(3 of 4)
Joe: Well, how about if I just put in your supposition?
Bob: I don't even have a good supposition, Joe.
Joe: Look, don't worry; I'll write it up in a way that is real hypothetical. But remember, this book has to make headlines. Bob, you're an old advertising man—you know how these things work.
Bob: Why don't you rough it out and let me look at it?
Joe: Sure, Bob. Sure.
So the headline-making blockbuster is in there, just as Joe wrote it:
"... here was Larry O'Brien, a secret Hughes lobbyist—and no one cared enough to dig out the proof about O'Brien's connection with Hughes. I believe it is almost certain that Nixon asked Colson to help him 'nail' O'Brien. Colson naturally turned to Hunt. And Hunt tried to do it by tapping O'Brien's telephone at Watergate."
The authors may be right in their guess about what happened. But I think they are dead wrong about why. Nixon didn't need someone to bug O'Brien to establish a Hughes connection; Nixon knew positively that O'Brien was on Hughes' payroll. He knew it well before the Watergate burglary; so did the IRS, the Secretary of the Treasury (George Schultz), Colson and I. An IRS audit of Hughes' tax returns had disclosed the Hughes-to-O'Brien payments. A routine IRS Sensitive Case Report informed the President of O'Brien's appearance in the Hughes investigation (along with the President's brother Don and other celebrities). All that is a matter of public record. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue described his report to the President in public testimony some three years ago. The Haldeman-DiMona hypothesis needs a little more work as far as the burglars' motive is concerned.
There are other factual lapses in the book, some attributable to a lack of research, and others which point about 20 degrees off true, as if the anecdotes had been whispered down a long line of people to someone at a typewriter who was unfamiliar with the subject matter.
The book appears to give two conflicting versions of the genesis of Nixon's late-night trip to the Lincoln Memorial, where he unsuccessfully attempted to rap with young demonstrators. On page 66, we read that he did not go there for the purpose of talking with them. He was merely restless, and went out for air. But 39 pages later, Haldeman says: "A troubled Nixon, unable to sleep, went out for a post-midnight talk with the students."
In fact, the latter version is correct. Egil Krogh was with him, called me to report what Nixon was going to do, then wrote a long account of it upon returning to the White House. The President's intended p.r. effort failed. He had talked to young demonstrators there, but instead of addressing their passionate concerns about Viet Nam, he had discussed football teams and surfing. He left them convinced that he was callously indifferent to their desires for peace.