THE HEARINGS: Dean's Case Against the President

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leaked or made public." Gray later admitted destroying them, claiming he thought he had been told to do so by Ehrlichman and Dean. That admission led to Gray's prompt resignation as acting director—although his failure to win Senate confirmation had made his departure a certainty anyway.

ENTER MARDIAN. In a move that Dean said was first suggested by Robert Mardian, former head of the Justice Department's Internal Security Division, and approved by both Mitchell and Ehrlichman, Dean tried to get CIA help in impeding the FBI's investigation in Mexico of campaign money that had financed the Watergate wiretapping.

The White House hoped that the CIA could also provide covert payments to the restive defendants. Ehrlichman told Dean to work through Deputy CIA Director Vernon Walters rather than Director Richard Helms because "the White House had put him [Walters] in the deputy-director position so they could have some influence over the agency." After some hesitation, Walters proved to be unhelpful, thereby angering Ehrlichman.

ENLISTING KALMBACH. The need for hush money was growing more urgent, and Dean was told by Mitchell to get Haldeman and Ehrlichman to approve the use of President Nixon's personal lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach, in helping raise the money. Dean said the two presidential aides agreed and Kalmbach unhappily accepted the assignment. He was told by Dean to ask LaRue for details on how much to pay each of the wiretappers and to make his own arrangements for delivering the cash.

Kalmbach later reported that he had performed this job. The payments of silence money thus became one of the most specific and widespread obstructions of justice, involving at that time at least Dean, Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kalmbach and LaRue—if Dean's account is true.

THE DEAN "REPORT." Dean first became publicly linked with the President's defense on Watergate when, to his "great surprise," he heard Nixon announce on Aug. 29 that a report by Dean had cleared everyone then employed at the White House of any Watergate involvement. Dean insisted he had never made either an investigation or a report and, if he had been asked, would have "strongly opposed the issuing of such a statement" because he thought it was untrue. It could only be true if it was narrowly construed to mean actual knowledge of the June 17 break-in since. Dean still believes, only the wiretapping team knew that its second breakin, to repair malfunctioning equipment, was to be made on that date.

For the first time. Dean began to wonder if he was being "set up in case the whole thing came crumbling down at a later time."

THE LA COSTA MEETINGS. Wary of the impending Ervin hearings, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Dean and Nixon Aide Richard Moore met at La Costa Resort Hotel near San Clemente in February to plan how to deal with this newest threat to the coverup. The group was puzzled about who would be friend and who would be foe on the Senate committee. Ehrlichman quipped that the name of Hawaii's Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye should be pronounced "ain't-no-way" because "there ain't no way he's going to give us anything but problems." Senator Lowell Weicker, according to Dean, "was an independent who could give the White House problems"; neither