From the UCA Archives: Two Watergate figures, Ehrlichman and Dean, spoke at UCA

By JIMMY BRYANT

UCA Archivist

Former President Richard M. Nixon, the 37th U.S. president and the only president to resign from office, improved relations with China that began with his visit to that nation in February 1972.  In 1969, he began a series of strategic arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union that focused on nuclear arms control and placed a limit on antiballistic missile systems.

He will probably be best remembered, however, not for his success in foreign policy, but for the Watergate scandal, which led to his eventual resignation.  

Watergate was a political scandal that took place during the Nixon administration in the early 1970s.  Many crimes were committed by White House officials, including President Nixon, which resulted in more than 40 people being indicted and the majority of those convicted.

The scandal centered on the break-in of the office of the Democratic National Committee on June 17, 1972, that was housed in the Watergate office complex and the Nixon administration’s attempt to cover-up the break-in.

Two high-ranking officials in the Nixon administration that were also involved with the Watergate scandal spoke at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), the late John Ehrlichman and John Dean.  Ehrlichman made his presentation to a UCA audience in 1983 and Dean spoke at UCA 25 years later in 2008.   

John D. Ehrlichman was a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a graduate of Stanford Law School. Ehrlichman first served as President Nixon’s counsel and then later as chief advisor on domestic affairs.  It was while he served as chief advisor on domestic affairs that he became one of Nixon’s most trusted associates.

It was Ehrlichman who created the secret White House Special Investigation Unit, better known as the “Plumbers.”

It was the job of the “Plumbers” to find and stop leaks of classified information within the Nixon administration.  The two men who were in charge of the “Plumbers” and served as co-directors were Egil “Bud” Krogh and David Young.  Krogh, a lawyer, was deputy assistant to the President for domestic affairs and Young, also a lawyer was a member of the National Security Council staff.  

This author recently conducted a telephone interview with Mr. Krogh, and was told that Krogh and David Young sent a memo to John Ehrlichman, recommending a covert operation into the office of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding, for the sake of national security.

In 1971, Dr. Ellsberg, a military analyst, released the top secret Pentagon Papers to the press, causing a concern about national security within the Nixon administration.   Ehrlichman placed his “E” on the memo, giving the break-in the green light.

According to Krogh, Ehrlichman approved the break-in under the following condition: “if done under your assurance that it is not traceable.”  

For Krogh’s part in the break-in, he was charged with conspiracy to deprive Dr. Fielding of his civil rights and served 4 1/2  months in prison.

He initially lost his law license but it was later reinstated after he submitted a petition that acknowledged his wrongdoing and responsibility in the crime.  He has been practicing law since 1980 and is a Senior Fellow and Chair on Leadership, Ethics and Integrity at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress in Washington, D.C.       

Ehrlichman stated in his book, “Witness to Power:” “In 1972 I knew money was being given to the Watergate burglary defendants.  Some of it from Richard Nixon’s own cache of surplus campaign funds being held in trust by Herbert Kalmbach in California.”  

On April 30, 1973, Ehrlichman resigned his office at the request of an embattled President Nixon.  The day after he resigned, officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) entered Ehrlichman’s former office and removed everything, including family pictures and pencils.

John Ehrlichman was charged and convicted on several counts, including obstruction of justice, conspiracy and perjury.  He was sentenced to up to eight years in prison, but was released after serving only 18 months in prison.      

Approximately 10 years later, in November 1983, John Ehrlichman spoke at UCA to a crowd of about 400 in Ida Waldran Auditorium.

According to The Echo, “John D. Ehrlichman told a UCA audience Monday night that the entire truth will never be known about the Watergate scandal… While numerous books have been written on the subject of Watergate, much remains unknown about the scandal that ultimately caused President Richard Nixon to resign.  

“Watergate will be like the Kennedy assassination, folks that know about it are going to die and we never will get the benefit of their knowledge or experience… I sat through two long trials and heard a great deal of testimony, and during the entire time, nobody bothered to ask why those guys originally burglarized the headquarters.” 

In regard to listening to one’s instincts, Ehrlichman was quoted in The Echo as saying, “The whole affair taught me that one’s instincts are incredibly reliable in things like that.  During that period, several times it came to me for unspecific reasons that I should be someplace else.  I had an instinctive feeling that I was no longer doing useful things in a credible way.” 

When talking about the break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex, Ehrlichman said he did not think any of President Nixon’s close advisers were aware of the break-in.

He was quoted by The Echo as saying, “The highest adviser who knew about it was (White House counsel) John Dean, and that’s not very far up, he said.  I’m not sure just how much he (Dean) knew, but he was definitely a fifth-level employee.”

John Dean, counsel to President Nixon and author of “Blind Ambition,” denied knowing about the break-in before-hand.    

Ehrlichman believed that if President Nixon had acknowledged his error in the handling of the Watergate affair, the public would have forgiven him and the crisis would have quickly ended.

Ehrlichman was quoted in The Echo as saying, “Nixon wasn’t the kind of man to admit he was wrong. Nobody ever told him that the easy way to get along in life was to say ‘I made a mistake.’ There was a time when people would have forgiven Nixon if he had come forward and said, ‘Look, I’ve done this thing with Watergate, I realize it was wrong and I’m sorry.” 

Twenty-five years later, in October 2008, John Dean visited UCA and spoke, among other things, about his Watergate experience. Dean received his undergraduate degree from the College of Wooster at Ohio and earned his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Washington College of Law at American University in 1965.

In the Nixon administration, Dean first worked for Attorney General John Mitchell and was named Deputy Attorney General in 1969.  In 1970, he replaced John Ehrlichman as counsel to the president and it was in this capacity that he came into close contact with President Nixon and ultimately became involved in the cover-up of the break-in at the Watergate office complex.

John Dean, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman and John Ehrlichman resigned from the Nixon administration on the same day, April 30, 1973.  Following their resignations, Nixon praised Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and counted them as two of his closest friends, but Dean’s departure was treated differently.

According to The New York Times, “No such niceties applied in the case of Mr. Dean, who said, 10 days ago that he refused to be made the ‘scapegoat’ in the case. In an unusual step, the White House statement said explicitly that he had been asked to resign… Mr. Dean has reportedly implicated both Mr. Haldeman and Mr. Ehrlichman in an alleged White House cover-up.”

In a deal with federal prosecutors, Dean pleaded guilty for his role in Watergate.

According to The New York Times, “He made his plea as part of a bargain with the special Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox, under which Dean agreed to be a prosecution witness in future proceedings against alleged participants in the cover-up -— including, potentially, against President Nixon.”  Judge John J. Sirica sentenced Dean from one to four years, but later reduced it to time served, slightly more than four months. 

Dean told an audience at UCA that he was in Manila, Philippines, when the break-in at the Watergate took place on June 17, 1972.  He also was of the opinion that Nixon had no prior knowledge of the break-in.

According to the Log Cabin Democrat, “To this day, Dean said, he hasn’t seen any compelling evidence that Nixon knew about the break-in.”

In regard to the Watergate burglars Dean was quoted by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as saying, “The burglars were on a pure fishing expedition, trying to find out anything that might embarrass the Democrats.  Here were these guys caught in business suits wearing rubber gloves like surgeons.”  

Dean commented freely about G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent who served in various capacities in the Nixon administration including the “Plumbers,” and thought some of his ideas to be bizarre.

According to the Log Cabin Democrat, “One such plan involved getting someone to pilot an airplane packed with electronic surveillance gear to “shadow” aircraft carrying Democratic candidates with hopes of monitoring ground-to-air communications, and another specified that leaders in the anti-war protest movement during the Vietnam War be captured, stupefied with drugs, and taken to Mexico for safe keeping until after the Republican National Convention.” 

Dean was not impressed with the efforts of those conducting covert activities for the Nixon administration.

According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “This is not James Bond.  This is not even Maxwell Smart.  This is why we had a Watergate break-in.  This is why we had a cover-up.” 

Author’s Note:  Sources for this article include The Echo, Log Cabin Democrat, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The New York Times, Witness to Power by John Ehrlichman, Blind Ambition by John Dean, American History by Brinkley, Current, Freidel and Williams and Egil “Bud” Krogh who was interviewed by Jimmy Bryant.