it. I wondered if he was milking it for everything he could, perhaps fearing it would be the last standing ovation he’d ever get.

He started off with a joke about how this was a spontaneous event. A lame joke, when he was about to become the first American president to resign. Part of me already wanted to be somewhere else—anywhere else than in the East Room—watching this tragedy play out.

He went on for the next twenty minutes, rambling at times. He wore glasses, the first time I’d ever seen him do so in public. But I could tell he was speaking from the heart. He thanked everybody, from the White House ushers and butlers to the Cabinet officials. He went on about his old man and the poorest lemon ranch in California. And how his mother was a saint who lost two sons to tuberculosis. Tragedies, no doubt, but was this really the time to relive his family dramas, given the large-scale tragedy the nation was going through?

He ended with the advice never to hate, saying that if you came to hate your enemies, then they had really won. For my part, I had hated our enemies, his enemies, for quite a long while—and now I was beginning to hate him for what he had done to us all.

When he finished and left the stage, the applause began again. And I clapped along again. And this time, I admit, I choked up. You couldn’t help but get caught up in the pathos of it all. But I also thought about what a tragic waste this was—of a presidency, of its people, of their hopes and ideals. And I was relieved the long public goodbye was over. It had all ended for me some two weeks before, on July 24, when I was asked to transcribe a tape that I named the smoking gun.

I was dejected, run down. So much so that I started to think, maybe he was as bad as the press and liberals and everyone else had said all along. And having the nerve to drag his wife and daughters up there? The whole damned thing was shameful.

As I’d come to learn in the ensuing years, I was wrong, very wrong. I was wrong about the whole thing.

I was wrong, for instance, about the family. I learned later that he had been reluctant to bring them out with him, but that they had insisted. They wanted to stand by him because they knew he was an innocent man. They knew he had been hounded, browbeaten into giving up the presidency because misconceptions shouted from massive media megaphones caused a loss of faith, even among his fiercest defenders, and ultimately may have cost him his faith in himself.

I was wrong that Nixon had committed the crimes a hostile media, partisan Democrats, and a deep-state network of operatives across the government had cooked up their all-out efforts to force a popular president from office.

By August of 1974, America had lost faith in Richard Nixon. I had lost my faith in him, too. This is the story of how I got back my faith and how all of us have gotten it all wrong for so long.

MAJOR PLAYERS AND EVENTS

The Nixon White House

Richard M. Nixon, 37th president of the United States (January 1969 to August 1974). The only American president in history to resign from office.

H. R. Bob Haldeman, Nixon’s first chief of staff (January 1969 through April 1973). Convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury in the Cover-up Trial.

John D. Ehrlichman, counsel to the president (January 1969 through June 1970), then assistant for domestic affairs (July 1970 through April 1973). Convicted of conspiracy to violate Daniel Ellsberg’s civil rights in the Plumbers Trial, and of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury in the Cover-up Trial.

Charles Chuck Colson, special counsel to the president (November 1969 to March 1973). Indicted in both the Cover-up and Plumbers cases. Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate Daniel Ellsberg’s civil rights in the Plumbers case.

Egil Bud Krogh, associate director of the Domestic Council (January 1969 to November 1972), and co-head of the Plumbers Unit (June to September 1971), which had conducted the Fielding Break-in. Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate Daniel Ellsberg’s civil rights.

John W. Dean, counsel to the president (July 1970 through April 1973), replacing Ehrlichman. Acted as chief desk officer for the Cover-up, switching sides when it collapsed. Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice, becoming prosecutors’ principal witness against his former colleagues in the Cover-up Trial.

Geoffrey C. Shepard, White House Fellow (August 1969 to August 1970), staff assistant to the president (August 1970 to November 1972), associate director of the Domestic Council (November 1972 through February 1975), and deputy counsel to Buzhardt on Nixon’s Watergate defense team (October 1973 to August 1974).

Alexander M. Haig, chief of staff (May 1973 to August 1974), replacing Haldeman. Career Army officer, deputy director of the National Security Council during Nixon’s first term.

J. Fred Buzhardt, counsel to the president (May 1973 to August 1974), replacing Dean. Long-time Washington insider; general counsel of the Department of Defense during Nixon’s first term. Directed Nixon’s Watergate defense efforts.

James D. St. Clair, special counsel to the president (January to August 1974). Nationally prominent Boston trial lawyer, who represented Nixon before the House Judiciary Committee and the Supreme Court.

The Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP)

John N. Mitchell, executive director (March to July 1972). Attorney general in Nixon’s first term. Acquitted, along with Stans, in the Vesco case in New York. Convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury in the Cover-up Trial.

Maurice H. Stans, chairman of CRP’s Finance Committee (January to November 1972). Secretary of commerce during Nixon’s first term. Stans was the most successful Republican fundraiser of his era. Along with Mitchell, indicted but acquitted in the Vesco case. Pleaded guilty to three technical violations of campaign finance law; fined but not incarcerated.

Jeb Stuart Magruder, chief of staff (November 1971 to November 1972). White House communications assistant during Nixon’s first term. Helped Dean run the Cover-up. Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice, becoming a prosecution witness in the Cover-up Trial.

G. Gordon Liddy, CRP counsel (December 1971 through June 1972). Former FBI agent, who had been a member of the White House Plumbers Unit during Nixon’s first term (June through November 1971). Liddy masterminded both the Fielding and Watergate Break-ins. Convicted in both the Break-in Trial and the Plumbers Trial.

E. Howard Hunt, White House and CRP consultant (June 1971 to June 1972). Career CIA agent who assisted Liddy in planning both the Fielding and Watergate Break-ins. Pleaded guilty in the Break-in Trial.

James W. McCord, director of security (January to June 1972). Career CIA agent who was among those caught red-handed in the Watergate Break-in. Convicted of breaking and entering in the Break-in Trial. Authored the McCord Letter, which was credited with triggering the collapse of the Watergate Cover-up.

Frederick C. LaRue, special assistant to the director (March 1972 through April 1973). Mitchell confidant who accompanied him to CRP from the Department of Justice. Acted as paymaster for hush money payments to Watergate Break-in defendants. Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice and (reluctantly) became a prosecution witness in the Cover-up Trial.

Department of Justice

Richard G. Kleindienst, attorney general (March 1972 through April 1973). Formerly deputy attorney general who was elevated when Mitchell left to run CRP. Pleaded guilty to refusal to answer pertinent questions before a Senate committee in connection with the ITT scandal. Fined but not incarcerated.

Elliot L. Richardson, attorney general (May to October 1973), replacing Kleindienst. Agreed to formal Guidelines, giving the special prosecutor complete independence from DOJ oversight. Resigned in the Saturday Night Massacre.

Henry E. Petersen, assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division (October 1971 through December 1974). Long-time career federal prosecutor who supervised the initial investigation following the Break-in arrests. Shunted aside when Cox became special prosecutor.

Earl J. Silbert, principal assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia (December 1970 through December 1974, when he was promoted to U.S. Attorney, serving into 1979). Conducted the initial investigation following the Break-in arrests and prosecuted the Break-in Trial. Removed from the Watergate case by Cox, upon his becoming special prosecutor.

Federal Judges

John J. Sirica, judge of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia (March 1957 to August 1992), serving as chief judge during most of the scandal’s unfolding (1971 to March 1974). Appointed himself as trial judge for both the Break-in and Cover-up Trials.

Gerhard A. Gesell, judge of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia (December 1967 to February 1993). Appointed by Judge Sirica to preside over the Plumbers Trial.

David L. Bazelon, judge for the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (October 1949 to February 1993), serving as chief judge (1962–1978) throughout the scandal’s unfolding.

Watergate Special Prosecution Force (WSPF)

Archibald Cox, first special prosecutor (May to October 1973). A Harvard Law School professor who had campaigned with John Kennedy in 1960, and then served as solicitor general under Robert Kennedy. Fired in the Saturday Night Massacre.

Leon Jaworski, second special prosecutor (November 1973 to October 1974), replacing Cox. Founding partner of the Houston firm of Fulbright & Jaworski and former prosecutor at Nuremberg War Trials following World War II.

Henry S. Ruth, third special prosecutor (October 1974 to October 1975). Previously deputy special prosecutor to both Cox and Jaworski. Ruth had no prosecution experience and was more of an administrator.

James Vorenberg, associate special prosecutor (May 1973 to October 1975). Cox’s law school colleague, closest confidant, and the power behind the throne. Vorenberg did most of the WSPF hiring and authored its final report.

Philip A. Lacovara, counsel to the special prosecutor (June 1973 to September 1974). Formerly served two terms in the solicitor general’s office; probably the brightest of the special prosecutors, who mainly staffed Cox and Jaworski. Credited with the idea of using the Road Map to transmit otherwise secret grand jury evidence to the House Judiciary Committee.

James F. Neal, head of Watergate Task Force (May to October 1973). Formerly co-counsel with Charles Shaffer on Robert Kennedy’s Get Hoffa Squad at the Department of Justice. Neal returned as lead prosecutor for the Cover-up Trial (October through December 1974).

Richard Ben-Veniste, deputy head of the Watergate Task Force (June 1973 through January 1975). Formerly with the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, where he had prosecuted the Mafia. Ran the Watergate Task Force during Neal’s extended absences.

George T. Frampton, assistant special prosecutor (June 1973 through January 1975). A recent Harvard graduate, Frampton authored the four prosecutive memos on Richard Nixon.

Major Events

Watergate Break-in. Five burglars were caught in the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex on June 17, 1972. They were James McCord and four Cubans: Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis. They were operating under the supervision of Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt.

Break-in Trial. Those seven individuals were indicted on September 15, 1972. Hunt and the Cubans pleaded guilty to all counts at the beginning of their trial in January 1973. Liddy and McCord were found guilty on all counts after the trial, which ended on January 30. They were sentenced by Judge Sirica on March 23.

Cover-up Trial. Seven individuals were indicted on March 1, 1974, for the Watergate Cover-up: John Mitchell, Bob Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, Robert Mardian, Kenneth Parkinson, and Gordon Strachan.

Colson pleaded guilty to a separate offense, and his indictment was dismissed. Strachan’s trial was severed and then dismissed on March 10, 1975. The five remaining defendants stood trial, which began on October 1, 1974. Parkinson was acquitted at the trial’s conclusion on January 1, 1975. The four remaining defendants were convicted on all counts, except that Mardian’s conviction was reversed on appeal and never retried.

Fielding Break-in. A warrantless search of the Beverly Hills office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, psychiatrist for Pentagon Papers leaker, Daniel Ellsberg, was conducted on September 9, 1971, under the supervision of Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt. The actual Break-in, however, was conducted by the Cubans: Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, and Felipe de Diego.

Plumbers Trial. Six individuals were indicted on March 7, 1974, for the Fielding Break-in: John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, Gordon Liddy, Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, and Felipe de Diego. De Diego’s charges were dismissed on May 21 due to his immunity grant, and Colson pleaded guilty on June 3. The remaining defendants came to trial on June 26 and were convicted on all counts on July 12.

– CHAPTER 1 –

The Gathering Storm: Events Culminating in the Watergate Break-in

It was Saturday, June 14, 1969, and I was at the Annapolis Holiday Inn, one of thirty finalists competing for a White House Fellowship. Having graduated from Harvard Law School days before, I was among the youngest candidates ever considered for this prestigious award. One of the commissioners, Roy Lieuallen, asked me to recall the most significant decision I had faced in my young life. I blurted out the simple truth: It was my decision to go to Harvard. Leaving my Republican family and friends in rural Southern California—with its blue Pacific Ocean, abundant sunshine, and car culture—to compete toe-to-toe with the preppies and Ivy League graduates at the nation’s top-ranked law school had been pure culture shock. Another panel member, Ken Cole, a commissioner from Nixon’s own White House staff, threw down his pen in exasperation, saying, This program’s already overloaded with too many Harvard people. I’m against making it any worse.

Knowing Nixon’s background, I could understand why he was wary of Harvard graduates. Growing up poor and obscure in Southern California, Nixon moved through life with a chip on his shoulder. After receiving his law degree from Duke and serving honorably, if undramatically, in the Pacific theater, he made a run for Congress. In 1946, he ran against and beat five-term incumbent Jerry Vorhis, who had been voted the most popular congressman by the Washington press corps. If the media were inclined to forgive Nixon for defeating their hero, he did not give them the chance. As a freshman congressman in 1948, Nixon almost single-handedly exposed Harvard grad and establishment golden boy Alger Hiss as a former Soviet agent.

Nixon was reelected in 1948 without opposition and then chose to run for the U.S. Senate in 1950. His opponent was Helen Gahagan Douglas, a congresswoman from Hollywood who had conducted a flagrant public affair with Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson. She called Nixon Tricky Dick and he called her the Pink Lady, suggesting a fellow-traveling fondness on her part for movie industry communists. Her nickname for Nixon stuck. His nickname for Douglas was widely denounced, but it worked. Nixon beat her by sixteen points, and Hollywood never forgave him.

Nixon was chosen by Dwight Eisenhower as his running mate in 1952. As a military hero, Eisenhower stayed above politics. He delegated the partisan chores to Nixon. Eisenhower won handily, ending twenty years of Democrat dominance, and was reelected in 1956. Nixon’s partisanship chores continued throughout Eisenhower’s two terms. As a result, the General left office with clean hands and establishment friends. Nixon left office with establishment enemies.

Democrats never forgave Nixon for his role as Eisenhower’s Vice President nor for his past sins against the establishment. He was pilloried and demeaned—by the media, by Ivy League elites, by Hollywood movie stars, and by Democrats in general. In 1960, he lost his presidential run against his polar opposite—the rich, handsome, media darling John Kennedy, another Harvard grad. Two years later, he lost an ill-advised race for governor of California. Said he, in a bitter concession speech before a hundred reporters at the Beverly Hilton, You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.

It wasn’t. Although Nixon soon quit politics, licking his wounds in a Wall Street law firm, he couldn’t stay away from the fray. In 1968, he saw an opening and seized it and won a close election in a wildly contested three-way race against Democrat Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, a lifelong Democrat and segregationist heading the American Independent Party ticket. Even though he had been on the national stage since 1948, Nixon came to Washington as a classic outsider—Humphrey got 82 percent of the D.C. vote—distrusted by the liberal Eastern Establishment that ran both national parties and wary of Harvard grads like myself.

Upon hearing Ken Cole’s Harvard crack, I saw my Fellowship chances fly out the window and decided not to show up at the Civil Service building on Monday morning when they would post the winners. Phoning in would allow me not only to hide my disappointment at being passed over but also to skip having to congratulate the fortunate selectees. To my great surprise, the voice on the phone said, Congratulations, you’ve been selected. Please present yourself at the White House this afternoon for the award ceremony. Thus began my five-year service on the White House staff of President Richard Nixon.

At our orientation weekend, I sought a seat next to John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s first counsel to the president, and we chatted amicably about our similar Southern California upbringings and experiences. Each of us had been born and raised near Los Angeles but went away to law school—he to Stanford and me to Harvard. His presentation to our Fellows class reviewed various goals for the new administration. He ended by saying that although this time he had done most of the talking, he wanted to meet with us at the conclusion of our fellowship year to hear what we had learned.

I spent my fellowship at Treasury but also took full advantage of the unique opportunity my fellowship offered to meet the people and learn about the policy initiatives of the newly inaugurated administration. Memories of two events stand out in particular. The first had to do with the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, which had already been voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was soon to come to the floor for a full Senate vote.

The issue in question derived from the Secret Service’s desire to be able to remove protestors who were believed to be too close to the President’s San Clemente residence. Unlike Kennedy or even Johnson, Nixon was a man of humble means, or to put it both poetically and literally, of no great estate. The public streets came much too close to his front door, and the Secret Service wanted to shut them off when he or his family was in residence. The Secret Service was a part of Treasury at that time, and its general counsel thought addressing this problem was an ideal assignment for a newly minted young lawyer.

Searching for some language that might work, I called one of my former law professors. He said the issue was easily addressed. The law could provide that the perimeters of any proposed closures should be publicized in advance in the Federal Register. This was a perfect legal fiction: the public doesn’t really read the Federal Register, but the idea that the area to be cordoned off had been specified in writing and in advance would be considered sufficient public notice. I felt as though I’d made a real contribution, but I also learned a lesson: in D.C., appearance often matters more than reality.

The other event of note concerned a briefing we received from CIA director Richard Helms before embarking on the Fellows’ first international trip. Helms was brutally frank. He said that because the words White House appeared in our titles, people overseas would think we were far more important than we actually were. This being so, we needed to be exceptionally careful of everything we did or said. Helms assured us that our luggage would be searched with great frequency and our hotel rooms bugged. He added that our allies would want to learn as much about each of us as possible, since we were obviously being groomed for important leadership positions. He noted too that America’s detractors might even be eager for an international incident. Helms may have enjoyed the drama of the moment, but it was his way of telling us we were playing in the big leagues now. As I would soon learn, not all our enemies were overseas.

Good as his word, Ehrlichman met with our Fellows’ class at our year’s conclusion. In the interim, he’d become assistant to the president for domestic affairs and among the most prominent members of the Nixon administration. Various Fellows were most eager to share their thoughts and insights with him, me included. In a private aside, he asked about my own plans. What I’d really like to do, I told him, is get a job on the White House staff, but I don’t even know how to apply. The plea sounded rather lame, but it did the trick.

Oh, that’s easy, Ehrlichman responded, you come see me. It took a while to get in to meet with him, but as head of the newly created Domestic Council, John had quite a few slots to fill. I was among his very first hires. My Fellowship year ended in August 1970, with my joining Ehrlichman’s Domestic Council staff at the White House. He was probably the most supportive and approachable person in the West Wing, and his staff was certainly the best treated. We were credited for our own work and got to sign our own memos to the President. Ehrlichman’s Secret Service code name was, perhaps appropriately, Wisdom.

Ehrlichman allowed me to choose which of his units I wanted, and I chose the one headed by Egil Bud Krogh, which was devoted mainly to criminal-justice issues. I reported for work in August as the only member of my Fellows’ class to be hired into a full-time White House position at our year’s end, and I could not have had a better boss. Like Ehrlichman and many others, Bud would soon enough become a household name in a way he would never have wished, but I got to know the Bud the world did not.

Bud was easily one of the best-liked members of Nixon’s White House staff. He had grown up in Seattle, where he had been befriended by John Ehrlichman, whose law practice had taken him to Seattle. Bud earned his law degree from the University of Washington in 1968 and then joined Ehrlichman’s Seattle firm, for which he had clerked during his law school summers. When Nixon won in November, John had invited Bud to join the transition team, headquartered at Manhattan’s Pierre Hotel.

In the internal competition for White House staff positions, people who had worked on the 1968 campaign held most of the aces. But being on the transition team counted almost as much. Besides, Bud was all but Ehrlichman’s adopted son. As a result, he had access the rest of us greatly envied. It was not uncommon for Bud to dine with the Ehrlichman family, and he was something like an uncle to John’s four kids. Still, Bud was not around the President frequently enough to merit a Secret Service code name.

Throughout Nixon’s first term, I had the privilege of working on policy issues with wonderful and talented people, including Assistant Attorneys General William Rehnquist and Henry Petersen. I also worked alongside such criminal-justice experts as James Q. Wilson—he of the broken windows theory of crime deterrence—and D.C. Police Chief Jerry Wilson, whose measured responses in the face of protest provocations turned out to be wise beyond measure. Given Ehrlichman’s status and senior position, his staff got all the bells and whistles. I was given a parking pass on the Ellipse, eating privileges in the Navy Officers Mess, a high-access blue White House Staff pass, and an office on the first floor of the Old EOB, now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. I also was assigned an interoffice telephone line, part of a direct call system shared by only eighty other members of Nixon’s senior staff. It was heady stuff for a twenty-five-year-old just a year out of law school.

Early each morning, I’d park near the bottom of the Ellipse close to the Washington Monument and then walk to the Southwest Gate. I’d look up at the South Portico and tell myself, You’re reporting to work for the President of the most powerful nation the world has ever known. Let your efforts befit your responsibilities. To my good fortune, Ehrlichman went out of his way to be sure I met the West Wing’s other big shots—none bigger than Henry Kissinger—who then headed the Domestic Council’s counterpart, the National Security Council (NSC). Ehrlichman urged Henry to keep me in