Blind Repetition

ON JUNE 17, we will observe the tenth anniversary of the Watergate break-in. Ten years is a fairly long time, but Watergate--once dismissed as a "third-rate" burglary--clings to the public memory, haunting Americans with the specters of "dirty tricks," "secret tapes," and "full diclosures." It'd be nice to forget the whole ugly business, but we just can't. And one of the reasons we can't is that the people responsible for Watergate keep writing books about it.

Indeed, the Watergate crew has turned out to be an incredibly literate band of co-conspirators, producing a stream of fiction and non-fiction that began, it seems with the first indictment Charles Colson, in his memoir, Born Again, told how Jesus--if no one else--has forgiven him for paying hush money to the Watergate burglars. In Blind Ambition, John Dean reminded us that he decided to snitch on Nixon for the good of the country--not to mention the success of his own plea-bargaining. And G. Gordon Liddy's bizarre autobiography, Will, left no doubt that all his malevolence really had but one aim all along: to protect the U.S. from Communism.

The "now it can be told" motif of the Watergate literature seems to have a dual purpose. First, the authors are trying to salvage the little that is left of their images as legitimate public figures. Never mind that what the Deans and Liddys see as fame is really infamy; the irony that their notoriety results from their misdeeds is lost on them. And second, the Deans and Colsons want to set the historical record straight about their roles in Watergate, to state once and for all that their motives were pure and that they were the victims of forces beyond their control--Nixon's ambitions, peer pressure, a vindictive press. Rosemary Woods' clumsy footwork.

John Ehrlichman's latest effort, Witness to Power, fits right into the pattern established by previous "Nixon years" memoirs. The book's very title reflects Ehrlichman's notion of his own historical importance. In his mind, he is no mere former White House side and political back, but a "witness to power," a man privileged by history to share the secrets of national leadership. Unfortunately for Ehrlichman, there really isn't very much in the book to support his inflated self-image. To begin with, he is obliged to admit that Nixon--like most of the American public--never stopped confusing him with H.R. Haldeman, and that to this day Nixon doesn't know how to spell his last name.

As a result, the sections concerning Nixon's pre-1968 career consist of a turgid rehash of Ehrlichman's activities of a campaign advance man--events that made Ehrlichman a witness to press-plane partying but not to power. Even in his account of the Nixon presidency. Ehrlichman can't help giving the impression that he was a relatively peripheral figure For example, the first eight pages of a chapter supposedly about Nixon's political style is taken up by a story about Ehrlichman's trip to Sweden in 1972 and by the transcript of an utterly unremarkable press conference. As domestic affairs advisor. Ehrlichman seemed to be "on another assignment" when Nixon made noteworthy decisions--like those concerning Vietnam. China and the Middle East.

It's not surprising, then, that Ehrlichman has to fill his pages with mere gossip from the Nixon years, items which he seems to think are "inside information." Do you know that Bebe Rebozo was "Nixon's source of undemanding mental relaxation"? Do you know that "Pat Nixon grew in her role as First Lady"? Do you know that Tricia Nixon once stuck Ehrlichman with the tab for lunch"? Do you care? And when Ehrlichman's narrative does occasionally touch on an illuminating point--like when he mentions that Nixon and Colson attempted to coerce network television executives to procure more favorable coverage--it is rarely developed beyond mere mention.

But even gossip can be interesting if presented in a lively and humorous style. Ehrlichman, however, writes as if his imagination were chained to a post. His plodding exposition is replace with mixed metaphors, clichers, and spelling errors--its only humor is bitter and sarcastic. A sample of the Ehrlichman wit:

From what I've been told by you, it sounds like the talks with Dean could result in the President's impeachment," I said. That was like dropping a dead cat in the Kool-aid. The tapes show that after I left the room, Nixon dramatically recoiled from my remark.

EVEN IF HE FAILS to convince his readers of his historical importance, Ehrlichman could still achieve his second purpose: self exoneration for his role in the Watergate crisis. But Ehrlichman's efforts here are as tiresome as they are tireless. His version of the Watergate scandal contains not a single previously unknown fact or innovative argument. Instead, it is a string of extraordinarily bitter and venomous recriminations and accusations. His main targets are John Dean, portrayed as a pathological liar, and his two trial judges--Gerhard Gesell and John J. Sirica--both the whom he sees as incompetent grandstanders.

He denies any involvement in the Watergate cover-up or the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office--the two crimes for which he served 18 months in federal prison. He pins the former caper completely on Dean, and hints quite strongly that Nixon commissioned the later. Far from admitting any wrongdoing. Ehrlichman claims that Nixon though of him as the "conscience" of the Administration. The problem with that story is simple: he enlists no new evidence in his cause and supplements, his charges with no compelling arguments. He merely stakes his word against Dean's, the prosecutors' and the witnesses'. But he tried that once before--at his trial--and it didn't work then either.

In his final chapter, Ehrlichman claims that he doesn't worry anymore about what people-I-don't-know believe about me." The very fact that he has written such a profoundly self-serving account of his political career belies this statement. Ehrlichman cares desperately that people believe he was clean. Like the rest of the Watergate chroniclers, he not only doesn't want to let the public forget Watergate, but he wants us to remember it his way.

Ehrlichman's historical gymnastics notwithstanding, we must never forget what Watergate really was and what it really meant. The Nixon Administration, pervaded by a paramoic obsession with its "enemies," grievously abused its power and endangered the civil liberties of its critics. Whatever certain individuals may have done. Watergate as a whole was a betrayal of the public treat by the highest officials in the land. Nothing John Ehrlichman did then or says new can ever change that simple fact Witness to Power adds nothing to the public discourse about Watergate. It just proves that the cover up is still going strong.