The Unraveling

Our guest interlocutors are John Dean and Richard Nixon, speaking in the Oval Office on March 21, 1973. Their conversation has been condensed for obvious pointed contemporary comparison.

DEAN:
I think, I think that, uh, there’s no doubt about the seriousness of the problem we’re, we’ve got. We have a cancer — within, close to the Presidency, that’s growing. It’s growing daily. It’s compounding, it grows geometrically now because it compounds itself. Uh, that’ll be clear as I explain you know, some of the details, uh, of why it is, and it basically is because (1) we’re being blackmailed; (2) uh, people are going to start perjuring themselves very quickly that have not had to perjure themselves to protect other people and the like. And that is just — and there is no assurance—

PRESIDENT:
That it won’t bust.

DEAN:
That, that it won’t bust.

PRESIDENT:
True.

DEAN:
We’ve — I don’t know if Mitchell has perjured himself in the Grand Jury or not. I’ve never—

PRESIDENT:
Who?

DEAN:
Mitchell. I don’t know how much knowledge he actually had. I know that Magruder has perjured himself in the Grand Jury. I know that Porter has perjured himself, uh, in the Grand Jury.

PRESIDENT:
Porter. (Unintelligible).

DEAN:
All right, so — uh, those people are in trouble as a result of the Grand Jury and the trial.

PRESIDENT:
Yeah.

DEAN:
All right, then they started making demands: “We’ve got to have attorneys’ fees. Uh, we don’t have any money ourselves, and if you are asking us to take this through the election.” All right, so arrangements were made through Mitchell, uh, initiating it, in discussions that — I was present — that these guys had to be taken care of. Their attorneys’ fees had to be done.

PRESIDENT:
They put that under the cover of a Cuban Committee or (unintelligible).

DEAN:
That’s the most troublesome post-thing, uh, because (1) Bob is involved in that; John is involved in that; I’m involved in that; Mitchell is involved in that. And that’s an obstruction of justice.

PRESIDENT:
In other words the fact that uh, that you’re, you’re, you’re taking care of the witnesses.

DEAN:
That’s right.

PRESIDENT:
Yeah.

DEAN:
What sort of brings matters to the — this is (1) this is going to be continual blackmail operation by Hunt and Liddy and the Cubans. No doubt about it.

PRESIDENT:
Yeah.

DEAN:
Now, where, where are the soft spots on this? Well, first of all, there’s the, there’s the problem of the continued blackmail…

PRESIDENT:
Right.

DEAN:
…which will not only go on now, it’ll go on when these people are in prison, and it will compound the obstruction of justice situation. It’ll cost money. It’s dangerous. Nobody, nothing — people around here are not pros at this sort of thing. This is the sort of thing Mafia people can do: washing money, getting clean money, and things like that.

PRESIDENT:
How much money do you need?

DEAN:
I would say these people are going to cost, uh, a million dollars over the next, uh — two years.

PRESIDENT:
We could get that.

DEAN:
What really bothers me is that this, this growing situation — as I say it is growing because of the, the continued need to provide support for the…

PRESIDENT:
Right.

DEAN:
…Watergate people who are going to…

PRESIDENT:
Yeah.

DEAN:
…hold us up for everything they’ve got…

PRESIDENT:
That’s right.

DEAN:
…and the need for some people to perjure themselves as they go down the road here. Uh, if this thing ever blows, and we’re in a cover-up situation, I think it’d be extremely damaging to you, uh, and uh, the, uh—

PRESIDENT:
The whole concept of Administration justice.

DEAN:
That’s right.

Excerpted Watergate-Related Conversations [Nixon Library]