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MARCH 17,1973, 1:25 P.M.
The Oval Office. Present: the President and Dean.
For the first time, the President learns of the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding.
P: What in the world—what in the name of God was Ehrlichman having something [unintelligible] in the Ellsberg [unintelligible]?
D: They were ... they wanted to get Ellsberg's psychiatric records for some reason. I don't know.
P: This is the first I ever heard of this ...
D: Well, anyway, [unintelligible] it was under an Ehrlichman structure, maybe John didn't ever know. I've never asked him if he knew. I didn't want to know.
P: I can't see that getting into this hearing [the Watergate committee investigation].
MARCH 21, 1973, 10:12 A.M.
The Oval Office. Present: the President, Haldeman and Dean.
This is the most crucial meeting covered by the Watergate transcripts. In his televised speech last week, the President concentrated on this 103-minute conversation, trying to strengthen the weakest link in his defense. At issue is his seeming authorization of hush money to buy Hunt's continued silence. He argued that he considered paying only because a national security problem—which he did not further identify—was involved. In the end, he said, he "did not intend the further payment to Hunt or anyone else be made," but he conceded that his words on the tapes were ambiguous.
In the published transcript, Dean warns that a "cancer within the presidency" is "growing geometrically."
He spells out most of the Watergate operation for the President, including the attempted cover-up that involved the White House staff. He omits, however, some of his own actions in the scandal. The President appears not to have prior information; he asks more than 150 questions. Dean says that he could tell that Nixon did not know what had been going on. Dean says that after the burglars were caught, Gordon Liddy said that he had attempted the break-in because Jeb Magruder, re-election committee deputy director, wanted better information about the Democrats. Magruder had complained: "The White House is not happy with what we are getting." Dean tells Nixon that both Magruder and Herbert Porter, an assistant to Magruder, had perjured themselves in the trial of the Watergate burglars.
D: I honestly believe that no one over here knew that [the burglary was planned]. I know that, as God is my maker, I had no knowledge ...
P: Bob [Haldeman] didn't either, or wouldn't have known that either. You are not the issue involved. Had Bob known, he would be.
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D: I was under pretty clear instructions not to investigate this, but this could have been disastrous on the electorate if all hell had broken loose. I worked on a theory of containment.
P: Sure.
D: To try to hold it right where it was.
P: Right.
D: There is no doubt that I was totally aware of what the Bureau [FBI] was doing at all times. I was totally aware of what the Grand Jury was doing. I knew that witnesses were going to be called. I knew what they were asked, and I had to.
When