Newspaper Page Text
Page 6
Griffin Daily News Tuesday, June 26, 1973
By MIKE FEINSILBER
WASHINGTON (UPI) - John
Wesley Dean 111 told a White
House intimate’s Watergate
story that compels the nation to
choose between believing him
and believing President Nixon.
The boyish-looking Dean,
peering through horn-rimmed
glasses, testified before the
Senate Watergate Committee
Monday that he told Nixon
March 13 the Watergate defend
ants were demanding as much
as $1 million to remain silent,
and Nixon replied there was
“no problem.”
But Dean said that, on April
15, Nixon said he had “only
been joking” about paying
them off. Dean said he
suspected their conversation
was being recorded, and Nixon
made that statement because of
that.
At the same meeting, he said
Watergate conspirator E. How
ard Hunt Jr. had been
“promised” executive clemen
cy.
His demeanor sober, his voice
flat, Dean took more than six
hours to read his 65,000-word
account of the scandal and its
cover-up.
His account said the Presi
dent he served as counsel until
he was fired last April 30
discussed the cover-up at a
series of meetings with Dean in
March and April of this year.
Account Implicates Aides
The account also implicated
the two top former White House
aides—John Ehrlichman and H.
R. Haldeman, who resigned the
day Dean was fired.
He said he also told Nixon of
the involvement of such high
campaign and administration
figures as former Attorney
General John N. Mitchell, who
approved Liddy’s bugging plans
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Dean’s story compels nation
to believe him or president
after first laughing at more
elaborate schemes; Jeb Stuart
Magruder, the deputy cam
paign manager, who admits
committing perjury at the trial;
Charles Colson, a White House
staff member who had pressed
Magruder to approve Liddy’s
$250,000 budget; Gordon Stra
chan, a political aide to
Haldeman; and Herbert Kalm
bach, Nixon’s personal attorney
who helped raise money to pay
off the conspirators for their
silence.
Dean said that as early as
mid-September, 1972, three
months after the break-in and
two months before the election,
Nixon congratulated him for
containing the disclosures so no
high level officials were im
plicated.
The 34-year-old lawyer said
he was told by former White
House aide Egil “Bud” Krogh
Jr. that orders to burlgarize the
office of the psychiatrist of
Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of
the Pentagon Papers, came
“right out of the Oval Office.”
He said he understood that
Haldeman, the chief of staff,
“had cleared” with Nixon the
activities G. Gordon Liddy,
mastermind of the Watergate
raid, before the Democratic
national headquarters was
broken into June 17,1972.
White House Silent
The White House said Mon
day it would remain silent
about Dean’s testimony. At San
Clemente, Calif., where the
President is staying, Press
Secretary Ronald L. Zielger
told reporters, “We do not plan
to have a comment as the
Ervin committee proceeds.”
Ziegler said Nixon has no plans
“at this time” to hold a news
conference.
But Dean’s account is violent-
ly in dispute with the facts as
presented by Nixon.
Nixon spoke out on the
subject the day he fired Dean
and accepted the resignations
of Haldeman and John D.
Ehrlichman, his chief domestic
affairs adviser.
“There can be no whitewash
in the White House,” Nixon
said in that televised speech.
He said he was “appalled at
this senseless, illegal act” when
he learned of the break-in at
Democratic headquarters.
“As the investigation went
forward, I repeatedly asked
those that conducted the
investigation whether there was
any reason to believe that
members of my administration
were in any way involved,”
Nixon said. “I received repeat
ed assurances that they were
not.
He Remained Convinced
“Because of these continuing
reassurances, because I be
lieved the reports I was getting,
because I had faith in the
persons from whom I was
getting them, I discounted the
stories in the press that
appeared to implicate members
of my administration or other
officials of the campaign
committee. Until March of this
year, I remained convinced
that the denials were true and
that the charges of involvement
by members of the White House
staff were false.”
But Dean said Nixon was so
closely involved in the efforts to
conceal the truth that on two
occasions, on March 13 and
April 15,1973, he discussed with
Dean an offer of executive
clemency for Hunt, the former
CIA operative who pleaded
guilty of participating in the
Watergate raid.
By March 21, Dean testified,
he had concluded the whole
truth must emerge, whatever
the consequences, and he went
before the President to make a
full accounting to him.
“I began by telling the
President that there was a
cancer growing on the presiden
cy and that if the cancer was
not removed that the President
himself would be killed by it,”
Dean said in his flat unemotion
al tone.
Dean said he told Nixon of
Hunt’s demands for $112,000
and said “that this was just
typical of the type of blackmail
that the White House would
continue to be subjected to and
that I didn’t know how to deal
with it.”
“After I finished,” Dean
continued, “I realized that I
had not really made the
President understand because
after he asked a few questions,
he suggested that it would be
an excellent idea if I gave some
sort of briefing to the Cabinet
and that he was very impressed
with my knowledge of the
circumstances but he did not
seem particularly concerned
with their implications.”
Dean Wears Tan Suit
Dean wore a tan suit, a blue
shirt, and a solid green tie. He
sipped water and a cola drink
and sucked cough drops when
the committee broke to permit
members to hurry back to the
Capitol to vote on the Senate
floor—an exercise which oc
curred so frequently that
Chairman Sam J. Ervin, D-
N.C., 76, huffed he felt he was
“getting in shape for the
Olympics.”
Dean’s blonde wife, Maureen,
diamonds glittering, stared
straight ahead and held close to
her husband’s arm each time
they entered or left the hearing
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WASHINGTON—John W. Dean 111 chats with his wife
Monday before starting his testimony before the Senate
room.
Some Republicans have at
tempted to discredit Dean, who
testified he felt he was being
made a “fall guy” after he told
Nixon of his decision to tell the
truth to the federal Watergate
grand jury.
Last week, Dean’s testimony
that he had “borrowed” $4,850
from a $350,000 cash campaign
fund kept in the White House to
pay for his honeymoon was
leaked to the newspapers. The
following day, Senate Republi
can Leader Hugh Scott charac
terized Dean as a “turncoat”
and “an embezzler.”
Sen. Edward J. Gurney, R-
Fla., a member of the select
committee, declined to com
ment on Dean’s testimony that
Ehrlichman and Haldeman
listed Gurney as the White
House’s friend on the commit
tee. Gurney snapped an unsmil
ing “no comment” to a
reporter who questioned him.
Dean recalled that Nixon was
“confident” that Gurney would
“protect the White House and
would do so out of political
instinct and not have to be
persuaded to do so.”
He Suspects Taping
Dean testified he suspected
from the President’s behavior
and “leading questions” that
Nixon was taping the April 15
meeting, arranged within 45
minutes after Dean expressed
his intention to go to the
prosecutors and tell all he
knew.
“The President almost from
the outset began asking me a
number of leading questions,
which made me think that the
conversation was being taped
and that a record was being
made to protect himself,” he
said.
It was then, he said, that
Nixon recalled “that he had
said that $1 million was nothing
to raise to pay to maintain the
silence of the defendants. He
said that, he had, of course,
only been joking when he made
that comment,” Dean said.
Dean also said:
★★★★★★★★★★★★A
Nobody looked
DETROIT (UPI) — Riders on
an airport shuttle bus who
ignored an old, wrinkled plastic
bag on one of the seats are
sorry now they failed to look
inside.
The bag contained nearly
$17,000.
It remained all day last
Friday on a shuttle bus running
between Detroit and Metropoli
an Airport At the end of the
day, driver Roger Doering
dumped it on the desk of the
Greyhound ticket agent, saying
“somebody left this garbage on
my bus.”
The Wayne County Sheriff’s
Department said Monday they
were searching for the owner.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★A*
—Nixon once told him that
after the election he would get
his own people in the Internal
Revenue Service so it could be
used against his opponents.
Nixon said Democratic ad
ministrations had made good
use of the IRS, Dean said.
—Nixon was so concerned
with demonstrations that he
once expressed displeasure
over a single picket across the
street from the White House.
Presidential appointments
secretary Dwight Chapin of
fered to get some “thugs” to
remove the man. Later, the
park police talked him into
moving out of presidential
sight.
—Ehrlichman told him to
“deep six” —throw into the
Potomac river — documents
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Watergate Committee. Dean began his testimony with a long
statement. (UPI)
found in Hunt’s White House
safe after Hunt’s arrest. In
stead, Dean said, he turned
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them over to L. Patrick Gray,
then acting FBI director. Gray
destroyed them, he said.