April 16, 1973: Nixon, Aides Attempt to Craft Testimony to Give Nixon Credit for ‘Breaking’ Watergate Case

White House counsel John Dean tells President Nixon that he and senior aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman should resign in an attempt to protect Nixon from the Watergate fallout. Nixon concurs; in fact, he has already had two letters of resignation drawn up for Dean to sign. One reads, “In view of my increasing involvement in the Watergate matter, my impending appearance before the grand jury and the probability of its action, I request an immediate and indefinite leave of absence from my position on your staff.” The other is similarly worded, but tenders Dean’s resignation. Dean balks at signing them, and asks to rewrite and resubmit them. Nixon continues trying to rewrite his earlier exchanges with Dean, hoping to shape Dean’s testimony about Nixon’s earlier assertions of executive privilege and the payout of “hush money” to the convicted burglars (see April 15, 1973). Dean attempts to take credit for attempting to stop the Watergate conspiracy in its inception, but Nixon wants Dean’s testimony to credit him and not Dean. He even wants Dean to testify that the case was broken because of Nixon’s actions. After Dean leaves, Nixon, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman discuss the way they want the Watergate story to be told, deflecting and minimizing their own roles in the conspiracy and crediting themselves for bringing the story to light. Dean later returns with a written request for an indefinite leave of absence that says nothing about his Watergate involvement. Nixon wants to fire Dean and retain Haldeman and Ehrlichman, but knows that will send Dean into a spate of testimony that will drag everyone, including Nixon, down. “There’s no sense in aggravating Dean,” Nixon says. “He’ll do anything to save his own ass. He’s pissing as high as he can get now. We can’t let him piss any higher” and implicate Nixon. [Reeves, 2001, pp. 588-590]