Senator Baker and the Bureau Chief: Why They're Wrong About Watergate
Peters, Charles
THE CULTURE OF BUREAUCRACY: Senator Baker and the Bureau Chief: Why They’re Wrong about Watergate by Charles Peters I have been astounded by how many people seem certain that the White...
...One of the primary rules of that culture is that the administrator, be he President or agency head, must always have “deniability” for anything that has the potential of backfiring, just as he must be able to take the credit for anything that turns out well...
...An example from a considerably more innocent time and place: During the first months of the Peace Corps, Sargent Shriver wanted to be deluged with requests for help from foreign Charles Peters is editor-in-chief of The Washington Monthly...
...People who think things happen that way probably expect the next line to be, “Yes, John, that’s right, and could you move a little closer to the microphone.’’ The trouble is that Senator Baker and the bureau chief and a lot of other congressmen and reporters do seem to think things happen that way...
...When only the former is proved, a few incompetent knaves will be exposed...
...Director Helms said he had talked to Gray on the previous day and made plain to him that the agency was not behmd this’ matter and that it was not connected with it...
...Senator Baker says again and again that the issue is whether the President “did in fact know...
...Could Sargent Shriver be blamed for this...
...Gray [was] receptive as he was loolung for guidance in the matter...
...They would never find evidence that he ordered fictitious programs, because he never did...
...Dean instructed me to destroy the files...
...But their certainty that it exists, their phrasing the issue the way they do, betrays what I feel is a central problem of both journalists and legislators: an insensitivity to the culture of bureaucracy...
...Those who didn’t, fell from favor or were fired...
...The director repeated that the agency was not connected with the matter...
...But they knew what he wanted, so they ordered General Walters to tell the FBI to halt its Mexican investigation...
...Haldeman then stated that I could tell Gray that I had talked to the White House and suggested that the investigation not be pushed further...
...Gray of the FBI...
...He accepts the President’s general congratulations for doing a good job without having to say, “Of course, Sir, I realize you are congratulating me for my cover-up of our part in the Watergate burglary and various other high crimes and misdemeanors...
...Haldeman said the whole affair was getting embarrassing and it was the President’s wish that Walters call on Acting Director L. Patrick Gray and suggest to him that, since the five suspects had been arrested, this should be sufficient and that it was not advantageous to have the inquiry pushed, especially in Mexico, etc...
...Because the administrator can rely on his subordinates’ knowledge of the deniability rule, he can express his wishes in a way that will not leave himself open to indictment...
...The bright subordinate does what needs doing without asking for explicit instructions and without expecting specific reward...
...Ehrlichman implied that I should do this soon and I said that I would try to do it today...
...Calley to pull the trigger...
...governments...
...He wasn’t, so soon his eager young assistants fanned out across the world to encourage requests for volunteers...
...He had told Gray that none of his investigators was touching any covert projects of the agency, current or ongoing...
...Therefore, I instructed Mr...
...Instead of deniability, we will have accountability...
...Nixon, instead of saying to Ehrlichman and Haldeman, “For God’s sake keep the FBI out of Mexico or we’ll all go to jail,” merely expressed his concern that CIA activity in Mexico might be uncovered if the FBI continued its investigation...
...Not by Senator Baker or the bureau chief...
...Ehrlichman to ensure that the investigation of the break-in not expose either an unrelated covert operation of the CIA or the activities of the White House investigations unit-and to see that this was personally co-ordinated between General Walters, the deputy director of the CIA, and Mr...
...In a similar vein, Patrick Gray has testified : It is true that neither Mr...
...Here’s what Nixon said in his statement of May 22, 1973: I wanted justice done with regard to Watergate...
...Haldeman and Mr...
...But he should have known that civilians would be killed to make the numbers look good...
...but in the scale of national priorities with which I had to deal-and not at that time having any idea of the extent of political abuse which Watergate reflected-I also had to be deeply concerned with ensuring that neither the covert operations of the CIA nor the operations of the Special Investigations Unit should be compromised...
...But there was, and is, no doubt in my mind that destruction was intended...
...He asked what the connection with the agency was and the director repeated that there was none...
...But he should have known as a matter of common sense that his aides would commit excesses and that nonexistent jobs would result from the pressure to produce programs...
...Baker and the bureau chief are highly intelligent men and they may, by the time this is published, have found the evidence they think is there...
...The other nigl-it I had dinner with the Washington bureau chief of a leading national publication...
...Similarly, the Pentagon administrator who decided on the body count as the measure of success in Vietnam could not be proved to have ordered Lt...
...They are far more numerous than those who actually leave their fingerprints on the gun...
...None of the suspects was working for it nor had worked for the agency in the last two years...
...They may be right this time, but nine times out of ten they will be looking for the wrong evidence-the evidence that the administrator knew instead of that he must have known...
...Ehrlichman or Mr...
...They were called “programmers,” and the expectation was that they would come home “with a program in their pocket...
...I then agreed to talk to Gray, as directed...
...This naturally tended to put a premium on success, with the result that there was a lot of fictitious programming, and a lot of volunteers went overseas to find nonexistent jobs and waste a substantial part of a period they thought would be devoted to needed service...
...It was certainly not my intent, nor my wish, that the investigation of the Watergate break-in or of related acts be impeded in any way...
...This strikes me as a better test of culpability than whether he did in fact know because it reaches the administrators who play the deniability game...
...He h d no doubt the tapes would tell, that they would prove Nixon’s guilt...
...THE CULTURE OF BUREAUCRACY: Senator Baker and the Bureau Chief: Why They’re Wrong about Watergate by Charles Peters I have been astounded by how many people seem certain that the White House tapes or some other hard evidence will demonstrate conclusively whether Richard Nixon knew of the Watergate burglary or the coverup...
...Haldeman said that the “bugging” affair at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate apartments had made a lot of noise and that the Democrats are trying to maximize it...
...Here’s what General Walters wrote On June 23 at 1300 on request I called in his memo of June 28, 1972: with director Helms and John Ehrlichman and Robert Haldeman at Ehrlichman’s office at the White House...
...The FBI had been called in and was investigating the matter . The investigation was leading to a lot of important people and this could get worse...
...When, on the other hand, the inquiry extends to what he must have known, the intelligent knaves as well as the fools and incompetents will be exposed-and decent men throughout the government will be spared the temptation represented by deniability...
...Knowing what to do without being told is one of the secrets of bureaucratic survival...
...When anyone but a fool would have known that his orders would lead to nonexistent jobs or civilian casualties, we can say the administrator “must have known...
Vol. 5 • September 1973 • No. 7
