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OCTOBER 21

SUNDAY. The newspaper stories reconstructing the events of the last week have begun. There will be many of them before we are through, told from the perspective, and to the advantage, of various figures in the drama. We are in for another Rashomon, and we shall read the many versions and may never know the truth. An important part of the truth lies in what was going through the mind of the President.

The Washington Post has a story that seems to reflect the view of Richardson, Ruckelshaus, and their aides. Busy as they must have been last night, these people understood the importance of getting their versions to reporters in time for the morning papers. From the Post we learn that Richardson was directed last Monday “by a high-ranking Presidential aide to dismiss Cox.” The Post says that “Richardson agreed to try the negotiating route, according to Justice Department associates, in an effort to forestall the outright firing of Cox—a course that he knew would require his own resignation.” The Post adds, “At no point, these sources insisted, did Richardson give his final blessing to the various compromise proposals.” Ruckelshaus says that he was not fired but had resigned. When Ruckelshaus declined to fire Cox, the story says, General Haig told him, “Your Commander-in-Chief has given you an order.”

There are confusing reports as to whether Senator Ervin still agrees to the compromise plan. Melvin Laird is on Meet the Press. He had arranged more than a week ago to make the appearance. Laird had, through well-planted leaks, kept his distance from the President on the matter of the tapes. Now, amidst the wreckage, Laird, on national television, must defend the President’s actions.

Laird talks calmly about the President’s compromise plan on the tapes. It is as if we should wonder what all the excitement was about. “It’s just a question of trusting Senator Stennis,” he says. In a novel turn, he refers to him at times as Judge Stennis. (Stennis was a circuit judge in Mississippi before he was first elected to the Senate, in 1947.) Laird says, “It’s a question of whether you would rather have Senator Stennis make this review and produce this product, or whether you would rather have a federal judge.” At one point last summer—when the Ervin committee appeared to be the greater threat—the President argued that “the time has come to turn Watergate over to the courts, where the questions of guilt or innocence belong.”

The Washington Post has a story that, according to a memorandum written to Haldeman by Gordon Strachan (staff assistant to Haldeman), the White House expected to receive two million dollars from dairy groups.

Dairy groups. Dean’s guilty plea. The increasing questions about Bebe Rebozo and Howard Hughes. The Krogh case. Cox getting into the milk case. Cox’s revelations about the scope of the issue between himself and the White House—over whether the President must surrender other documents besides the tapes. The indications, for weeks, that the White House wished to rid itself of Cox. It appears that the issue of the tapes was one of many, and provided a means for a showdown with Cox in which important senators appeared to be on the side of the White House. Perhaps the White House hoped that Cox would quit. But Cox was uncoöperative to the end. And perhaps the White House underestimated the reaction.

The radio says that four more Arab countries have cut off supplies of oil to the United States.

Some people are trying to proceed as if this were an ordinary Sunday, but many cannot. Some have even given up the opportunity to attend the football game. There are few ways in which Washington behaves like a city, few connecting threads that give it community, few features of civic pride. It may have been this vacuum, this need, that led to Washington’s fanaticism about its football team. The Redskins provide the one bond among Washingtonians, government and nongovernment, Democratic and Republican—Richard Nixon and Earl Warren and Edward Bennett Williams. Today, someone tried to reach Earl Warren to talk with him about what was to be done. Earl Warren was at the football game. Many people are receiving calls from friends around the country expressing a sense of helplessness. The worry that there does not seem to be any means, any machinery, by which to do anything. It is not yet clear what sort of national reaction, if any, there will be. Despite some strong statements last night, it is not yet clear what the politicians will do, or whether they will do anything. A number of meetings are being held today: at the White House, on Capitol Hill, in some downtown offices. Nerves are frayed, and tension is deep. Imaginations have been set loose by events. A friend of mine went out to her front lawn to collect the newspaper this morning and, not seeing it, said to herself, “They’ve stopped the presses.”

James Doyle, press assistant to the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, formerly headed by Archibald Cox, has called a press conference for four o’clock this afternoon at the Prosecution Force’s offices, at 1425 K Street. Doyle, of medium height and in his late thirties, is an experienced former reporter for the Washington Star-News and the Boston Globe. He has a large number of friends in the press corps, and knows what, to them, is good copy. The Special Prosecutor’s office was a scene of some drama last evening. To the press, Doyle said, “I think I’ll go and read about the Reichstag fire.” A member of the Cox staff has told me that when the F.B.I. arrived last night, a young member of the staff was surprised to see a young F.B.I. agent who had been working with the staff in its investigations. “What are you doing here?” the young lawyer asked. Both the young F.B.I. agent and the young lawyer burst into tears.

Today’s papers carried stories of how staff members, learning by radio and by word of mouth last evening that they had been fired, had gone to their office, as much to draw together as to take any action. They did vow to continue their work, if possible. They were forbidden by the F.B.I. to remove either papers or personal effects. Some staff members, sensing the storm coming, had already taken some papers home. And what they know can’t be shredded.

This afternoon, reporters and television cameras are jammed into the small, hot law-library room of the Special Prosecution Force offices. It is someplace to go, something to cover. A press aide hands out some releases. “Each one has been checked by a federal marshal,” he says dryly. A few hours ago, the F.B.I. was replaced by federal marshals. Doyle says that “the mood of the staff is that we’re going to continue.” He is asked about the fact that the White House has announced that the Special Prosecutor’s office was abolished. “The White House announced we were abolished,” he replies, “but, you know, if they announce the sky is green and you look up and see the sky is blue …”

OCTOBER 22

Monday. Veterans Day. It is a government holiday, and it should be a day of quiet, but that is not possible. The Congress is in recess, and many offices are closed. But around the city, people are examining the situation, holding meetings, getting their bearings.

According to the papers, there were discussions yesterday within the White House on when the President should make a televised statement about the Stennis compromise. “Conservative White House advisers, who applauded the showdown move,” says a Washington Post story, “predicted yesterday that [the President] will achieve a political vindication comparable to the one that Harry S Truman eventually won for his firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.” It quotes Patrick Buchanan as saying, “And you don’t go after a President for making an unpopular decision, especially in a period of international crisis like this.” Senators Ervin and Baker say that their committee may now broaden its inquiry.

I went to see Ken Clawson, the White House deputy director of communications, to get his version of the events—to find out the way he was thinking, or wanted me to think he was thinking. We sat in Clawson’s office—a blue-and-white office in the northeast corner of the Executive Office Building. Clawson is one of the voices that speak for the White House, and he deals with writers, editors, and television executives. Thirty-seven, round-faced, and slightly beefy, he is a former reporter for the Washington Post, who joined the White House staff in 1972.

“Think back to February or March,” Clawson said. “Ninety-nine percent of the people here did not know things that we now know from the hearings, and from all that’s transpired. When two things became apparent—that there was more than we thought, and that the Democrats were going to take our, you should pardon the expression, blank off—some of us said, ‘There’s going to be one hell of a fight and we should gear up.’ There were others who were not looking so much at the fact that the Democrats would capitalize on this as that there were these truths that would come out. They were saying, ‘Let them come out and let the Democrats capitalize on them and then it will pass.’ They were saying, ‘Since these things were true, take the damage.’ They asked, ‘How can you justify battling it?’ My argument was that the President is the only lion in the forest, and when there has been a cut in him the ants will grow in number, and by the time he gets back on his feet, only his carcass will be there. As I saw it, and some others saw it, we should have waged a political battle. Had our argument won, we might not be where we are today. The appointment of the Special Prosecutor was the result of a negative decision that was permitted to go forward because of inaction, not because of action. The deal over which Richardson resigned was between Richardson and the committee. No one here said ‘Make it,’ but no one said ‘Don’t do it.’ Richardson reported to the White House that a Special Prosecutor should be picked. The pistol was pointed at the old man’s [the President’s] head, and there wasn’t much else we could do. So we’re coming out of six or seven months where we kind of rolled over and let anyone have at us who wanted to. How many times have you seen the White House strike back? It just hasn’t occurred. But now we’ve put it on the line, for the first time since this thing began. The thing that is different now is that it has now shifted to our initiative. What makes me very happy now is that we know how to fight this kind of battle. We know how to cope with it. What we didn’t know how to cope with was the mea-culpa attitude that we have had for the last several months. That is foreign to us and our nature.”

Clawson then spoke of the events of the weekend. “Let’s take this weekend,” he said. “Every action that the President took was completely within his legal right and prerogative, and yet what’s the talk? The talk is of impeachment. What crime or misdemeanor did he commit this weekend? And as for bringing Baker and Ervin along—you watch it. That agreement won’t fall apart. The Kennedys and the Tunneys are simply carrying on a P.R. fight. There are no grounds for impeachment on the basis of what the President did this weekend. Now we have the mechanism for hitting back at Ted Kennedy when he hits us. We haven’t done it yet, but we might, and we can. When a nothing, jerk Democratic politician issues a press release saying that the President should be impeached, it ends up on page 1. We’ve found out that if we roll out George Shultz to say the jerk has his face on backward, that ends up on page 36, unless we get it in the same news cycle. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party appears to be coalescing around this issue. So what are our choices? To turn to the Republican senators and congressmen who are with us, the Republican National Committee, the President’s Cabinet, the White House staff.”

The first problem, Clawson indicated, was to get the White House point of view across in the press. “Have you read anywhere,” he asked. “that what the President did this weekend is legal and lawful?” And then he made an argument that Nixon White House staff members had been making for some time. “Decisions and public opinion are molded outside of New York and Washington and Boston,” he said. “We know that and we’ve always known that. We have a proper duty to articulate the President’s positions, to engage in political debate with our opponents. We have talked to about a hundred editors and about fifty publishers. We have three lawyers who can speak for us—Charles Wright, Fred Buzhardt, Leonard Garment. We can maximize the President’s own participation in this—a very potent weapon. We’ll take what you’d have to call ‘the spiritual lead.’ When those groups that are our natural allies see us not doing anything, as they saw us over the last few months, they do nothing. If it gets as tough as I think it’s going to get, we’ll call them up and say, ‘God damn it, make our case.’ ”

White House aides had prepared a chronology of the past week’s events, to give to inquiring reporters. According to the White House chronology, the President made up his mind the Saturday before last (the day after he selected Ford) that he wanted to reach an accommodation on the tapes. Otherwise, the issue would go to the Supreme Court and would be a major issue for months. The President thought that the issue was causing an erosion of America’s position in the world. The Middle East was explosive. The choice of Mr. Stennis was the President’s; the lawyers had discussed, in general terms, letting someone of impeccable integrity listen to the tapes. Contact was made with Stennis on Monday, and he asked that, because of his age, the White House prepare a draft of what the tapes said. The arrangement was that the Senator would work with the draft, would listen to all the tapes, and could expand or alter the draft in any way he wished.

There was, as one “White House source” put it, “the language factor.” (For months, word had circulated in Washington that the President was disposed to use some rather strong, off-color language. This was said to be one reason it would be embarrassing to make tapes public.) The “source” said that while any President would be sensitive to being discovered to use off-color language, Richard Nixon was especially so. When Lyndon Johnson reached the White House, said the “source,” everyone knew how he talked. But Nixon, he went on, “makes Lyndon Johnson look like a piker.” However, the “source” said, Richard Nixon reached the White House without this being known.

According to the White House version, everybody, including Richardson, was “on board” until Friday. Then Richardson began to hedge, citing his pledges to the Senate. The White House did not know whether Richardson would resign if Cox was fired. What Ruckelshaus would do had apparently not been considered.

One of my colleagues was told, in a briefing by another White House assistant, that the final problems with Cox were that Cox objected to having only one person hear the tapes, that he wanted access to other materials, and that he wanted to be able to determine whether the tapes had been altered. The White House objected not to the final request, my colleague was told, but to the fact that Cox made it in “an insulting and offending way.”

It is another beautiful day, and a colleague and I eat a sandwich lunch in Lafayette Park. Lafayette Park is the closest thing we Americans have to Hyde Park. But—perhaps because we are more scattered and diverse than the English, perhaps because we do not put the same value on language and debate, perhaps because our differences are deeper and angrier—we do not really have a Hyde Park. Lafayette Park has drawn an occasional demonstration, or someone who was fasting for peace. For some time, it was boarded off, ostensibly for a beautification project begun in the Johnson Administration. A friend who worked in the White House at the time has told me that while the boards were up, some highly sophisticated electronic equipment was laid underneath the park. Someone who served in the Nixon White House in the early years has told me that the boards were kept up around Lafayette Park to prevent demonstrations there. There comes to mind John Dean’s testimony before the Ervin committee about how the President was distressed by a solitary demonstrator outside the White House and wanted him removed from the scene. The park covers one square block. In it there are nine statues—of, among others, Lafayette, Kosciusko, the Comte d’Estaing, and Chevalier Duportail—and four fountains. Pigeons circle the statues, and the benches, where there might be food. Across the way is the front lawn of the White House. A large fountain plays there, surrounded now by bright-yellow chrysanthemums. It is a lovely picture—reminiscent of the ones on the jigsaw puzzles of our nation’s capital that, as a child, I used to try to piece together.

Today, there are some demonstrators in Lafayette Park. Several carry signs saying “Honk for Impeachment,” and the horns of some cars on Pennsylvania Avenue are honking. A sound truck advertising a lecture by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, of Seoul, Korea, on “Christianity in Crisis” circles the park. Over its loudspeaker comes a voice saying, “President Nixon, we offer our support to you.” A couple passes the bench where we are sitting. The man is, with one hand, pushing a stroller holding a baby and, with the other hand, carrying a sign that says “Impeach Now.” A derelict sitting on the next bench says to the couple, “I don’t agree with you, but I admire your spirit.”

The early edition of the Washington Star-News has Judge Sirica pondering his next move, Democrats pondering their next moves, Kissinger flying to Tel Aviv, and the White House spreading the word that people should remember all the heat that Truman took for firing MacArthur. There are, around town, discussions of various strategies. Some people want to push for impeachment. Some fear that this is exactly what the President wants—an impeachment move that ends in failure. He could interpret it as a vindication. The fact that there is no Vice-President complicates the decisions. There is some talk about repealing the Twenty-fifth Amendment and calling a special election, but this is no time for special elections. There appears to be substantial sentiment among congressmen and their staffs—those who have been in touch with each other—for pushing for legislation to establish a new Special Prosecutor. Some think that there is enough support for the idea to override a Presidential veto of such a bill. Pushing for Special Prosecutor legislation will give the politicians something to do—a vehicle for an indirect confrontation—without their having to face the difficult issue of impeachment. Everyone is in new territory.

For all its talk about public opinion’s being formed “out there,” the Nixon White House obviously believes that public opinion is manufactured here—either by the “Eastern press” and the networks or by the White House. In part it is right, and in part it is quite wrong. There are other ways, some of them almost mysterious, in which public opinion is formed. There have been many times when “the public” (sometimes called “the country”) perceived things before “Washington” did. “Washington” can become accustomed to the way things are, its thinking imprisoned by insiders’ knowledge. It can find a certain amusement in the Congress’s more outrageous characters and quaint rituals. “Washington” knew that the campaign-contribution laws had been flouted since, it seemed, the beginning. “Washington” knew that the regulatory agencies tended to serve the industries they were to regulate. It knew that public officials lied. It knew these things. It just didn’t talk about them much. That was the way things worked. “Washington” is often surprised when questions are first raised about these matters. The deep uneasiness about Lyndon Johnson took form in “the country” before it was felt in Washington, where we were used to him, and where many of us were on friendly terms with his assistants.

“The public” has a more complex set of views and reactions than many politicians think—or, at least, appear to think. “Realistic” politicians learn the lore of their trade: that “the public” dislikes taxes and welfare; that it can be angry and it can be militaristic. This is probably all true, but so are other things about “the public”—feelings about human justice and fair play and peace. That accounts for some of the wild swings in the polls. “Realistic” politicians can mistake a public impulse to rally around the President in a time of crisis for a lasting belief that what the President is doing is right. “Realistic” politicians operate under certain delusions. But so do many of those who oppose them. The “realists” are not the only ones who oversimplify human nature. “Realistic” politicians set themselves apart from “elitists.” It is true that liberal intellectuals often proceed on the assumption that they know what is best for America. But Lyndon Johnson and Richard Daley and Richard Nixon also proceeded on the assumption that they knew what was best for the people. What is more “elitist” than saying, as Richard Nixon did after his 1972 reëlection, “The average American is just like the child in the family”? “Realistic” politicians see the public as manipulable. They act on their belief that they can reach it by speaking to its lower motives, its baser instincts, and often they are right. But at the same time another part of human nature is there and alive. That other part can gather force silently, and then suddenly lash out and bowl the “realists” over. The important thing is not the number of people who think what at any given moment, but the relative power, and momentum, of ideas. As the peace marchers went by the White House, President Johnson asked how many troops they had.

The White House is offering spokesmen to appear on the Today show and the CBS Morning News.

At the bookstores, there has been a run on Raoul Berger’s Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems.

The evening news programs give the first real picture of the intensity, and the dimensions, of the coming struggle. It is announced that Carl Albert and other House Democratic leaders will ask the House Judiciary Committee to take up the question of impeachment. George Meany, speaking for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. at its biennial meeting, calls on the President to resign, “in the interest of national security.” If he does not, Meany says, the labor federation will call for his impeachment. NBC says that an Oliver Quayle poll shows that seventy-five percent of the people interviewed disapprove of the firing of Cox and fifteen percent approve. It reports forty-four percent in favor of impeachment, forty-two percent opposed. More than seventy thousand telegrams have been sent to Washington in the thirty-six hours since Cox was fired. Western Union is swamped. Bork says the Watergate prosecution will be continued and Henry Petersen, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division who directed the first Watergate investigation, will be in charge. This would seem to bring us back to where we began. The President has left for Camp David.