Monday, November 5, 2007

Watergate: Firefighting 4

The following passages are extracts from Watergate co-conspirator's John Dean's Blind Ambition, detailing the workings of the Nixon Administration in the Watergate Scandal years.

Murray was testy, or maybe defensive-I couldn't decide. It was clear that he didn't want to discuss the matter further. I thanked him and left. If I was going to play ball in Richard Nixon's league, I would have to get over my squeamishness. I am not sure what I would have done if John J. Caulfield had not walked into my office.

Jack Caulfield could easily have been born in the mind of Damon Runyon instead of New York City. He had moved up the ranks of the New York police force, from a street beat to detective, arriving at the White House after an assignment as candidate Nixon's personal bodyguard in 1968. Bob Haldeman had assigned him to me without telling me why. Caulfield explained that he was White House liaison with the Secret Service and the local police, but his principal assignment was to investigate Senator Edward M. Kennedy's conduct in the Chappaquiddlck accident for John Ehrlichman.


Jack was a bountiful source of information. He knew what everybody was doing. He could tell you how to get a refrigerator or parking privileges and who was sleeping with whose secretary. And he wanted to help me find my bearings. He seemed a natural person to turn to with my IRS orders, and I decided to show him the memos. "How would you handle these assignments?" I asked.

TO BE CONTINUED.

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