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<text> <title> (1970s) The Need for Secrecy </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1970s Highlights </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> June 4, 1973 WHITE HOUSE Nixon's Thin Defense: The Need for Secrecy </hdr> <body> With ever-increasing force, the waves of Watergate had been slamming for weeks against the doors of the Oval Office. Neither the repeated denials of presidential involvement in the scandal nor Richard Nixon's all-too-general television address of April 30 had stilled the pounding of multiple congressional hearings, grand jury investigations and relentless press probings. If the President was not to be rendered totally incapable of governing, he would have to grapple more directly with the specific charges against him. In the court of public opinion, he stood accused of participating in or at least knowing of a massive conspiracy to conceal White House involvement in the political espionage, burglaries, wiretapping, campaign disruption and illegal use of donated funds that are all part of the Watergate squalor. Last week, seemingly cornered, Nixon simultaneously fought back and fell back by issuing one of the strangest presidential documents in U.S. history--a 4,000-word statement that presented his defense. The document contained confessions that no other U.S. President has had to make. In it, Nixon cloaked his conduct in the claim that he had consistently acted to protect "national security." That mystique-enveloped term carries such a patriotic appeal, and reflect so much legitimate public concern, that Nixon may well have won over many people--or at least bought himself some debating time--by evoking it. Indeed, 22 top congressional Republicans gave Nixon an ovation when they met in his office and he vowed "to continue measures to ensure secrecy." Said Senate G.O.P. Leader Hugh Scott: "I hope that the President will receive the same credence that is sometimes given to thieves who purloin documents." Yet with his tendency to overstate a case. Nixon immediately carried his new theme to illogical lengths. Two days after the statement was released, Nixon brought his national- security argument to an ideally tailored audience--a bemedalled gathering of returned American prisoners of war. Without ever mentioning Watergate he declared: "I am going to meet my responsibility to protect the national security of the United States insofar as our secrets are concerned." If negotiations with the North Vietnamese had not been protected by secrecy, he said bluntly, "You men would still be in Hanoi rather than Washington today." Then, assailing Daniel Ellsberg (though not by name) for releasing the secret Pentagon history of the Viet Nam War, he added: "I think it is time in this country to quit making national heroes out of those who steal secrets and publish them in newspapers." The ex-P.O.W.s rose and cheered for a full minute. The President was flirting with demagoguery in his speech to the returned prisoners, who enjoyed a well-earned celebration of dining, dancing and entertainment at the White House. It was an occasion of deep national appreciation that was used by Nixon for a self-serving purpose. As he emphasized in his press statement, there is no proper connection between his efforts to plug leaks of state secrets--including the Pentagon papers--and the political espionage at the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic National Committee last June. One purpose of his press release, he said, was to "draw the distinction between national security operations and the Watergate case." Yet the thrust of the Nixon rhetoric was exactly the opposite. He seemed determined to blur the distinction even more. By contrast with his speech to the prisoners, the President's press statement was almost a dry legal brief. Though Nixon had assured the nation as recently as April 30 that there had been no limitations on the inquiry, he now conceded there had been a limitation--imposed by himself, but only for security reasons. If that led to a Watergate cover-up, the President argued, it probably happened because subordinates misunderstood him or went beyond his instructions. Cover-up steps, the statement argued, were actually taken to prevent the exposure of unrelated secret activities carried out by the CIA, the FBI, other intelligence agencies and a small, secret "Special Investigations Unit Nixon set up in the White House. Most of those operations, he claimed, were aimed at detecting just who in the Government was leaking official secrets to newsmen, or at protecting the Government against antiwar demonstrators, radical bomb-throwers and black extremists. Nixon is still worried, he said, that the Watergate investigations will "lead to further compromise of sensitive national security information." Nixon insisted that he had neither authorized nor known about offers of Executive clemency to persuade the Watergate burglars to plead guilty and remain silent. He also insisted that he had made no attempt for the Watergate operation--and had authorized no one else to do so. He denied authorizing or encouraging "subordinates to engage in illegal or improper campaign tactics." Curiously, he did not say whether he had been aware of such activities. Even as he defended himself, however, Nixon made some damaging admissions. Said he: "It now seems that, through whatever complex of individual motives and possible misunderstandings, there were apparently wide-ranging efforts to limit the investigation or to conceal the possible involvement of members of the Administration and the campaign committee." This was only the latest in a long series of retreats from Nixon's first public statement five days after the June 17 Watergate arrests, when he declared: "The White House has had no involvement whatever in this particular incident." Now the President further conceded that, in his re-election campaigning, "unethical as well as illegal, activities took place." To that, he added: "None of these took place with my specific approval or knowledge. To the extent that I may in any way have contributed to the climate in which they took place, I did not intend to: to the extent that I failed to prevent them, I should have been more vigilant." That is the closest Nixon has yet come to accepting personal blame for the Watergate crimes, and it is pretty close indeed. His careful use of the word "specific" could imply that he might have approved of such activities in general. The new Nixon statement was hammered together, in an atmosphere of increasing urgency, over a week's time. The first strategy discussions were held on the presidential yacht Sequoia as Nixon, his new Chief of Staff General Alexander Haig Jr. and Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler cruised the Potomac. They rejected the idea of another television speech or an address before a suitable audience and selected the device of a legal statement released to the press so as to provide a basic frame- work on which to hang the answers to the multiple questions certain to follow. A special strategy group drafted the statement. The members were Haig, Ziegler, White House Counsels Leonard Garment and J. Fred Buzhardt, Special Consultant Patrick Buchanan and Speechwriter Raymond Price. They worked in marathon sessions through the weekend, often without any break for lunch or dinner; meals and snacks were brought in. As chief writer, Price sat at the head of the table, reworking sections of the statement as changes were agreed upon. "We would go over it page by page, section by section," said one of the group. "Then it would be taken in for the President to see and approve. There was a lot of in and out of the President's office. We were not seeking rhetorical beauty--you can tell that by reading it. What we wanted was the best recollections of what the President knew. The statement was handed out in the White House briefing room amid a bedlam of shoving, straining newsmen. It was later explained by Ziegler, Buzhardt and Garment in a confused press conference that ended in a shouting scene, which obscured many answers and produced little clarification. There was no conclusive evidence of just how effective the statement would be in checking the President's sharp decline in public esteem. A Gallup poll taken shortly after Nixon's April TV speech and released last week showed a drastic skid of 23 points in the President's national popularity during the past three months. Only 45% of adults now approve of the way Nixon is handling his job--the lowest level in his presidency. Even White House staffers had doubts about the statement's political merits. "I thought it was the most unpresidential thing I ever saw the President do," complained one White House aide. It sounded like a common defendant before the Ervin hearings." He added: Think of the tough Nixon stands, then look at this statement--the writing takes the strength out of the President. It sounds like three lawyers got together and wrote it." A former Nixon speechwriter, William Safire, wrote his first real criticism of Nixon in his new post as columnist for the New York Times. The statement, complained Safire, portrays "a U.S. President acting as angry spymaster" and raises a troubling question: At what point does the defense of our system corrupt our system?" Protested the usually pro-Nixon Chicago Tribune: "Secrecy breeds secrecy, and it also breeds an attitude which justifies, or at least condones, the use of Gestapo methods to track down the leakers." Argued the liberal Chicago Sun-Times: Whatever turmoil the President sought to offset with programs of spying and burglary, his cure was a greater threat to security than the ailment." Alternately candid and evasive, specific and vague, the extraordinary Nixon defense document merits an almost line-by- line examination: "Important national security operations which had no connection with Watergate have become entangled in the case. As a result, some national security information has already been made public through the subpoenaing of documents and through testimony." If the "national security operations" refer to the FBI's wiretapping of Administration officials and newsmen and to the covert operations of the leak-plugging White House "plumbers"--including their burglarizing of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist--it is true that these acts have been exposed. Whether that exposure endangers national security is extremely doubtful. If those activities became entangled with Watergate wiretapping. If their work was so security-sensitive, why were they not more closely supervised by the President? "In citing these national security matters it is not my intention to place a national security "cover" on Watergate but rather to separate them out from Watergate--and at the same time to explain the context in which certain actions took place that were misconstrued or misused." This is a most desirable goal, because Government actions that deal legitimately with genuine national security problems should be separated from the many Watergate-related activities. Yet Nixon uses "national security" so broadly that the term indeed does become a Watergate "cover." "Long before the Watergate break-in, three important national security operations took place which have subsequently become entangled in the Watergate case. The first operation, begun in 1969, was a program of wiretaps. They were undertaken to find and stop serious national security leaks." The wiretap program, itself of debatable merit, indeed should not have become entangled in the Watergate controversy--and need not have if the White House had more closely controlled its plumber team. "The second operation was a reassessment, which I ordered in 1970, of the adequacy of internal security measures. This resulted in a plan and a directive to strengthen our intelligence operations. They were protested by Mr. Hoover (J. Edgar Hoover, the late FBI chief), and as a result of his protest they were not put into effect." The fact that Hoover could kill any broad intelligence plan, involving other agencies, over the President's wishes is surprising. Who was in charge of the Executive Branch--the President or the FBI chief? "The third operation was the establishment, in 1971, of a Special Investigations Unit in the White House. Its primary mission was to plug leaks of vital security information." This seems to be an admission that Nixon could not persuade the Government's regular investigative agencies to do his bidding. The President instead set up his own private intelligence force or the other agencies had strong and valid objections to his security program. "By mid-1969, my Administration had begun a number of highly sensitive foreign policy initiatives aimed at ending the war in Vietnam, achieving a settlement in the Middle East, limiting nuclear arms, and establishing new relationships among the great powers. These involved highly secret diplomacy. They were closely interrelated. Leaks of secret information about any one could endanger all. Exactly that happened. News accounts appeared in 1969 which were obviously based on leaks--some of them extensive and detailed--by people having access to the most highly classified security materials. There was no way to carry forward these diplomatic initiatives unless further leaks could be prevented." The claim that any leak could tear down the whole diplomatic structure is highly doubtful. The leaks did not prevent a SALT I agreement with the Soviet Union, hinder peace negotiations on Vietnam, prevent Nixon from making his overtures to the Soviet Union and China or demonstrably affect the Middle East. "In order to do this, a special program of wiretaps was instituted in mid-1969 and terminated in February, 1971. Fewer than 20 tapes of varying duration were involved. They produced important leads that made it possible to tighten the security of highly sensitive materials. I authorized this entire program." This admission that Nixon authorized the wiretapping operation, which intercepted the phones of some newsmen, apparently renders "inoperative" past denials by the White House that reporters' telephones had been tapped, as first reported by TIME. TIME has also learned that not all the tapes were stopped in 1971; some were continued until the Supreme Court decision against them last June. Moreover, Justice Department officials contend the tapes did not plug leaks. Said one Justice official: "The first tape brought a lot of garbage about love affairs and trysts." "In the spring and summer of 1970, another security problem reached critical proportions. In March a wave of bombings and explosions struck college campuses and cities. There were 400 bomb threats in one 24-hour period in New York City. Rioting and violence on college campuses reached a new peak after the Cambodian operation and the tragedies at Kent State and Jackson State. The 1969-70 school year brought nearly 1,800 campus demonstrations and nearly 250 cases of arson on campus. Many colleges closed. Gun battles between guerrilla-style groups and police were taking place. Some of the disruptive activities were receiving foreign support." Federal authorities indeed had considerable reason to be worried about internal security at that time. The bomb threats in the cities were real, but Nixon's accounting of student unrest is too broad. Most campus demonstrations were legal; few colleges were shut down for long periods. At any rate, however grim the threat may have seemed, it is hard to believe that existing law-and-order forces could not cope with it. The CIA informed Nixon in 1969-70 that there was no conclusive evidence that either U.S. radicals or black extremists--the "guerrilla-style groups" that Nixon referred to--were getting foreign funds or the help of foreign agents. "On June 5, 1970, I met with the director of the FBI, the director of the CIA, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the director of the National Security Agency. We discussed the urgent need for better intelligence operations. On June 25 the committee submitted a report which included specific options for expanded intelligence operations and on July 23 the agencies were notified by memorandum of the options approved. After reconsideration, however, prompted by the opposition of Director Hoover, the agencies were notified five days later that the approval had been rescinded. The options initially approved had included resumption of certain intelligence operations which had been suspended in 1966. These in turn had included authorization for surreptitious entry--breaking and entering, in effect--on specified categories of targets in specified situations related to national security." Veteran FBI officials argue that no previous President had ever authorized such burglaries, which agents call bag jobs. That had not, however, prevented FBI agents from conducting such raids in the past on a selective but routine basis--without presidential approval. Nixon's approval of such crimes, presumably in a higher interest, sheds one light on the bag job on Ellsberg's psychiatrist. The plumbers who carried out that burglary had ample reason to believe that Nixon would not object. "The documents spelling out this 1970 plan are extremely sensitive. They include--and are based upon--assessments of certain foreign intelligence capabilities and procedures, which of course must remain secret. It was this unused plan and related documents that John Dean removed from the White House and placed in a safe deposit box, giving the keys to Federal Judge John J. Sirica. The same plan, still unused, is being headlined today." If the plan was abandoned, why is it still that sensitive? Could not the "assessments of certain foreign intelligence" be kept secret, while the rest of Dean's information is made public under authority of the proper investigating body? Or are the documents really only politically embarrassing to Nixon, because they might show he authorized unlawful acts in intelligence gathering? "On Sunday, June 13, 1971, the New York Times published the first installment of what came to be known as "The Pentagon Papers...There was every reason to believe this was a security leak of unprecedented proportions. It created a situation in which the ability of the Government to carry on foreign relations even in the best of circumstances could have been severely compromised. The papers were far more of an embarrassment to the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, because they chronicled their actions in Vietnam, than a hindrance to Nixon's foreign-policy initiatives. Not even the Daniel Ellsberg trial produced evidence of such damage. "Therefore during the week following the Pentagon Papers publication, I approved the creation of a Special Investigations Unit within the White House--which later came to be known as the "plumbers." This was a small group at the White House whose principal purpose was to stop security leaks and to investigate other sensitive security matters. I looked to John Ehrlichman for the supervision of this group. Egil Krogh, Mr. Ehrlichman's assistant, was put in charge. David Young was added to this unit, as were E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. The unit operated under extremely tight security rules. Its existence and function were known only to a very few persons at the White House. These included Messrs. Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Dean." This pins down the identity of the bosses of the plumber team. By saying that he "looked to" Ehrlichman for supervision, Nixon seems to exonerate himself from blame for the subsequent crimes of the plumbers. He also prepares a defense for Ehrlichman, who can agree that he was acting under presidential orders. "I told Mr. Krogh that as a matter of first priority, the unit should find out all it could about Mr. Ellsberg's associates and his motives. Because of the extreme gravity of the situation...I did impress upon Mr. Krogh the vital importance to the national security of his assignment. I did not authorize and had no knowledge of any illegal means to be used to achieve this goal. However...I can understand how highly motivated individuals could have felt justified in engaging in specific activities that I would have disapproved had they been brought to my attention." This seems to blame Krogh, rather than Ehrlichman, for the burglary of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. The job was managed by E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy under Krogh's direction. At the same time, Nixon seems to excuse Krogh for an overreaction. But would a President who had approved bag jobs before really disapprove of this one? "Consequently, as President, I must and do assume responsibility for such actions despite the fact that I at no time approved or had knowledge of them." As in his television address, Nixon accepts responsibility but not the basic blame. The stance is that of a boss gallantly doing his executive duty, while pointing to his subordinate. "I also assigned the unit a number of other investigatory matters...These intelligence activities had no connection with the break-in of the Democratic headquarters, or the aftermath." But the technique was similar--and two of the Watergate burglars were Hunt and Liddy. The plumbers' boss, Ehrlichman, has been named by various federal investigators as being part of the Watergate cover-up. "I considered it my responsibility to see that the Watergate investigation did not impinge adversely upon the national security area. For example, on April 18, 1973, when I learned that Hunt was to be questioned by the U.S. Attorney, I directed Assistant Attorney General (Henry) Petersen to pursue every issue involving Watergate but to confine his investigation to Watergate and related matters and to stay out of national security matters." This was, even if unintentional, part of the cover-up. Any pursuit of the individuals who had directed or financed the Watergate burglars would require a full investigation of Hunt and Liddy--and thus would run right into Nixon's admonition against getting into "national security." "On April 25, 1973, Attorney General (Richard) Kleindienst informed me that because the Government had clear evidence that Mr. Hunt was involved in the break-in of the office of the psychiatrist who had treated Mr. Ellsberg the Attorney General believed that...a report should be made to the court trying the Ellsberg case. I concurred, and directed that the information be transmitted to Judge Byrne immediately." This does not square with the testimony of Attorney General Elliot Richardson at his confirmation hearings. He said that the President knew about the burglary in late March. Moreover, other Justice Department sources insist that Nixon twice objected to telling Judge Byrne about the Hunt involvement in this burglary until he was persuaded by Kleindienst and Petersen that he must do so. "The burglary and bugging of the Democratic National Committee headquarters came as a complete surprise to me. I had no inkling that any such illegal activities had been planned by persons associated with my campaign; if I had known, I would not have permitted it...Within a few days, however, I was advised that there was a possibility of CIA involvement in some way." His aides have repeatedly refused, under heavy questioning by the press, to say who told Nixon that the CIA could have been involved, and in what way. "It did seem to me possible that, because of the involvement of former CIA personnel, and because of some of their apparent associations, the investigation could lead to the uncovering of covert CIA operations totally unrelated to the Watergate break-in." But why did Nixon not immediately call Richard Helms, then the CIA director, and ask if and how the CIA was involved in Watergate. He would have quickly discovered that it was not. "I was concerned that the Watergate investigation might lead to an Inquiry into the activities of the Special Investigations Unit itself. I felt it was important to avoid disclosure of the details of the national security matters with which the group was concerned. I knew that once the existence of the group became known, it would lead inexorable to a discussion of these matters, some of which remain, even today, highly sensitive." It is certainly conceivable that this group committed acts, perhaps involving foreign governments, that would be highly embarrassing to the U.S. if disclosed. But judging from the activities that Hunt and Liddy are known to have engaged in, it seems more likely that disclosure would merely have been politically embarrassing to Nixon. Every member of this unit is now either in jail or under grand jury investigation, and their activities seem a proper subject for thorough exploration. "I instructed Mr. Haldeman and Mr. Ehrlichman to insure that the investigation of the break-in not expose either an unrelated covert operation of the CIA or activities of the White House investigations unit--and to see that this was personally coordinated between General (Vernon) Walters, the deputy director of the CIA, and Mr. Gray of the FBI. 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." Haldeman and Ehrlichman met with CIA Director Richard Helms and his deputy, General Vernon Walters, and urged Walters to warn the FBI's Gray that any investigation of the Watergate crime into Mexico, where Nixon campaign money had been channeled to protect the identity of the donors, could compromise covert CIA activities there. But TIME has learned that Helms had already assured Gray the day before that the CIA could in no way be hurt by any Watergate investigation and he told Haldeman and Ehrlichman this. Nevertheless, Walters did go to Gray and suggest a potential CIA interest in holding back the Mexican probe. The snarl did for a time hamper the Watergate investigations, and the cause clearly was pressure from Nixon's two closest aides. "In the weeks and months that followed Watergate, I asked for and received repeated assurances that Mr. Dean's own investigation (which included reviewing files and sitting in on FBI interviews with White House personnel) had cleared everyone then employed by the White House of involvement." Dean insists that he neither made a full investigation nor came to the conclusion reported by the President. If Dean is right, then Nixon either was misled by those "repeated assurances"--or he is not correctly recalling the event. Nixon does not say from whom the assurances came, although Press Secretary Ziegler has explained that Ehrlichman was an intermediary on this matter between Nixon and Dean. The Nixon statement did give his stoutest supporters a rallying point. But the statement also revealed that: 1) His own directives had caused the Watergate cover-up by his highest aides: 2) He had set up his own ominous band of White House investigators, who were so loosely directed that, according to his statement, they used methods of which he did not approve: 3) In his earlier statements about Watergate, he had tried to hide and distort the facts. Except for the conveniently vague national security considerations, the statement leaves Nixon with an extremely shaky defense. The President retreated on another important front. He will no longer insist, he revealed in the statement, that his aides refrain from testifying about any conversations with him on grounds of Executive privilege. Now they can talk to investigators about any matter "concerning possible criminal conduct in the matters presently under investigation." The gesture was not all that grand; no President can claim Executive privilege on any conversation dealing with personal knowledge of a possible crime. There is no indication yet that present and former White House officials will be released from restrictions against testifying about matters involving a vaguely defined "national security." Some Justice Department officials contend that the Nixon statement neatly protects ousted Presidential Aides Ehrlichman and Haldeman from prosecution for obstruction of justice. They can testify that they were acting under direct presidential orders--and Nixon has now set forth the claim that all of those orders were issued in the interest of protecting national security. Federal prosecutors are likely to clash with the President over his position on what constitutes security. The prosecution team that has been guiding the Watergate grand jury investigation announced that it expects within 60 to 90 days to bring in obstruction-of-justice indictments against at least half a dozen high past Administration officials. These will cover "criminal activities beginning in 1971, which together with the Watergate break-in, motivated the massive obstruction." It was in 1971 that the Nixon plumbers first began their snooping and spying. What Actually Leaked to Whom In his Watergate statement last week, President Nixon blamed leaks for most of the security countermeasures that fed to the present crisis. What information was actually leaked, and how important was it? The most celebrated case was that of the Pentagon papers of 1971, which embarrassed the Government by recounting the long series of deceptions through which the U.S. became involved in Vietnam, but which disclosed no important secrets. The other three main incidents: CAMBODIAN BOMBING. William Beecher, a Washington correspondent for the New York Times (now an official at the Pentagon), reported on May 9, 1969 that U.S. B-52's were bombing Communist targets in Cambodia for the first time in the Indochina war--and with the tacit approval of Cambodia's then ruler Norodom Sihanouk. The report seems to have had little impact upon enemy action since the Communists knew perfectly well that they were being bombed. But the disclosure itself clouded the Administration's credibility (as well as that of Prince Sihaouk, since Nixon had been trying to convince the public that he was "winding down" the conflict. Another reason for Nixon's anger; only about six civilians knew full details of the raids, and if such a well-kept secret could be leaked, so could anything else. SALT. Beecher reported in the Times on July 23, 1971 a U.S. negotiating position that had not yet been presented to the Soviets during the first phase of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, then under way in Helsinki. When the U.S. later tried to take a stiffer approach, the Soviets, believing that the Beecher article outlined the real fallback position, resisted. The incident brought CIA polygraph experts to the State Department to search for the source of the leak (it is not known whether he was found). The leak was a legitimate cause for worry, though there is no evidence that the disclosure had any major or lasting impact on the shape of the treaty that finally resulted from the talks. Actually, more substantial U.S. concessions were eventually made by Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger in their desire to reach a settlement during their 1972 visit to Moscow. INDIA-PAKISTAN CONFLICT. Syndicated Columnist Jack Anderson published during December of 1971 some nearly verbatim reports of meetings of the Washington Special Action Group (WASAG) on the fighting in East Pakistan. He quoted WASAG Chairman Kissinger as saying that President Nixon wanted to "tilt" toward Pakistan. Administration officials were both furious and embarrassed that such secret discussions had become public knowledge. But neither the Indians nor their supporters in Congress were surprised by revelations of a pro-Pakistan bias in the White House. </body> </article> </text>