Watergate: Two Who Got Away
Pincus, Ann
Watergate: Two Who Got Away by Ann Pincus On Saturday, April 14, 1973, John Dean handee H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman a yellow sheet of legal paper. It contained a list of 15 people...
...Gordon Liddy and Powell Moore (a CREEP public relations man) beckoned him to come to the locker room, a place where they could discuss a serious problem secretly...
...Yet both were involved in passing along information to the White House that was designed to serve the cover-up...
...Bittman said, well, this is very unusual...
...And so there was no movement to disbar either O’Brien or Bittman...
...Kalmbach’s instructions to you...
...I understood that you would have a figure and I told him that I am prepared at this time if we can get down to this, because at this point, I still wanted to get rid of all those cookies, $75,100...
...In January 1973, at the trial of the Watergate burglars, when Judge Sirica begged for questions that would lead to the higher-ups and Sloan was on the stand, Silbert failed to ask a single question to elicit his testimony about Mitchell and Stans...
...Did he give you any instructions about not being seen by Mr...
...Ken got indicted...
...Remember that at that time, no one knew of Liddy’s connection to the burglary or to the White House, and no one had any idea that John Mitchell was involved until months later...
...What period of time, Mr...
...I contacted Mr...
...Kalmbach’s response...
...You were using the same name, Mr...
...A Threat of Blackmail On October 20, another mysterious brown envelope arrived in Bittman’s office, this time addressed to Hunt, who was in the office at the time...
...Bittman in any manner I saw fit...
...I spoke to Mr...
...Now, this is some period of time passes by...
...Why was Bittman never prosecuted...
...On April 27, 1973, President Nixon summoned Henry Petersen, the assistant attorney general who was overseeing the Watergate investigation, to the White House: “Sit down, sit down,” Nixon said...
...It follows that only the baldest abuses are censured by the profession...
...Silbert’s passion for having this sort of thing become known was evident in an unusually broad court order he prepared in early October prohibiting all law enforcement agencies, the defendants, witnesses, potential witnesses “including complaining witnesses and alleged victims, their attorneys and all persons acting for or with them in connection with this case” from making statements about the matter to anyone outside the court...
...Dean has this to say in his new book about O’Brien’s escape from punishment: “Hell, Kenneth Parkinson was only in the cover-up up to his ankles...
...I told him it would be a brown sack and that the money would be lying right there, would he come right down, if he walked right through and picked it up and go back to the elevator, I would be satisfied...
...Bittman right from the lobby of his office there...
...On November 20 Bittman read that memo to Parkinson...
...Both continue to practice law in Washington...
...Prior to that, I went out to a drugstore in the area, bought a couple of envelopes and some Scotch tape, and I had to count out $25 from that $75,100-$25,000 from the $75,100 original, which I did, and I put it into a plain Kraft brown envelope...
...He said something like, I do not know if you are an attorney, but an attorney does not anticipate fees and costs in this manner...
...There was a danger, in other words, that Hunt would reveal the truth about Watergate unless, as O’Brien told Dean a few days later, Hunt was offered clemency by the White House...
...Liddy said that some of those who were arrested in the Watergate last night were employees,” he testified...
...What was Mr...
...And when Hunt became restless, O’Brien called Dean in California to announce that “one of our boys-it’s Hunt-is off the reservation...
...There but for the grace of God go I,” he whispers to himself when he hears of any but the baldest abuse by one of his brethren...
...Hunt’s wife had been killed in a plane crash near Chicago...
...Rivers...
...I did...
...I believe so, yes...
...Kleindienst not only was not indicted for this obstruction-he got a 30-day suspended sentence for something else-he wasn’t even disbarred and continues to practice law in Washington...
...Most Washington lawyers live on the margin of morality-in a world where conflictofinterest and influence-peddling go on all the time, where it is essential to have friends in the Congress and the White House...
...On March 20, Hunt sent a message to Dean through O’Brien demanding another $122,000...
...You and I have been passing these fucking messages back and forth...
...Not the kind of men who are capable of deliberate favoritism, but it’s always possible that they were guilty of an unconscious bias in favor of their former associate...
...His record before that time, however, should have been examined by the Special Prosecutor’s office...
...This would be around July 8 to the loth, in that period of time...
...I’m happy for Paul, but everything is backwards...
...Bittman...
...Here’s the testimony of Anthony Ulasewicz before the Ervin Commitee: “Then I was instructed to call Mr...
...Did you call Mr...
...Bittman in Washington, who I understood was an attorney...
...I said, well, I am instructed not to negotiate in any manner...
...Did you speak to him...
...O’Brien was early involved in the passage of money from the White House and its fund-raisers to Hunt and his confederates...
...Instead he is now serving as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia...
...Because it’s so damn-so damn dangerous to the Presidency in a sense...
...He said to deliver it to Mr...
...Instead of defending his client in the legitimate way the law allows, O’Brien almost immediately became involved in the cover-up...
...Paul...
...That was Mr...
...Bittman had indicated he wanted an initial fee of $2 5 ,O OO...
...And how did you arrange to deliver that money...
...Bittman from the lobby of his building and told him that I had the delivery and that would he come right down and that it would be on the ledge at the telephone booth...
...We have gotten a report that, oh, that really we’ve got to head off at the pass...
...Q. and A. Remember how Bittman got the down payment on his fee for representing Hunt...
...Bittman...
...Could it be traced...
...There’s a reporter by the name of Hersh, of The New York Times, you probably know . . . who told Bittman who told O’Brien that they have information . . . indicating that Dean has made some incriminating statements to the prosecuting team implicating the President...
...Bittman...
...I called Mr...
...Nor did Silbert ask either Sloan or Magruder, who also was testifying at the burglary trial, about Sloan’s sworn allegations that Magruder had asked Sloan to perjure himself, allegations Silbert was also fully familiar with...
...Both of us, as you well know, are up to our teeth in an obstruction of justice...
...I did...
...Yet Bittman later denied under oath that he had any idea the payments to Hunt had “any strings” attached...
...Didn’t he obstruct justice by withholding evidence that Liddy and, more important, Mitchell were involved in the break-in...
...and $10,000 in bills had been found in her belongings...
...Well, the Special Prosecutor’s office was full of Kennedy people: Archibald Cox, Tom McBride, James Neal, to name a few...
...Among such familiar names as Mitchell, Magruder, and Stans were the names of two lawyers who, as things turned out, never even got indicted: William Bittman and Paul O’Brien...
...What the Washington lawyer offers is a combination of talent and access to power, and these friends constitute his access to power...
...Bittman and I recall that in the first conversation, Mr...
...Kleindienst has been treated as a hero because he rebuffed them and called Henry Petersen, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal division and told him to proceed as usual with the investigation...
...He was contradicted on this point by two members of his own firm who testified that he had read it to them in 1972...
...Neither represented the White House...
...I spoke with him and I told him that I had the cash...
...Bittman said, all right, his initial fee would be $25,000...
...When O’Brien delivered the message, Dean blew up and said: “Well, I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to pass it on...
...The cost of the script, the players, et cetera...
...But, why didn’t Kleindienst report what Liddy told him to Petersen...
...These as yet undisclosed crimes can be proved...
...Kalmbach...
...The Committee had some known problems because James McCord had been on its payroll at the time of the Watergate burglary, and a good many more ticking timebombs in the form of the then-unknown connections to Watergate of John Mitchell, Jeb Magruder, and Gordon Liddy, who were also working for CREEP...
...got a walk...
...Hunt was disappointed at the amount, and a few weeks later prepared a memo in which he complained about not getting enough money and pointed out that he knew that “Mitchell may well have perjured himself’ and “the Watergate bugging is only one of a number of highly illegal conspiracies engaged in by one or more of the defendants at the behest of senior White House officials...
...Kalmbach and tell him Mr...
...Ulasewicz, are we talking about...
...What instructions did you have to talk to him...
...Was the money ours...
...He told me again to call and contact Mr...
...The expression “getting right” as it is used by politicians covers such situations as one finds oneself in when one has supported the losing candidate in a primary and is scrambling to get on board with the winner...
...O’Brien was supposed to be counsel for the Committee to ReElect, Bittman for Hunt...
...The same thing, the cost of the script, the writer, get what the attorney fees-not the attorney fees at this point...
...It was as clear a threat of blackmail as one could imagine...
...Herculean efforts are requiredand that is just what Silbert gave the Watergate investigation after it became clear in March of 1973 that the cover-up had begun to fall apart...
...Mitchell had instructed him to come out and have me cause them to be released from jail...
...O‘Brien was in up to his neck...
...I so reported to Kalmbach, received my call back from Mr...
...Paul O’Brien reported back that our payments had been in untraceable bills...
...Instead of reporting the information to federal prosecutors or suggesting that Sloan do so, O’Brien and Parkinson urged Sloan to leave town...
...Ann Pincus is a Washington writer...
...A couple of weeks before, O’Brien had been hired, along with Kenneth Parkinson, to represent the Committee to Re-Elect the President...
...I don’t know whether he said of the White House or of the Campaign Committee to Re-Elect the President-that Mr...
...The three men went to the secluded part of the locker room, according to Kleindienst’s testimony at the Watergate coverup trial on December 12, 1974...
...It contained a list of 15 people involved in the Watergate cover-up who might be subject to criminal prosecution...
...This was clearly not intended to assist Woodward and Bernstein...
...Right “Q...
...Hugh Sloan, who was an assistant to Maurice Stans, came to O’Brien and Parkinson as early as July 7, 1972, with the story that Liddy had received $199,000 in committee funds with the approval of Mitchell, Stans, and Magruder...
...He also denied under oath that he had read the Hunt memo in 1972...
...He will go a long way to keep them...
...Earl Silbert, the original federal prosecutor in the Watergate case, knew by the end of the summer of 1972 that Hugh Sloan, who had returned from the trip O’Brien had urged (see the accompanying article), had testified under oath that John Mitchell and Maurice Stans had approved a payment of $199,000 to Gordon Liddy...
...E. Howard Hunt had hired Bittmanwho as a member of the Kennedy Justice Department had prosecuted Jimmy Hoffa and Bobby Baker and had since joined the Washington firm of Hogan and Hartson-to represent him in the Watergate case...
...On July 18,1972 Richard Kleindienst was eating lunch at Burning Tree Country Club after playing 18 holes of golf in a tournament...
...But 1 think another reason-one that explains the escape of both Bittman and O’Brien as well as the tender treatment of the other Watergate lawyers-is more likely...
...In his new book, Blind Ambition, Dean describes an earlier episode: “There was panic on one more front...
...Something was not according to the way he liked...
...And did you call Mr...
...Oh, yes, those came in after the Caddy call, that somehow conversations were arranged that I would not now be seen by anybody, to do the money without being observed, in a confidential manner...
Vol. 8 • November 1976 • No. 9
