Nixon's Secret (69 page)

104
.   Ibid.

105
.   Cohen, Patricia. “John Dean’s Role at Issue in Nixon Tapes Feud” New York Times. January 31, 2009.

106
.   Ibid.

107
.   Ibid.

108
.   Hoff, Joan. “HNN hot topics: The Watergate Transcript Controversy
http://hnn.us/article/61197
.

109
.   Taylor, John. “Kutler, Nixon, And The Ellsberg Break-In” February 5, 2009
http://episconixonian.blogspot.com/2009/02/kutlering-nixon-tapes.html

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NIXON AND THE BUSHES

“
Clean, Clean, Clean.
”

—George Bush, when asked about illegal funds provided to his 1970 Senate race.

A
ny examination of Nixon and Watergate is incomplete without a review of the role of future President George H. W. Bush and his long and beneficial relationship with Nixon. Bush’s direct connection to Watergate is key. The money used to finance the White House Special Investigations Unit (or Plumbers) in 1971–72 was provided by George Bush’s business partner and lifelong intimate friend, Bill Liedtke, the president of Pennzoil. Bill Liedtke was a regional finance chairman for the Nixon campaigns of 1968 and 1972. Liedtke reportedly exceeded his quota by the largest margin among all his fellow regional chairmen. Liedtke says that he accepted this post as a personal favor to George Bush.

In 1972, Bill Liedtke raised $700,000 in anonymous contributions, including a single contribution of $100,000 that was laundered through a bank account in Mexico. Part of this money came from Bush’s crony Robert Mosbacher, later Bush’s secretary of commerce. Two days before a new law was scheduled to begin making anonymous donations illegal, the $700,000 in cash, checks, and securities were loaded into a briefcase at Pennzoil headquarters and picked up by a company vice president, who boarded a Washington-bound Pennzoil jet and delivered the funds to the Committee to Re-elect the President at ten o’clock that night.

These Mexican checks were given to Maurice Stans of CREEP, who transferred them to Watergate burglar Gordon Liddy. Liddy passed them on to Bernard Barker, one of the Miami Cubans arrested on the night of the final Watergate break-in. Barker was actually carrying some of the cash left over from these checks when he was apprehended. When Barker was arrested, his bank records were subpoenaed by the Dade County, Florida district attorney Richard E. Gerstein, and were obtained by Gerstein’s chief investigator Martin Dardis.

Dardis told Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post that the $100,000 in four cashier’s checks had been issued in Mexico City by Manuel Ogarrio Daguerre, a prominent lawyer who handled Stans’s money-laundering operation there. Liedtke eventually appeared before three grand juries investigating the different aspects of the Watergate affair, but neither he nor Pennzoil were ever brought to trial for the CREEP contributions—money for the break-in administered from one of Bush’s intimates and at the request of Bush, a member of the Nixon cabinet from February, 1971 onward.

On June 23, 1972, in the famous “smoking gun” tape, Nixon and Haldman can be heard discussing the money Bush’s financial circle routed through Mexican banks and how to hide it from the FBI.

President Nixon:
Well, maybe he’s a . . . He didn’t—I mean, this isn’t from the Committee, though; this is from [Maurice] Stans. Committee to Re-elect the President, or CREEP. Maurice Stans was the finance chairman of CREEP.

Haldeman:
Yeah. It is. It was . . . It’s directly traceable and there’s some more through; some Texas people in—went to the Mexican bank which they can also trace through the Mexican bank. They’ll get their names today. And—

President Nixon:
Well, I mean, there’s no way that—I’m just thinking if they don’t cooperate, what do they say? That they were approached by the Cubans? That’s what Dahlberg has to say, and the Texans too.

Haldeman:
Well, if they will. But then we’re relying on more and more people all the time. That’s the problem. And it does stop if we could, if we take this other step [directing the CIA to tell the FBI to limit the Watergate investigation].

President Nixon:
All right. Fine.

This is, of course, the taped conversation that sealed Nixon’s fate.

* * *

Richard Nixon made George Bush’s career. George Bush’s father was the upright and tough Prescott Bush, a banker, internationalist, and golfing buddy of Dwight Eisenhower. “A fine golfer,” Ike said. Prescott was a key advocate of Nixon for 1952 because he had first brought Nixon’s attention his friend Tom Dewey, the “Dean” of the Eastern Establishment. Prescott had raised money on Wall Street for Nixon’s 1946 campaign. Nixon’s opponent Jerry Voorhis was a critic of big business and big banks. Voorhis wanted to close the Federal Reserve. “Prescott Bush is one of the men who made Dick Nixon,” Chotiner told me. Dewey looked at Nixon because of Bush’s suggestion and after Nixon got on the short list of “acceptable” candidates for Ike’s running mate. Prescott urged Ike to take Nixon on the ticket on a golf course in Greenwich, Connecticut. Nixon owed Bush. Nixon campaigned for Bush in his 1964 and 1966 races. The Bushes snubbed their noses at their social friends the Rockefellers when they supported Nixon early in 1960 and again in 1968.

Prescott Bush’s rich friends tried get young George H. W. Bush on the 1968 ticket. Nixon went all-out for Bush in 1970 in the Seante race only to be out maneuvered by LBJ and John Connally, who inserted an ex-congressman into the race. After that it was the appointive track where Bush nurtured his ambitions. Nixon made George H. W. Bush UN Ambassador with cabinet rank out of respect for Prescott Bush. “Keep George Bush, he’ll do anything for us,” Nixon tells Haldeman while shuffling his cabinet in the White House tapes.

When I told Nixon I had seen an elderly Senator Prescott Bush address the 1966 Republican State Convention, Nixon said, “He was a good man. Tough as nails. Made millions as an investment banker. A real blue nose. Rocky’s divorce drove him crazy. Played golf with Ike a lot and was one of those who backed Tom Dewey’s play to put me on the ‘52 ticket.”

At the height of Nixon’s Watergate problems, Nixon begrudgingly took one of his last calls of the day. Nixon had just made a TV address on Watergate. Republican National Committee Chairman George H. W. Bush, a constant nuisance for Nixon, had been trying to get through to the president all night. When Nixon finally took Bush’s call, Bush noted that he had been trying to get through earlier, Nixon responded, with annoyance in his voice that he had “been on the phone, George, all night.”
1

Bush was a suck-up and brown-noser with Nixon. Bush made sure to let Nixon know that Barbara had “just attended a Republican leadership conference” and wanted to talk to Nixon before he “went to sleep.” In the conversation, Bush reviewed the press reaction to the address and surmised that it was not positive. Bush told Nixon to call him for any support that the Republican National Committee could provide, calling the commentators “arrogant bastards.” “The thing that burns me up is the feeling that you had and it came through and there’s so little credit,” Bush told Nixon, who replied he thought “the people may understand it” and “to hell with the commentators.”
2

Nixon made a point to assure Bush that “the main thing is, you had nothing to do with this goddamn thing. We’re gonna go on.” Bush assured Nixon “this is going to come out good.” Nixon closed the conversation by thanking Bush, belittling in jest calling him “boy.”
3

What made Nixon at the end of a difficult and long day make a point to assure Bush that he had nothing to do with Watergate? Further, why did Nixon take Bush’s call, who at that time was serving as Chair of the Republican National Committee? The answers come in the close relationship Nixon had with H. W. Bush, his father Senator Prescott, and the strong ties the Bushes carried with Texas oilmen.

Bush only held the position of RNC Chair as a consolatory prize for once again being passed over for vice president in 1972. Nixon showed slight deference to the Bush clan, and his irreverence would later came back to haunt Nixon during his downfall.

George Bush’s first of three unsuccessful attempts to become vice president would come in 1968. Few reporters have delved deeply into the symbiotic relationship with the blue-blooded Bush family, pillars of the Eastern Establishment, and Richard Nixon, the grocer’s son from Yorba Linda. Yet it is indisputable that if Nixon had never become president, neither would George H. W. Bush, nor his son George W. Bush. Without the Nixon presidency, there would not have been a Bush dynasty.

Ground-breaking and renowned journalist Russ Baker, whose masterful
Family of Secrets
has done more to illuminate the long and complicated relationship between the Bush family and Richard Nixon, delved deeply into Nixon’s odd relationship and resentment of the Eastern Establishment. “Generally, Richard Nixon was known to be a wary and suspicious man,” wrote Baker. “It is commonly assumed that he was paranoid, but Nixon had good reasons to feel apprehensive. One was probably the worry that someone would unearth the extent to which this self-styled outsider from Whittier, California, had sold his soul to the same Eastern Establishment that he publicly (and even privately) reviled. At the same time, he knew that those elites felt the same about him. They tolerated him as long as he was useful . . .”
4

George H. W. Bush’s long ambition to become president of the United States is traced to his early life. His move from Connecticut to Texas, his quick rise to leadership in the Texan Republican Party, and his two unsuccessful races for the US Senate were all milestones in his effort to get to the White House.

Like Richard Nixon, Bush was a man without ideology. Like Nixon, Bush knew how to sound conservative. Like Nixon, Bush enjoyed substantial funding from Eastern and Wall Street sources. However unlike Nixon, Bush could move easily in Eastern elite circles. Both men would endanger deep suspicion on the far right.

That Bush would ever become president is unlikely based on his series of failed electoral attempts. Indeed, Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus would note, “His loss to Lloyd Bentsen in the 1970 Senate race had taken him out of Texas elective politics for the immediate future. A two term congressman, he was 46, married with five children, and wanted to remain in public life. But if he was not to win elections, then his next steps up the political ladder would depend on his ability to ingratiate himself with more successful politician—Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan.”
5

It would be a mistake to assume Bush’s affable, friendly, unfailingly polite and sometimes goofy style as benign. His vapidity and obfuscation was a mirage. Underneath it lie consuming political ambition, steely determination, boundless energy, and remarkable physical discipline for a relentless travel to pursue his political goals. Barbara Bush brought a vindictive streak; she remembered everyone who was
not
for her husband. Despite his “nice guy” image, George Bush was high-handed, secretive, and fueled by an incredible sense of entitlement. One of the purposes of this chapter is to help the reader understand Bush’s complex relationship with Nixon and to shed light on Bush’s early and longtime service to the CIA.

Incredibly, both Nixon and Bush would find themselves in Dallas on November, 22, 1963. Nixon would acknowledge his visit; indeed, he held a well-covered press conference on November 21. We have explored the circumstances that brought Nixon to Dallas on that fateful day. Bush, on the other hand, would dissemble on the subject of his whereabouts and, for some reason, would go to great lengths to mislead the FBI about his movements on November 22. We shall reexamine this.

Like Nixon, Bush was also disciplined and extremely well organized. He was a model candidate, traveling relentlessly, shaking hands, writing notes, and building his friends list. He was always collecting: people, addresses, supporters, and money. Like Nixon, Bush’s long toiling in the party vineyards would ultimately pay dividends. Only Richard Nixon was a more indefatigable campaigner. Bush would exhibit much of the same resilience that Nixon displayed in his drive for the presidency. Nixon, however, had won two national elections as vice president as well as his party’s nomination for the presidency prior to his ultimate election in 1968.

Bush’s path was more difficult. He was defeated in two US Senate races, passed up for the vice presidency four times by two presidents and ultimately trounced in his own presidential bid of 1980 by Ronald Reagan. Ultimately, through hard work, persistence and luck Bush, like Nixon, would succeed in his ultimate goal of winning the presidency.

Prescott Bush was among the Eastern clique that would foist Richard Nixon on Dwight Eisenhower. This would come to haunt Nixon. As Russ Baker observed, “[T]he further Nixon rose, the more he resented the arrogance of his Eastern elite handlers. Though he would continue to serve them diligently throughout his career, his anger festered—perhaps in part over frustration with the extent to which he was beholden.”
6

Bush’s drive for the vice presidency would begin when he was a mere congressman from a suburban Houston district. Bush and his father were major backers of Richard Nixon in his 1968 comeback bid. Together with Texas business associates Hugh Liedke and Robert Mosbacher, the Bush’s raised big money for Nixon’s bid. Once Nixon was nominated, Bush would mount the first of his drives to be selected for vice president.

Although only in Congress four short years, George and Prescott Bush orchestrated an effort to get major party figures to urge Nixon to place George as his running mate. Prescott Bush would get Tom Dewey, instrumental in Nixon’s own selection as vice president, to urge Nixon to take the young Texan on the ticket. Texas Senator John Tower, elected in a special election to fill Johnson’s senate seat in 1961, pushed Bush with Nixon. CEOs of Chase Manhattan, J. P. Stevens, and Pennzoil also pressured Nixon. Of course, Brown Brother Harriman weighed in.