Opinion ID: 347528
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Early Stages of the Conspiracy

Text: 8 The five burglars arrested inside the DNC gave aliases to the D.C. police, but within hours of the break-in Liddy, who had been monitoring the operation from a safe vantage point in a nearby building, reported the capture to CRP's highest officials, then in California. He told them that one of the captured burglars was James McCord, on CRP's payroll as chief of security. In an apparent effort to avoid the appearance of any link between CRP and the burglars, Mitchell, Mardian, LaRue, and Magruder met and decided to contact the new Attorney General, Richard Kleindienst, urging him to have McCord released from jail before the police penetrated his alias. Mardian placed the call, but ultimately sent Liddy to find the Attorney General when Kleindienst could not be reached directly. Tr. 4530-4536, 6563-6565. This fitful effort foundered, however, on Kleindienst's insistence that the burglars receive no special treatment. If Mitchell wanted to talk to him about it, Kleindienst said, Mitchell should contact him directly. Tr. 5898-5909. 9 Aware that McCord's true identity would come to light. Mardian, Magruder, and LaRue the next day worked on a press release that would deny any CRP tie to the break-in. Tr. 4537-4540, 6565-6569. It suggested instead that McCord might have been working for clients of his private security firm. Haldeman, contacted by long-distance telephone, approved the statement and urged that the release issue as soon as possible, even though Magruder had already informed him that the break-in was Liddy's operation. Tr. 4542-4544. The release appeared on June 18 under Mitchell's name and with his approval. J.A. 912. 10 Meanwhile, in Washington, White House and CRP files were being cleansed of sensitive materials relating to Gemstone. Strachan performed this function at the White House, under orders from Haldeman to remove anything embarrassing. Among the items destroyed were DNC wiretap reports and a memorandum from Haldeman to Magruder urging that the intelligence operation shift from Senator Muskie to Senator McGovern, the emerging Democratic front-runner. Tr. 2651-2653, 4547-4548. Magruder immediately ordered removal of all Gemstone materials from the files at CRP; he took them to his home upon his return from California on June 19. At a meeting that night, attended by Mitchell, Magruder, LaRue, Dean, and possibly Mardian, 14 Magruder asked Mitchell what to do with the papers. Mitchell suggested that he have a fire, and he did destroying the Gemstone documents in his home fireplace. Tr. 4540-4550, 4823, 6570-6573. 11 Dean met with Liddy on June 19 and received a full briefing on the background of the break-in. He then imparted his own substantial knowledge to Ehrlichman, detailing the roles of Hunt and Liddy and mentioning the pledge he had received from Liddy that Liddy would keep silent. Tr. 2648-2656. There was no similar assurance regarding Hunt; Ehrlichman consequently issued, then retracted, an order that Hunt leave the country. Tr. 2657-2660, 4192-4193. He also directed that Hunt's safe, in his office in the Executive Office Building, be opened. Tr. 2660-2661. Dean retrieved the materials from the safe (which included some electronic equipment related to Watergate along with documents related to other questionable activities), whereupon Ehrlichman suggested to Dean that he shred some and deep six the rest. Dean refused, fearing that too many people White House employees and Secret Service agents knew he had removed materials from the safe. Tr. 2679-2687. Ultimately the items were turned over to the FBI, although the most sensitive went directly to L. Patrick Gray, the Acting Director, with directions from Dean and Ehrlichman that they should never see the light of day. Gray complied. Tr. 6212-6217. 12 It was becoming increasingly clear that the grand jury investigation would eventually tie Liddy and Hunt to the break-in scheme, primarily by tracing the currency that had been found on the burglars. 15 Tr. 2696-2708, 6605-6608. This presented added problems, as the links to CRP and the White House became more apparent. The conspirators decided to cover higher involvement by placing all blame on Liddy, who had pledged silence. They would maintain that Liddy was off on a frolic of his own, betraying his position of trust within CRP. Tr. 2762-2763. It still was necessary to explain why this man, general counsel to the Committee, had been supplied with such large sums of money (it proved later to be $199,000) capable of diversion to private frolics. Tr. 2759-2773, 4552-4562, 6652-6660. 13 Hunt presented an additional problem. He, like Liddy, apparently knew that Gemstone was a project approved at the highest levels of CRP. Like Liddy he had participated earlier in several seamy things for the White House, as he once described them. Tr. 3088. For example, as members of the White House Special Investigation Unit, 16 and with the approval of Ehrlichman, who was head of the Unit, they had broken into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, ransacking the doctor's records. 17 Tr. 7654-7656, 7664-7675. Significantly unlike Liddy, however, Hunt had never pledged to keep his knowledge of these things to himself. Assuring his silence would be extremely costly; he began to demand large cash payments on behalf of himself and the five burglars. 14 Thus were born the two major parts of the conspiracy: the cover story to explain the frolicsome Liddy's ability to draw so deeply on the CRP treasury, and the payment of hush money to those indicted and later convicted for the burglary.