(9 of 10)
The White House version of this meeting made no mention of the $1,000,000 or Executive clemency. Its main points: "President asked if Mitchell and Colson knew of Watergate. Dean said there was nothing specific on Colson; he didn't know about Mitchell but Strachan could be involved. President states again Dean should compile a written report about the matter."
MARCH 21. This is the date on which, both Dean and the White House agree, Dean told the President nearly everything he knew about who might be implicated in Watergate. But the White House also contends that this is the time at which $1,000,000 in payoff money was mentioned and that the President "stated it was blackmail, that it was wrong, that it would not work, that the truth would come out anyway."
APRIL 15. Dean suspected that this was being taped and he might be being set up as "the fall guy." Dean contends that Nixon told him he had only been "joking" when he had said on March 13 that $1,000,000 in payoff money was no problem. Nixon, according to Dean, whispered in a corner that he had been "foolish" to discuss Executive clemency with Colson. The White House account claims that at this meeting "the President told Dean that he must go before the grand jury without immunity." If a tape does disclose Nixon's self-serving "joking" reminder about the $1,000,000, it would clash directly with the claim that he had earlier dismissed such a payoff as pure blackmail.
Beyond the Dean conversations, Nixon's discussions with John Mitchell in numerous telephone talks immediately after the Watergate arrests on June 17, 1972, are wanted by the Ervin committee. According to Mitchell's testimony, in only one of the calls did Nixon even inquire of Mitchell what he knew about the Watergate operation. Also of great interest to the investigators is a June 30, 1972, meeting at which Nixon and Mitchell discussed Mitchell's leaving the Nixon campaign committee. Mitchell testified that the only reason was personal; his wife Martha was insisting that he get out of politics. Committee investigators are highly skeptical that that was the main reason.
The fact that Nixon was always aware that recordings were being made could explain what Dean interpreted as Nixon's frequent misunderstandings or apparent noncomprehension of what Dean was telling the President about Watergate. After Dean fully briefed Nixon about all of the implications on March 21, 1973, for example, Nixon's response was a puzzling non sequitur: Why didn't Dean now brief the Cabinet along the same lines?
While the President's anticipated refusal to release the tapes is dangerous politically, since it could widely be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to hide incriminating evidence, it also poses extremely hazardous legal implications. TIME Correspondent David Beckwith, who covers the Supreme Court and the Justice Department, last week consulted Ervin-committee counsels and other legal sources and came up with the following possible and gravely serious scenario in the battle over the tapes:
The President refuses to turn over the tapes, but