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E: I am looking to the future, assuming that some corner of this thing comes unstuck, you are then in a position to say: "Look, that document I published is the document I relied on."
P: This is all we knew.
H: This is all the stuff we could find out.
E: And now this new development is a surprise to me —I am going to fire A, B, C and D now.
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P: At the President's direction you have never done anything operational, you have always acted as counsel. We've got to keep our eye on the Dean thing—just give them some of it—not all of it.
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P: Do you think we want to go this route now? Let it hang out, so to speak?
D: Well, it isn't really that.
H: It's a limited hangout.
D: It's a limited hang-out ... What it is doing, Mr. President, is getting you up above and away from it. That is the most important thing.
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P: I feel that at a very minimum we've got to have this statement [on the Dean report] ... If it opens up doors, it opens up doors.
MARCH 27,1973,11:10 A.M.
The Oval Office. Present: The President, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Ziegler (Z).
Another strategy session is in order now that Watergate Burglar James McCord has sent his letter to Judge Sirica implicating higher-ups and charging that perjury was committed at his trial. The group ponders how to handle Jeb Magruder if he decides to change his perjured testimony and reveal that White House staff was involved in Watergate.
P: What stroke have you got with Magruder? ...
E: I think the stroke Bob [Haldeman] has with him is in the confrontation to say, "Jeb, you know that just plain isn't so," and just stare him down on some of this stuff and it is a golden opportunity to do this ... I am sure he will rationalize himself into a fable that hangs together. But if he knows that you are going to righteously and indignantly deny it, ah ...
P: Say that he is trying to lie to save his own skin.
E: It'll bend him.
H: But I can make a personal point of view in the other direction, and say, "Jeb, for God's sake don't get yourself screwed up by solving one lie with a second. You've got a problem. You ain't going to make it better by making it worse."
Ehrlichman suggests that Magruder be instructed to seek immunity and take the rap for the Watergate break-in without implicating anyone else. Magruder did not take this advice. He confessed to the prosecutors that he had committed perjury and disclosed the roles of Mitchell and Dean in Watergate and is awaiting sentencing.
APRIL 14,1973, 8:55 A.M.
E.O.B. office. Present: The President, Haldeman and Ehrlichman.
With indictments thought to be pending against Magruder and Mitchell and more people preparing to talk, plans to contain the scandal are breaking down. In a conversation laced with incriminating confessions, the President and his top aides discuss how the Justice Department investigation might be cut off at the level of the Nixon re-election committee officials—notably Mitchell and Magruder—rather than reaching into the White House. Their aim is to