The Enduring Secrets of Watergate

"I'm driving into work one day and I hear that Strauss and George Bush were holding a press conference at the National Press Club to announce that they were settling the Watergate case, putting it behind them," Oliver said. "I said he can't settle that suit without me. The Republicans were holding out $1 million to settle that suit, but they couldn't settle it without me."

On April 17, 1973, Strauss disclosed that CREEP had offered $525,000 to settle the case. "There has been some serious discussion for many months" between Democratic and CREEP lawyers, Strauss said. "It has become intense in the past several weeks." Strauss explained his interest in a settlement partly because the Democratic Party was saddled with a $3.5 million debt and could not afford to devote enough legal resources to the case. [22]

But two days later, Strauss backed off the settlement talks because Oliver and Common Cause, another organization involved in the civil case, balked. "We haven't the slightest intention of settling short of what we set out to get," said Common Cause chairman John Gardner. "I think that the Democratic National Committee suit and ours are the two that are least susceptible to control."[23]

At a press conference, Oliver declared, "I am appalled at the idea of ending the civil suit in the Watergate case through a secretly negotiated settlement and thereby destroying what may be an important forum through which the truth about those responsible may become known. I do not know what motivated Robert Strauss to even contemplate such a step."

For his part, Strauss said he had discussed a settlement with former Attorney General Mitchell "with the knowledge and approval of the Democratic leadership on the Hill after talking to a number of Democratic governors and with eight or 10 members of the Democratic National Committee." Asked if he was compromising the interests of the Democratic Party, Strauss responded, "If I was doing so, I was doing so with a lot of company."[24]

Though in retrospect, the idea of leading Democrats shying away from the Watergate scandal may seem odd, the major breaks in the cover-up had yet to occur. At the time, the prospect that the scandal might lead to Nixon's removal from office appeared remote. (As late as April 1974, Strauss would chastise Democratic governors for calling for Nixon's resignation. [25])

The pattern of prominent Democrats seeking to avoid confrontation with Republicans is also one that would recur in subsequent scandals that threatened the political survival of senior Republicans.

After the public flare-up over the aborted Watergate settlement, the strained relationship between Oliver and Strauss grew even worse. Oliver said, "Strauss started calling around to state chairs, saying "Did you see what that little SOB said about me? He's accusing me of being a crook.' He really launched a campaign against me."

Meanwhile, inside the Nixon administration, Connally took a more vocal role on Watergate, meeting with RNC chief Bush and urging the President to take some forceful action to get ahead of the expanding scandal. "Bush says that Connally wants something done drastically, that someone has to walk the plank and some heads have to roll," Haldeman recounted in his diary.

Haldeman discussed Watergate directly with Connally, who urged the White House to go on the offensive against the Senate committee. "We should be outraged at their demagoguery," Connally advised Haldeman, according to the diary entry. "Take them head-on in open session and grandstand it."

Haldeman wrote that Connally wanted senior White House officials to "go up and really put on an act, take the Committee on, try to nail them, that they'd been on a witch-hunt. You need some phrases. You need to be coached and rehearsed, each one of you. You might, by that, screw the Committee in people's minds and destroy it, or at least pull its teeth."[26]

As the scandal continued to grow -- and the cover-up created new legal dangers -- Nixon even considered appointing Connally as Attorney General. Haldeman doubted Connally would take the job, drawing a response from Nixon that "Connally says he'll do anything he has to do."[27]

Putting the Pieces Together

Oliver said it was not until spring 1973 that he began putting the pieces of the Watergate mystery together, leading him to believe that the events around the Texas convention were not simply coincidental but rather the consequence of Republican eavesdropping on his telephone.

If that were true, Oliver suspected, Strauss may have been collaborating with his old mentor Connally both in arranging a Texas outcome that would ensure McGovern's nomination and later in trying to head off the Watergate civil lawsuit. That would not mean that Connally and Strauss necessarily knew about the bugging of the DNC, only that they had been used by Republicans who had access to the information from the Gemstone wiretappers, Oliver said...

"In my opinion, they were listening to me on that phone do a vote count and they're listening to us start a project to block McGovern's nomination. They were scared to death that it would be Scoop Jackson or Terry Sanford... emerging as the Democratic nominee.

"This strategy is about to work and we're about to stop McGovern. Now, how do you block that? Well, the man who Nixon admired the most in the world, who he wanted to be his Vice President was John Connally. And who could block it in Texas? John Connally. Who was the state party chairman? Who controlled the machinery? John Connally's people. No Republican could have done it. Only Connally. They had to go directly to him because he's the only one who could fix it.