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D: The truth always emerges. It always does.
APRIL 16, 1973,10:50 A.M.
The Oval Office. Present: the President, Haldeman and Ehrlichman.
Scarcely has Dean departed than Haldeman and Ehrlichman return and almost immediately the President says: "Well, John, let me say this [Dean] is quite the operator." Soon the talk turns again to the question of scenarios.
P: How has the scenario worked out? ...
H: Well, it works out very good. You became aware sometime ago that this thing did not parse out the way it was supposed to and that there were some discrepancies between what you had been told by Dean in the report that there was nobody in the White House involved, which may still be true ...
P: I would say I was not satisfied that the Dean report was complete and also I thought it was my obligation to go beyond that to people other than the White House.
E: Ron [Ziegler] has an interesting point. Remember you had John Dean go to Camp David to write it up. He came down and said, "I can't."
P: Right.
E: That is the tip-off and right then you started to move.
P: That's right. He said he could not write it.
H: Then you realized that there was more to this than you had been led to believe, [unintelligible]
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E: And so then we started digging into it ... You began to move ... And then it culminated last week ... in your decision that Mitchell should be brought down here; Magruder should be brought in; Strachan should be brought in.
P: Shall I say that we brought them all in?
E: I don't think you can. I don't think you can.
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E: But you should say, "I heard enough that I was satisfied that it was time to precipitously move. I called the Attorney General over, in turn Petersen."
APRIL 16,1973,12 NOON
The Oval Office. Present: the President and Haldeman.
Once again, Nixon reviews "how we stage this damn thing." Haldeman discusses with him "the Garment plan," drawn up by White House Counsel Leonard Garment and calling for the jettisoning of not only Mitchell and Dean but also Haldeman and Ehrlichman to protect the President.
P: What does Ron think about this, leaving out the PR: does he think we should try to tough it through? ...
H: I am not sure. I think Ron would say just wait and see. You see his point is that there is no question that I will be tarnished.
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H: Then I go out. Garment's statement is that then I go out and hit this, use the position that I have established that way from the outside to—
P: To fight?
H: Yeah ... Len is the panic button type. If we had reacted in Garment's way in other things, we wouldn't be where we are. That doesn't mean he isn't right this time, incidentally.
P: I know.
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H: Len's view is that what you need is ... some kind of a dramatic move. Henry [Kissinger] feels that, but Henry feels that you should go on television ... which is his solution to any problem.
APRIL 16,1973,1:39 P.M.
E.O.B. Present: the President and Petersen.
For a prosecutor, Petersen seems inordinately eager to downplay the merits of