(9 of 10)
To draft a cable that sounded authentic, Hunt said that he then used a White House Xerox machine, a razor blade and a typewriter. Because it lacked the proper type face, however, he knew it would not stand careful scrutiny. He and Colson, Hunt testified, thereupon tried to convince a LIFE correspondent, William Lambert, that the cable was genuine. Lambert was impressed at first but later became doubtful and never wrote about it.
This kind of deceit, spying and burglarizing—directed from within the White House—was an appalling abuse of presidential power. Just how much Nixon knew about any such activity is, of course, one of the central mysteries in the whole Watergate affair. At the least, all of these men expected that there would be no outrage from the Oval Office if their work was—or became—known at that high level.
Another intriguing puzzle is whether John Mitchell could have failed to tell Nixon everything he knew about the Watergate scandal well before it grew so threatening. The two men have long been close friends as well as political associates. They conferred often—and as equals—on matters beyond Mitchell's duties as Attorney General. He served in that post from early 1969 until March 1972, when he moved over to head the Nixon re-election committee. In both jobs Mitchell was one of the few people in Washington who, with a flick of his phone-dialing finger, could hurdle the White House "Berlin Wall" erected by Ehrlichman and Haldeman.
Silly. Mitchell claims that he opposed the Watergate wiretapping plans each time that he heard about them. But his duty as chief law-enforcement officer was to have the planners arrested right there for conspiring to commit crimes. Once the wiretapping was revealed last June 17, it seems inconceivable that Mitchell did not tell Nixon at once precisely who had pushed the scheme—or that Nixon did not ask.
As the man who had earned the admiration of most top police officials because of his strong support of wiretapping, "no knock" entry in making arrests, and preventive detention of dangerous criminals while awaiting trial, Mitchell should have exposed all those he knew to have helped plot the crime. Instead, he publicly denied any advance knowledge of the affair, ridiculed the notion that the re-election committee had anything to do with it and dismissed reports that he was personally implicated with a brusque: "The stories are getting sillier all the time."
Just two weeks after the arrests of the Watergate burglars, however, Mitchell resigned as head of the committee with the explanation that his wife Martha wanted him to quit politics. Considering Martha's emotional state (see box) the explanation was not totally implausible, but it was far from convincing. It would be a most uninquisitive President indeed who did not ask his good friend whether that was the whole reason for quitting. Far more likely, the two probably agreed that Watergate made Mitchell a political liability, and so he must leave.