Tales from the Men Who Took Orders

Senator Sam Ervin's Watergate committee has promised to expose all the secrets of the scandal, but while the various accusations and defenses reverberated through the top levels of Washington last week, the Ervin committee lumbered along in pursuit of lesser men.

In the long, slow process of building their case, the committee members were paternally patient, indulgent even, as they questioned, one after another, the fixers and followers and bearers of messages. As the witnesses testified, they soon revealed that they had been drawn into the affair without quite realizing what they were doing, that they were more adept at taking orders than understanding them. John J. Caulfield, an ex-cop who had carried an offer of Executive clemency to convicted Watergate Raider James W. McCord Jr., described how he had been "injected into this scandal," how he had been forced to choose between obeying the law and obeying the White House, and Sam Ervin remarked: "The greatest conflicts in this world are when we try to choose between two loyalties."

McCord, the star witness to date, finally explained his motives for becoming involved. As an old CIA hand, he said, "I had been working in an environment where, if there was ever any question of the legality of a matter or an activity, it would always be sent to high legal officials for a decision on the matter, where, if they sanctioned it, that was sufficient." He added that "left alone, I would not have undertaken the operation."

But his fellow conspirator, G. Gordon Liddy, sought his help, saying that Attorney General John N. Mitchell and Presidential Counsel John W. Dean III had approved the Watergate breakin.

The objective, as McCord understood it, was to anticipate the plans of any groups planning violence during the presidential campaign. "Uppermost in everyone's mind at that point in time, and certainly in mine," said McCord, "was the bloodshed which had occurred at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago."

McCord ticked off other acts of violence that had filled him--and his superiors in the White House--with foreboding: a bomb blast at the U.S. Capitol Building in 1969; the destruction of the offices of Senator John Tower in Austin, Texas, in 1972; the alleged threats by the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War to bomb the G.O.P. Convention; the continued threats against the lives of John and Martha Mitchell. Though he was "completely convinced" that Senator George McGovern and Democratic Party Chairman Lawrence O'Brien had no knowledge of the conspirators, McCord believed that Democratic offices in Washington and California were being used by plotters.

Thus he agreed to participate in raids on both places, though the burglary of McGovern headquarters was never carried out.

In the course of his testimony, McCord brought up another burglary plan that had not been mentioned publicly before. In early 1972, Liddy had said he might need his help in breaking into the office safe of Herman ("Hank") Greenspun, feisty publisher of the Las Vegas Sun. Liddy said he had been informed by Mitchell that Greenspun had documents connecting a top Democratic presidential candidate with racketeers--though McCord now believes that there was another motive for cracking the safe. (Greenspun thinks that the raiders were searching for papers that might prove embarrassing to Howard R. Hughes, whom Greenspun was suing over a real estate controversy.) Once the break-in was completed, said Liddy, the burglars would escape to Central America aboard a plane owned by Hughes. McCord never joined the raid and never found out what happened. Later he read that E. Howard Hunt had forwarded a campaign contribution from Hughes to the Committee for the Re-Election of the President.

Freedom. Like McCord, John Caulfield portrayed himself as more used than using, a pliant tool of higher-ups. Obviously impressed by the fact that he had been plucked from obscurity on the New York City police force to head a special security apparatus in the White House, Caulfield was prepared for almost any assignment. Even so, he balked when John Dean first asked him to convey the offer of Executive clemency to McCord, a close friend. By then holding a job as assistant director of enforcement at the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, from which he resigned last week, Caulfield wanted someone else to do the job for him. He chose a paunchy ex-cop from New York City, Anthony Ulasewicz, who was on the payroll of Herbert W. Kalmbach, the President's personal attorney. Without identifying himself, Ulasewicz phoned McCord and relayed Dean's message: "1) a year is a long time; 2) your wife and family will be taken care of; 3) you will be rehabilitated with employment when this is all over."

McCord insisted on meeting Caulfield face to face. "I objected to seeing Mr. McCord," Caulfield testified. "But finally Mr. Dean got my concurrence to do so." McCord, however, turned down the offer. He told Caulfield: "I have always followed the rule that if one goes, all who are involved must go ... I saw a picture of some guy who I am sure was involved sitting with his family. I can take care of my family. I don't need any jobs. I want my freedom." McCord had testified that he believed the clemency offer came from Nixon himself, but Caulfield contradicted that. He declared that he never said he was speaking for the President. Under questioning by the committee, however, he admitted feeling that "the President probably did know about it ... Based on that background, I thought I was doing something for the President of the U.S., and I did it, sir."

McCord offered a bizarre counterproposal. He told Caulfield that he had made telephone calls to the Chilean and Israeli embassies in Washington. Since the phones of both embassies were probably tapped by the U.S., he thought that the Government would be embarrassed if forced to reveal the taps at his trial. Thus the Government would have an excuse to drop the case against him.

Caulfield took this proposal back to Dean, who replied: "Go back to him and tell him that we are checking on these wiretaps, but this time impress upon him as fully as you can that this offer comes from the very highest level of the White House." Caulfield asked Dean if there was a name he could use. "No," said Dean, "I don't want you to do that. But tell him that the message comes from the very highest levels." Caulfield asked: "Do you want me to tell him it comes from the President?" "No," replied Dean, "don't do that. Say it comes from way at the top."

Since Caulfield had brought up the name of Anthony Ulasewicz, another little man was called to testify. Once Ulasewicz had outlined his job as a sleuth, Senator Howard H. Baker Jr. asked him if he thought that the "wire-men" on the New York police force were more competent than the Watergate raiders. Replied Ulasewicz: "Any old retired man in the New York police department... would not have gone in [to the Watergate] with an army, that's for sure."

Judging from the testimony of two other participants, Bernard L. Barker and Alfred C. Baldwin, they were even more in the dark about the affair. A convicted Watergate conspirator who gave his address as Cell Block 4, District of Columbia Jail, Barker described how his love of Cuba, where he was born and spent half his life, led him to join the Bay of Pigs operation under the supervision of E. Howard Hunt Jr. Ten years later, Hunt once again sought his help. Barker made it clear that he was not being paid to think. "I was there to follow orders," he told the committee, "I was part of Hunt's image."

When pressed for his motives, Barker spoke vaguely of national security, as if he were not too certain what the concept meant. He said he had joined the Watergate operation to discover whether the Democrats were receiving campaign contributions from leftist organizations at home and abroad, but nothing to that effect was found. He also had helped burglarize the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, he said, in order to get information about a "traitor" who he claimed had passed secret documents to the Soviets.

Convert. Also caught in the Watergate web, Baldwin testified that even when he was arrested, he was not sure what was going on. A onetime FBI agent who had joined C.R.P. with the hope that he might "do well" and "obtain permanent employment," Baldwin had been working for weeks in the Howard Johnson's motel across from Watergate. With earphones on his head, he jotted down more than 200 conversations from bugs that had been successfully placed in telephones in the Democratic National Committee offices during the Memorial Day weekend. On the night of the breakin, he was given a walkie-talkie and instructed to keep in touch with the five raiders inside Democratic headquarters. Eventually, someone whispered over the walkie-talkie: "They've got us." The next thing he knew, Hunt stormed into the room, made a hurried trip to the bathroom, then darted out again, shouting to Baldwin to pick up the electronic equipment and the logs of the tapes and run. Baldwin called after the fleeing Hunt: "Does this mean I won't be going to [the convention in] Miami?"

Such was the complexity of the week's testimony that even the little men's attorneys got into the act. McCord had said that his own lawyer for the Watergate trial, Gerald Alch, had advised him to claim that the break-in was a CIA operation. He said Alch also suggested that CIA documents could be forged to support this defense. Alch, as dapper as he was indignant, demanded the right to make a lengthy rebuttal and to impugn McCord's testimony. He said he had asked McCord's present attorney, Bernard Fensterwald Jr., why his client had made such a charge. Replied Fensterwald: "I can only hazard the guess that it is the result of Mr. McCord's faulty recollection. I think you will agree that there is no zealot like a convert." Taking the offensive, Alch quoted Fensterwald as declaring: "We're going after the President of the United States." Alch said he replied that he "was not interested in any vendettas against the President." But questioning from the committee forced Alch to admit that some of his statements to McCord might have made McCord suspicious that he was working with the White House to get a guilty plea.

No sooner had Alch made his protest than both Fensterwald and McCord demanded a chance to answer. But the committee decided that it was time to call a halt. The Watergate small fry had already consumed much more time than had been scheduled, and there was growing criticism that the committee should move on to bigger game. Otherwise, it would be several weeks before major figures like John Dean, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were heard from. Responding to this restiveness, the committee moved up the resumption of hearings from June 12 to June 5 ("February 5th at 10 p.m." was what the weary Sam Ervin actually said).

Privilege. One of the key witnesses now scheduled to be called is Hugh Sloan Jr., who served as treasurer of C.R.P.'s finance committee. TIME learned that his testimony will spell out how nearly $900,000 in campaign contributions were distributed for what Sloan says he later learned were undercover operations. The money was divided among several different bank accounts, the bulk of it going to Kalmbach and Liddy. At one point, according to Sloan, he went to Finance Chairman Maurice Stans to ask why Liddy received so much. Stans told him: "I don't know, and you don't want to know." After the breakin, Sloan told the committee in its preliminary investigation, he approached Ehrlichman. Worried that any money found on the defendants (the police reported several thousand dollars) would be traced to him, he asked what he should do. Ehrlichman assured him that the matter would be covered by Executive privilege "at least until after the election." Said the White House domestic chief: "You are overwrought. You should take a vacation. It is also important to protect the President."

In the weeks that followed, Sloan said, he was repeatedly pressured to commit perjury. Jeb Stuart Magruder, then deputy chief of the C.R.P., insisted that they agree on a low figure for the amount of money that had been given to Liddy. Sloan told Magruder: "I have no intention to perjure myself." Replied Magruder: "You may have to." Finally, Sloan went to Stans to offer his resignation, but Stans had beat him to it. "I have already talked to the FBI," said Stans, "and told them that you resigned."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.