The Great Shark Hunt Part 16

"What can we do?" do?" he asked. he asked.

"Kick out the jams," I said. "Don't worry, d.i.c.k. When the next list comes out, we'll be there. be there. I guarantee that." I guarantee that."

-- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson "Rude Notes from a Decompression Chamber in Miami". . . June '73 FROM : Raoul Duke, Sports Editor : Raoul Duke, Sports Editor TO: Main/Edit Control Main/Edit Control C.C.: Legal, Finance, Security, et al.

SUBJECT: Imminent emergence of Dr. Thomspon from the Decompression Chamber in Miami, and probably inability of the Sports Desk or anyone else to control his movements at that time. . . "especially in connection with his ill-conceived plan to move the National Affairs Desk back to Was.h.i.+ngton and bring Ralph Steadman over from England to cause trouble at the Watergate Hearings. . . Imminent emergence of Dr. Thomspon from the Decompression Chamber in Miami, and probably inability of the Sports Desk or anyone else to control his movements at that time. . . "especially in connection with his ill-conceived plan to move the National Affairs Desk back to Was.h.i.+ngton and bring Ralph Steadman over from England to cause trouble at the Watergate Hearings. . .

EDITOR'S NOTE:.

The following intra-corporate memo arrived by Mojo wire from Colorado shortly before deadline time for this issue. It was greeted with mixed emotions by all those potentially afflicted. . . and because of the implications, we felt a certain obligation to lash up a quick, last-minute explanation. . . primarily for those who have never understood the real function of Raoul Duke (whose official t.i.tle is "sports editor"), and also for the many readers whose attempts to reach Dr. Thompson by mail, phone & other means have not borne fruit.

The circ.u.mstances of Dr. Thompson's removal from the Public World have been a carefully guarded secret for the past several months. During the last week of March -- after a strange encounter with Henry Kissinger while on "vacation" in Acapulco -- Dr. Thompson almost drowned when his SCUBA tanks unexplainably ran out of air while diving for black coral off the Yucatan Coast of Mexico, at a depth of some 300 feet. His rapid emergence from these depths -- according to witnesses -- resulted in a near-fatal case of the Bends, and an emergency-chartered night-flight to the nearest decompression chamber, which happened to be in Miami.

Dr. Thompson was unconscious in the decompression chamber -- a round steel cell about 12 feet in diameter -- for almost three weeks. When he finally regained his wits it was impossible to speak with him, except by means of a cracked loudspeaker tube & brief handwritten notes held up to the window. A television set was introduced into the chamber at his insistence and, by extremely complicated maneuvering, he was able to watch the Watergate hearings. . . but, due to the dangerous differences in pressurization, he was unable to communicate anything but garbled notes on his impressions to Duke, his long-time friend and a.s.sociate who flew to Miami immediately, at his own expense.

When it became apparent that Dr. Thompson would be in the chamber indefinitely, Duke left him in Miami -- breathing easily in the chamber with a TV set & several notebooks -- and returned to Colorado, where he spent the past three months handling the Doktor's personal & business affairs, in addition to organizing the skeletal framework for his 1974 Senate Race.

It was a familiar role for Duke, who has been Dr. Thompson's close friend & adviser since 1968 -- after 14 years of distinguished service in the CIA, the FBI and the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Police Intelligence Unit. His duties, since hiring on with Dr. Thompson, have been understandably varied. He has been described as "a weapons expert," a "ghost-writer," a "bodyguard," a "wizard" and a "brutal fixer."

"Compared to the things I've done for Thompson," Duke says, "both Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt were stone punks punks."

It is clear, from this memo, that Duke has spent a good bit of his time in Colorado watching the Watergate hearings on TV -- but it is also clear that his tentative conclusions are very different from the ones Dr. Thompson reached, from his admittedly singular vantage point in that decompression chamber in downtown Miami.

The editors of ROLLING STONE ROLLING STONE would prefer not to comment on would prefer not to comment on either either of these viewpoints at this time, nor to comment on the nightmare/blizzard of Expense Vouchers submitted, by Duke, in connexion with this dubious memo. In accordance with our long tradition, however, we are placing the Public Interest (publication of Duke's memo, in this case) on a plane far above and beyond our inevitably mundane haggling about the cost of breakfast and lunch. of these viewpoints at this time, nor to comment on the nightmare/blizzard of Expense Vouchers submitted, by Duke, in connexion with this dubious memo. In accordance with our long tradition, however, we are placing the Public Interest (publication of Duke's memo, in this case) on a plane far above and beyond our inevitably mundane haggling about the cost of breakfast and lunch.

What follows, then, is a jangled mix of Duke's official communications with this office, and Thompson's "Watergate Notes" (forwarded to us, by Duke) from his decompression chamber in Miami. The chronology is not entirely consistent. Duke's opening note, for instance, reflects his concern & alarm with Dr. Thompson's decision to go directly from Miami -- once the doctors have confirmed his ability to function in normal air-pressures -- to the harsh & politically volatile atmosphere in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. Unlike Duke, he seems blindly obsessed with the day-to-day details of the Watergate hearings. . . and what is also clear from this memo is that Dr. Thompson has maintained regular contact (despite all medical and physical realities, according to the doctors in charge of his Chamber in Miami) with his familiar campaign trail allies, Tim Crouse and Ralph Steadman. An invoice received only yesterday, from the manager of the Watergate Hotel, indicates that somebody has reserved a top-floor river-view suite, under the names of "Thompson, Steadman & Crouse". . . four adjoining rooms at $277 a day, with a long list of special equipment and an unlimited in-house expense authorization.

Needless to say, we will. . . but, why mention that now? The dumb b.u.g.g.e.rs are already into it, and something something is bound to emerge. We save the bargaining for later. . . is bound to emerge. We save the bargaining for later. . .

-- The Editors Duke Memo No. 9, July 2,1973 Gentlemen: This will confirm my previous warnings in re: the dangerously unstable condition of Dr. Thompson, whose most recent communications leave no doubt in my mind that he still considers himself the National Affairs Editor of R ROLLING S STONE -- and in that capacity he has somehow made arrangements to fly immediately from Miami to Was.h.i.+ngton, upon his release, to "cover" the remaining episodes of the Watergate Hearings. I have no idea what he really means by the word "cover" -- but a phone talk late last night with his doctors gave me serious pause. He will leave The Chamber at the end of this week, and he's talking in terms of "saturation coverage." According to the doctors, there is no way to communicate with him in the Chamber except by notes held up to the gla.s.s window -- but I suspect he has a phone in there, because he has obviously communicated at length with Crouse, Steadman, Mankiewicz and several others. A person resembling Crouse was seen loitering around the Chamber last Monday night around 3:30 AM. . . and a call to Steadman's agent in London confirmed that Ralph has left his hideout in the south of France and is booked on a Paris-Was.h.i.+ngton flight next Thursday, the day before Thompson's release. -- and in that capacity he has somehow made arrangements to fly immediately from Miami to Was.h.i.+ngton, upon his release, to "cover" the remaining episodes of the Watergate Hearings. I have no idea what he really means by the word "cover" -- but a phone talk late last night with his doctors gave me serious pause. He will leave The Chamber at the end of this week, and he's talking in terms of "saturation coverage." According to the doctors, there is no way to communicate with him in the Chamber except by notes held up to the gla.s.s window -- but I suspect he has a phone in there, because he has obviously communicated at length with Crouse, Steadman, Mankiewicz and several others. A person resembling Crouse was seen loitering around the Chamber last Monday night around 3:30 AM. . . and a call to Steadman's agent in London confirmed that Ralph has left his hideout in the south of France and is booked on a Paris-Was.h.i.+ngton flight next Thursday, the day before Thompson's release.

Mankiewicz denies everything, as usual, but I talked to Sam Brown in Denver yesterday and he said the word around Was.h.i.+ngton is that Frank is "acting very nervous" and also ordering Wild Turkey "by the case" from Chevy Chase Liquors. This indicates, to me, that Frank knows something. He has probably been talking to Crouse, but Tim's number in Boston won't answer, so I can't confirm anything there.

Dr. Squane, the Bends Specialist in Miami, says Thompson is "acceptably rational" -- whatever that means -- and that they have no reason to keep him in The Chamber beyond Friday. My insistence that he be returned at once to Colorado -- under guard if necessary -- has not been taken seriously in Miami. The bill for his stay in The Chamber -- as you know -- is already over $3000, and they are not anxious to keep him there any longer than absolutely necessary. I got the impression, during my talk with Doc Squane last night, that Thompson's stay in The Chamber has been distinctly unpleasant for the staff. "I'll never understand why he didn't just wither up and die," Squane told me. "Only a monster monster could survive that kind of trauma." could survive that kind of trauma."

I sensed disappointment in his voice, but I saw no point in arguing. We've been through this before, right? And it's always the same gig. My only concern for right now -- as Thompson's de facto personal guardian -- is to make sure he doesn't get involved in serious trouble, if he's serious about going to Was.h.i.+ngton.

Which he is is, I suspect -- and that means, if nothing else, that he'll be running up huge bills on the R ROLLING S STONE tab. Whether or not he will write anything coherent is a moot point, I think, because tab. Whether or not he will write anything coherent is a moot point, I think, because whatever whatever he writes -- if anything -- will necessarily be long out of date by the time it appears in print. Not even the Was.h.i.+ngton Post and the New York Times, which arrive daily (but three days late) out here in Woody Creek, can compete with the spontaneous, brain-boggling horrors belching constantly out of the TV set. he writes -- if anything -- will necessarily be long out of date by the time it appears in print. Not even the Was.h.i.+ngton Post and the New York Times, which arrive daily (but three days late) out here in Woody Creek, can compete with the spontaneous, brain-boggling horrors belching constantly out of the TV set.

Last Sat.u.r.day afternoon, for instance, I was sitting here very peacefully -- minding the store, as it were -- when the tube suddenly erupted with a genuinely obscene obscene conversation between Mike Wallace and John Ehrlichman. conversation between Mike Wallace and John Ehrlichman.

I was sitting on the porch with Gene Johnston -- one of Dr. Thompson's old friends and ex-general manager of the Aspen Wallposter -- when Sandy called us inside to watch the show. Ehrlichman's face was so awful, so obviously mired in a lifetime of lies and lame treachery, that it was just about impossible to watch him in our twisted condition.

"Jesus Christ, look look at him!" Johnston kept muttering. "Two months ago, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d was at him!" Johnston kept muttering. "Two months ago, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d was running the country." running the country." He opened a beer and whacked it down on the table. "I never want to hear the word 'paranoid' again, G.o.dd.a.m.nit! Not after seeing He opened a beer and whacked it down on the table. "I never want to hear the word 'paranoid' again, G.o.dd.a.m.nit! Not after seeing that that face!" He reeled towards the front door, shaking his head and mumbling: "G.o.d d.a.m.n! I can't face!" He reeled towards the front door, shaking his head and mumbling: "G.o.d d.a.m.n! I can't stand stand it!" it!"

I watched the whole thing, myself, but not without problems. It reminded me of Last Exit to Brooklyn Last Exit to Brooklyn -- the rape of a bent wh.o.r.e -- but I also knew Dr. Thompson was watching the show in Miami, and that it would fill him with venom & craziness. Whatever small hope we might have had of keeping him away from Was.h.i.+ngton during this crisis was burned to a cinder by the Wallace-Ehrlichman show. It had the effect of reinforcing Thompson's conviction that Nixon has cashed his check -- and that possibility alone is enough to lure him to Was.h.i.+ngton for the death-watch. -- the rape of a bent wh.o.r.e -- but I also knew Dr. Thompson was watching the show in Miami, and that it would fill him with venom & craziness. Whatever small hope we might have had of keeping him away from Was.h.i.+ngton during this crisis was burned to a cinder by the Wallace-Ehrlichman show. It had the effect of reinforcing Thompson's conviction that Nixon has cashed his check -- and that possibility alone is enough to lure him to Was.h.i.+ngton for the death-watch.

My own prognosis is less drastic, at this point in time [sic], but it's also a fact that I've never been able to share The Doktor's obsessive political visions -- for good or ill. My job has to do with nuts & bolts, not terminal vengeance. And it also occurs to me that there is nothing in the Watergate revelations, thus far, to convince anyone but a stone partisan fanatic that we will all be better off when it's finished. As I see it, we have already reaped the real real benefits of this spectacle -- the almost accidental castration of dehumanized power-mongers like Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Tom Charles Huston, that vicious young jackal of a lawyer from Indianapolis that Nixon put in charge of the Special Domestic Intelligence operation. benefits of this spectacle -- the almost accidental castration of dehumanized power-mongers like Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Tom Charles Huston, that vicious young jackal of a lawyer from Indianapolis that Nixon put in charge of the Special Domestic Intelligence operation.

Dumping thugs like these out of power for the next three years gives us all new room to breathe, for a while -- which is just about all we can hope for, given the nature of the entrenched (Democratic) opposition. Nixon himself is no problem, now that all his ranking thugs have been neutralized. Just imagine what those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds might have done, given three more years on their own terms.

Even a casual reading of White House memorandums in re: Domestic Subversives & Other White House Enemies (Bill Cosby, James Reston, Paul Newman, Joe Namath, et al.) is enough to queer the faith of any American less liberal than Mussolini. Here is a paragraph from one of his (September 21, 1970) memos to Harry "Bob" Haldeman: "What we cannot do in a courtroom via criminal prosecutions to curtail the activities of some of these groups, IRS [the Internal Revenue Service] could do by administrative action. Moreover, valuable intelligence-type information could be turned up by IRS as a result of their field audits. . ."

Dr. Thompson -- if he were with us & certifiably de-pressurized at this point in time -- could offer some first-hand testimony about how the IRS and the Treasury Department were used, back in 1970, to work muscle on Ideological Enemies like himself. . . and if Thompson's account might be shrugged off as "biased," we can always compel the testimony of Aspen police chief, d.i.c.k Richey, whose office safe still holds an illegal sawed-off shotgun belonging to a US Treasury Department undercover agent from Denver who f.u.c.ked up in his efforts to convince Dr. Thompson that he should find a quick reason for dropping out of electoral politics. That incident came up the other afternoon at the Jerome Bar in Aspen, when Steve Levine, a young reporter from Denver, observed that "Thompson was one of the original victims of the Watergate syndrome -- but n.o.body recognized it then; they called it Paranoia."

Right. . . But that's another story, and well leave it for the Doktor to tell. After three months in the Decompression Chamber, he will doubtless be cranked up to the fine peaks of frenzy. His "Watergate notes from the Chamber" show a powerful, brain-damaged kind of zeal that will hopefully be brought under control in the near future. . . and I'm enclosing some of them here, as crude evidence to show he's still functioning, despite the tragic handicap that comes with a bad case of the Bends.

In closing, I remain. . . Yrs. in Fear & Loathing: Raoul Duke, Spts. Ed.

EDITOR'S NOTE:.

What follows is the unfinished mid-section of Dr. Thompson's Notes from the Decompression Chamber. This section was written in his notebook on the day after convicted Watergate burglar James McCord's appearance before the Ervin committee on national TV. It was transcribed by a nurse who copied Dr. Thompson's notes as he held them up, page by page, through the pressure-sealed window of his Chamber. It is not clear, from the text, whether he deliberately wrote this section with a "Woody Creek, Colorado" dateline, or whether he planned to be there by the time it was printed.

In either case, he was wrong. His case of the Bends was severe, almost fatal. And even upon his release these is no real certainty of recovery. He might have to re-enter the Decompression Chamber at any time, if he suffers a relapse.

None of which has any bearing on what follows -- which was published exactly as he wrote it in the Chamber: Jesus, where will it end? Yesterday I turned on my TV set -- hungry for some decent upbeat news -- and here was an ex-Army Air Force colonel with 19 years in the CIA under his belt admitting that he'd willfully turned himself into a common low-life burglar because he thought the Attorney General and The President of the US had more or less ordered ordered him to. Ex-Colonel McCord felt he had a duty to roam around the country burglarizing offices and ransacking private/personal files -- because the security of the USA was at stake. him to. Ex-Colonel McCord felt he had a duty to roam around the country burglarizing offices and ransacking private/personal files -- because the security of the USA was at stake.

Indeed, we were in serious trouble last year -- and for five or six years before that, if you believe the muck those two vicious and irresponsible young punks at the Was.h.i.+ngton Post have raked up.

"Impeachment" is an ugly word, they say. Newsweek columnist Shana Alexander says "all but the vulture-hearted want to believe him ignorant." A week earlier, Ms. Alexander wrote a "love letter" to Martha Mitch.e.l.l: "You are in the best tradition of American womanhood, defending your country, your flag. . . but most of all, defending your man."

Well. . . shucks. I can hardly choke back the tears. . . and where does that leave Pat Nixon, who apparently went on a world cruise under a different name the day after McCord pulled the plug and wrote that devastating letter to Judge Sirica.

The public prints -- and especially Newsweek -- are full of senile gibberish these days. Stewart Alsop wakes up in a cold sweat every morning at the idea that Congress might be forced to impeach "The President."

For an answer to that, we can look to Hubert Humphrey -- from one of the nine speeches he made during his four-and-a-half hour campaign for Democratic candidate George McGovern in the waning weeks of last November's presidential showdown -- Humphrey was talking to a crowd of hardhats in S.F., as I recall, and he said, "My friends, we're not talking about re-electing the President -- we're talking about re-electing Richard Nixon."

Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then. Humphrey's voice just belched out of my radio, demanding that we get to the bottom of this Watergate mess, get to the bottom of this Watergate mess, but meanwhile we have to make sure the Ruskies understand that we all stand firmly behind The President. but meanwhile we have to make sure the Ruskies understand that we all stand firmly behind The President.

Right. As far behind him as possible, if GOP standard-bearers like B. Goldwater and Hugh Scott are any measure of the party's allegiance to the frightened unprincipled little shyster they were calling -- when they nominated him for re-canonization ten months ago in Miami -- "one of the greatest Presidents in American History." We will want those tapes for posterity because we won't hear their like again -- from Scott, Goldwater, Duke Wayne, Martha, Sammy Davis, Senator Percy or anyone else. Not even George Meany will join a foursome with Richard Nixon these days. The hallowed halls of the White House no longer echo with the happy sound of bouncing golf b.a.l.l.s. Or footb.a.l.l.s either, for that matter. . . or any other kind.

The hard-nosed super-executives Nixon chose to run this country for us turned on each other like rats in a slum-fire when the first signs of trouble appeared. What we have seen in the past few weeks is the incredible spectacle of a President of the United States either firing or being hastily abandoned by all of his hired hands and cronies -- all the people who put him where he is today, in fact, and now that they're gone he seems helpless. Some of his closest "friends" and advisers are headed for prison, his once-helpless Democratic Congress is verging on mutiny, the threat of impeachment looms closer every day, and his coveted "place in history" is even now being etched out in acid by eager Harvard historians.

Six months ago Richard Nixon was Zeus himself, calling firebombs and s.h.i.+trains down on friend and foe alike -- the most powerful man in the world, for a while -- but all that is gone now and nothing he can do will ever bring a hint of it back. Richard Nixon's seventh crisis will be his last. He will go down with Harding and Grant as one of America's cla.s.sically rotten presidents.

Which is exactly what he deserves -- and if saying that makes me "one of the vulture-hearted," by Ms. Alexander's lights. . . well. . . I think I can live with it. My grandmother was one of those stunned old ladies who cried when the Duke of Windsor quit the Big Throne to marry an American commoner back in 1936. She didn't know the Duke or anything about him. But she knew -- along with millions of other old ladies and closet monarchists -- that a Once and Future King had a duty to keep up the act. She wept for her lost illusions -- for the same reason Stewart Alsop and Shana Alexander will weep tomorrow if President Richard M. Nixon is impeached and put on trial by the US Senate.

Our Congressmen will do everything possible to avoid it, because most of them have a deep and visceral sympathy, however denied and reluctant, for the "tragic circ.u.mstances" that led Richard Nixon to what even Evans and Novak call "the brink of ruin." The loyal opposition has not distinguished itself in the course of this long-running nightmare. Even Nixon's oldest enemies are lying low, leaving the dirty work to hired lawyers and faceless investigators. Senators Kennedy, McGovern and Fulbright are strangely silent, while Humphrey babbles nonsense and Muskie h.o.a.rds his energy for beating back personal attacks by Strom Thurmond. The only politicians talking publicly about the dire implications of the Watergate iceberg are those who can't avoid it -- the four carefully selected eunuch/Democrats on the Senate Select Investigating Committee and a handful of panicked Republicans up for re-election in 1974.

The slow-rising central horror of "Watergate" is not that it might grind down to the reluctant impeachment of a vengeful thug of a president whose entire political career has been a monument to the same kind of cheap shots and treachery he finally got nailed for, but that we might somehow fail to learn something from it.

Already -- with the worst news yet to come -- there is an ominous tide of public opinion that says whatever Nixon and his small gang of henchmen and hired gunsels might have done, it was probably no worse than what other politicians have been doing all along, and still are.

Anybody who really believes this is a fool -- but a lot of people seem to, and that evidence is hard to ignore. What almost happened here -- and what was only avoided because the men who made Nixon President and who were running the country in his name knew in their hearts that they were all mean, hollow little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who couldn't dare turn their backs on each other -- was a takeover and total perversion of the American political process by a gang of cold-blooded fixers so incompetent that they couldn't even pull off a simple burglary. . . which tends to explain, among other things, why 25,000 young Americans died for no reason in Vietnam while Nixon and his brain trust were trying to figure out how to admit the whole thing was a mistake from the start.

At press time, the National Affairs Suite in Was.h.i.+ngton had been re-opened and prepared for "total coverage." Thompson arrived there July 7th, and we expect his reports soon.

Rolling Stone, #140, August 2, 1973 #140, August 2, 1973 Fear and Loathing at the Watergate: Mr. Nixon Has Cashed His Check

PART I.

The Worm Turns in Swamptown. . . Violent Talk at the National Affairs Desk. . . A Narrow Escape for Tex Colson. . . Heavy Duty in The Bunker. . . No Room for Gonzo? "h.e.l.l, They Already Have This Story Nailed Up and Bleeding from Every Extremity."

Reflecting on the meaning of the last presidential election, I have decided at this point in time that Mr. Nixon's landslide victory and my overwhelming defeat will probably prove to be of greater value to the nation than would the victory my supporters and I worked so hard to achieve. I think history may demonstrate that it was not only important that Mr. Nixon win and that I lose, but that the margin should be of stunning proportions. . . The shattering Nixon landslide, and the even more shattering exposure of the corruption that surrounded him, have done more than I could have done in victory to awaken the nation. . . This is not a comfortable conclusion for a self-confident -- -- some would say self-righteous some would say self-righteous -- -- politician to reach. . . politician to reach. . .

-- George McGovern in the Was.h.i.+ngton Post: Was.h.i.+ngton Post: August 12, 1973 August 12, 1973 Indeed. But we want to keep in mind that "comfortable" is a very relative word around Was.h.i.+ngton these days -- with the vicious tentacles of "Watergate" ready to wrap themselves around almost anybody, at any moment -- and when McGovern composed those eminently reasonable words in the study of his stylish home on the woodsy edge of Was.h.i.+ngton, he had no idea how close he'd just come to being made extremely "uncomfortable."

I have just finished making out a report addressed to somebody named Charles R. Roach, a claims examiner at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Headquarters of Avis Rent-a-Car in Arlington, Virginia. It has to do with a minor accident that occurred on Connecticut Avenue, in downtown Was.h.i.+ngton, shortly after George and his wife had bade farewell to the last staggering guests at the party he'd given on a hot summer night in July commemorating the first anniversary of his seizure of the presidential nomination in Miami.

The atmosphere of the party itself had been amazingly loose and pleasant. Two hundred people had been invited -- twice that many showed up -- to celebrate what history will record, with at least a few asterisks, as one of the most disastrous presidential campaigns in American history. Midway in the evening I was standing on the patio, talking to Carl Wagner and Holly Mankiewicz, when the phone began ringing and whoever answered it came back with the news that President Nixon had just been admitted to the nearby Bethesda Naval Hospital with what was officially announced as "viral pneumonia."

n.o.body believed it, of course. High-powered journalists like Jack Germond and Jules Witcover immediately seized the phones to find out what was really really wrong with Nixon. . . but the rest of us, no longer locked into deadlines or the fast-rising terrors of some tomorrow's election day, merely shrugged at the news and kept on drinking. There was nothing unusual, we felt, about Nixon caving in to some real or even psychosomatic illness. And if the truth was worse than the news. . . well. . . there would be nothing unusual about that either. wrong with Nixon. . . but the rest of us, no longer locked into deadlines or the fast-rising terrors of some tomorrow's election day, merely shrugged at the news and kept on drinking. There was nothing unusual, we felt, about Nixon caving in to some real or even psychosomatic illness. And if the truth was worse than the news. . . well. . . there would be nothing unusual about that either.

One of the smallest and noisiest contingents among the 200 invited guests was the handful of big-time journalists who'd spent most of last autumn d.o.g.g.i.ng McGovern's every lame footstep along the campaign trail, while two third-string police reporters from the Was.h.i.+ngton Post were quietly putting together the biggest political story of 1972 or any other year -- a story that had already exploded, by the time of McGovern's "anniversary" party, into a scandal that has even now burned a big hole for itself in every American history textbook written from 1973 till infinity.

One of the most extraordinary aspects of the Watergate story has been the way the press has handled it: What began in the summer of 1972 as one of the great media-bungles of the century has developed, by now, into what is probably the most thoroughly and most professionally covered story in the history of American journalism.

When I boomed into Was.h.i.+ngton last month to meet Steadman and set up the National Affairs Desk once again I expected -- or in retrospect I think think I expected -- to find the high-rolling I expected -- to find the high-rolling news-meisters news-meisters of the capital press corps jabbering blindly among themselves, once again, in some stylish sector of reality far-removed from the Main Nerve of "the story". . . like climbing aboard Ed Muskie's of the capital press corps jabbering blindly among themselves, once again, in some stylish sector of reality far-removed from the Main Nerve of "the story". . . like climbing aboard Ed Muskie's Suns.h.i.+ne Special Suns.h.i.+ne Special in the Florida primary and finding every media star in the nation sipping b.l.o.o.d.y Marys and convinced they were riding the rails to Miami with "the candidate". . . or sitting down to lunch at the Sioux Falls Holiday Inn on election day with a half-dozen of the heaviest press wizards and coming away convinced that McGovern couldn't possibly lose by more than ten points. in the Florida primary and finding every media star in the nation sipping b.l.o.o.d.y Marys and convinced they were riding the rails to Miami with "the candidate". . . or sitting down to lunch at the Sioux Falls Holiday Inn on election day with a half-dozen of the heaviest press wizards and coming away convinced that McGovern couldn't possibly lose by more than ten points.

My experience on the campaign trail in 1972 had not filled me with a real sense of awe, vis-a-vis the wisdom of the national press corps. . . so I was seriously jolted, when I arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton, to find that the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had this Watergate story nailed up and bleeding from every extremity -- from "Watergate" and all its twisted details, to ITT, the Vesco case, Nixon's lies about the financing for his San Clemente beach-mansion, and even the long-dormant "Agnew Scandal."

There was not a h.e.l.l of a lot of room for a Gonzo journalist to operate in that high-tuned atmosphere. For the first time in memory, the Was.h.i.+ngton press corps was working very close to the peak of its awesome but normally dormant potential. The Was.h.i.+ngton Post has a half-dozen of the best reporters in America working every tangent of the Watergate story like wild-eyed junkies set adrift, with no warning, to find their next connection. The New York Times, badly blitzed on the story at first, called in hotrods from its bureaus all over the country to overcome the Post's early lead. Both Time's and Newsweek's Was.h.i.+ngton bureaus began scrambling feverishly to find new angles, new connections, new leaks and leads in this story that was unraveling so fast that n.o.body n.o.body could stay on top of it. . . And especially not the three (or four) TV networks, whose whole machinery was geared to visual/action stories, rather than skillfully planted tips from faceless lawyers who called on private phones and then refused to say anything at all in front of the cameras. could stay on top of it. . . And especially not the three (or four) TV networks, whose whole machinery was geared to visual/action stories, rather than skillfully planted tips from faceless lawyers who called on private phones and then refused to say anything at all in front of the cameras.

The only standard-brand visual "action" in the Watergate story had happened at the very beginning -- when the burglars were caught in the act by a squad of plain-clothes cops with drawn guns -- and that happened so fast that there was not even a still photographer on hand, much less a TV camera.

The network news moguls are not hungry for stories involving weeks of dreary investigation and minimum camera possibilities -- particularly at a time when almost every ranking TV correspondent in the country was a.s.signed to one aspect or another of a presidential campaign that was still boiling feverishly when the Watergate break-in occurred on June 17th. The Miami conventions and the Eagleton fiasco kept the Watergate story backstage all that summer. Both the networks and the press had their "first teams" out on the campaign trail until long after the initial indictments -- Liddy, Hunt, McCord, et al. -- on September 15th. And by election day in November, the Watergate story seemed like old news. It was rarely if ever mentioned among the press people following the campaign. A burglary at the Democratic National Headquarters seemed relatively minor, compared to the action in Miami. It was a "local" (Was.h.i.+ngton) story, and the "local staff" was handling it. . . but I had had no local staff, so I made the obvious choice. no local staff, so I made the obvious choice.

Except on two occasions, and the first of these still haunts me. On the night of June 17th I spent most of the evening in the Watergate Hotel: From about eight o'clock until ten I was swimming laps in the indoor pool, and from 10:30 until a bit after 1:00 AM I was drinking tequila in the Watergate bar with Tom Quinn, a sports columnist for the now-defunct Was.h.i.+ngton Daily News.

Meanwhile, upstairs in room 214, Hunt and Liddy were already monitoring the break-in, by walkie-talkie, with ex-FBI agent Alfred Baldwin in his well-equipped spy-nest across Virginia Avenue in room 419 of the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge. Jim McCord had already taped the locks on two doors just underneath the bar in the Watergate garage, and it was probably just about the time that Quinn and I called for our last round of tequila that McCord and his team of Cubans moved into action -- and got busted less than an hour later.

All this was happening less than 100 yards from where we were sitting in the bar, sucking limes and salt with our Sauza Gold and muttering darkly about the fate of Duane Thomas and the pigs who run the National Football League.

Neither Bob Woodward nor Carl Bernstein from the Post were invited to McGovern's party that night -- which was fitting, because the guest list was limited to those who had lived through the day-to-day nightmare of the '72 campaign. . . People like Frank Mankiewicz, Miles Rubin, Rick Sterns, Gary Hart and even Newsweek correspondent d.i.c.k Stout, whose final dispatch on the doomed McGovern campaign very nearly got him thrown out of the Dakota Queen II Dakota Queen II at 30,000 feet over Lincoln, Nebraska, on the day before the election. at 30,000 feet over Lincoln, Nebraska, on the day before the election.

This was the crowd that had gathered that night in July to celebrate his last victory before the Great Disaster -- the slide that began with Eagleton and ended, incredibly, with "Watergate." The events of the past six months had so badly jangled the nerves of the invited guests -- the staffers and journalists who had been with McGovern from New Hamps.h.i.+re all the way to Sioux Falls on election day -- that n.o.body really wanted to go to the party, for fear that it might be a funeral and a serious b.u.mmer.

By the end of the evening, when the two dozen bitter-enders had forced McGovern to break out his own private stock -- ignoring the departure of the caterers and the dousing of the patio lights -- the bulk of the conversation was focused on which one or ones of the Secret Service men a.s.signed to protect McGovern had been reporting daily to Jeb Magruder at CREEP, and which one of the ten or 12 journalists with access to the innards of George's strategy had been on CREEP'S payroll at $1500 a month. This journalist -- still publicly unknown and undenounced -- was referred to in White House memos as "Chapman's Friend," a mysterious designation that puzzled the whole Was.h.i.+ngton press corps until one of the President's beleaguered ex-aides explained privately that "Chapman" is a name Nixon used, from time to time, in the good old days when he was able to travel around obscure Holiday Inns under phony names. . .

R. Chapman, Pepsi-Cola salesman, New York City. . . with a handful of friends carrying walkie-talkies and wearing white leather shoulder-holsters. . . But what the h.e.l.l? Just send a case of Pepsi up to the suite, my man, and don't ask questions; your reward will come later -- call the White House and ask for Howard Hunt or Jim McCord; they'll take care of you.

Right. Or maybe Tex Colson, who is slowly and surely emerging as the guiding light behind Nixon's whole a.r.s.enal of illegal, immoral and unethical "black advance" or "dirty tricks" department. It was Colson who once remarked that he would "walk over his grandmother for Richard Nixon". . . and it was Colson who hired head "plumber" Egil "Bud" Krogh, who in 1969 told Daniel X. Friedman, chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of Chicago: "Anyone who opposes us, we'll destroy. As a matter of fact, anyone who doesn't support us, we'll destroy."

Colson, the only one of Nixon's top command to so far evade Watergate's legal noose, is the man who once told White House cop Jack Caulfield to put a firebomb in the offices of the staid/liberal Brookings Inst.i.tution, in order to either steal or destroy some doc.u.ments he considered incriminating. Colson now says he was "only joking" about the firebomb plan, but Caulfield took it so seriously that he went to the White House counsel John Dean and said he refused to work with Colson any longer, because he was "crazy."

Crazy? Tex Colson?

Never in h.e.l.l. "He's the meanest man in American politics," says Nixon's speechwriter Pat Buchanan, smiling lazily over the edge of a beer can beside the pool outside his Watergate apartment. Buchanan is one of the few people in the Nixon administration with a sense of humor. He is so far to the right that he dismisses Tex Colson as a "Ma.s.sachusetts liberal." But for some reason, Buchanan is also one of the few people -- perhaps the only one -- on Nixon's staff, who has friends at the other end of the political spectrum. At one point during the campaign I mentioned Buchanan at McGovern Headquarters, for some reason, and Rick Sterns, perhaps the most hardline left-bent ideologue on McGovern's staff, sort of chuckled and said, "Oh yeah, we're pretty good friends. Pat's the only one of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds over there with any principles." When I mentioned this to another McGovern staffer, he snapped: "Yeah, maybe so. . . like Josef Goebbels had principles."

My own relations.h.i.+p with Buchanan goes back to the New Hamps.h.i.+re primary in 1968 when Nixon was still on the dim fringes of his political comeback. We spent about eight hours one night in a Boston hotel room, finis.h.i.+ng off a half gallon of Old Crow and arguing savagely about politics: As I recall, I kept asking him why a person who seemed to have good sense would be hanging about with Nixon. It was clear even then that Buchanan considered me stone crazy, and my dismissal of Nixon as a hopeless b.u.m with no chance of winning anything seemed to amuse him more than anything else.

About eight months later, after one of the strangest and most brutal years in American history, Richard Nixon was President and Pat Buchanan was one of his top two speechwriters along with Ray Price, the house moderate. I didn't see Pat again until the McGovern Campaign in '72 when Ron Ziegler refused to have me on the Nixon Press Plane and Buchanan intervened to get me past the White House Guard and into what turned out to be a dull and useless seat on the plane with the rest of the White House press corps. It was also Buchanan who interviewed Garry Wills, introducing him into the Nixon Campaign of 1968 -- an act of principle that resulted in an extremely unfriendly book called Nixon Agonistes. Nixon Agonistes.

So it seemed entirely logical, I thought -- going back to Was.h.i.+ngton in the midst of this stinking Watergate summer -- to call Buchanan and see if he felt like having 13 or 14 drinks on some afternoon when he wasn't at the White House working feverishly in what he calls "the bunker." Price and Buchanan write almost everything Nixon says and they are busier than usual these days, primarily figuring out what not not to say. I spent most of one Sat.u.r.day afternoon with Pat lounging around a tin umbrella table beside the Watergate pool and talking lazily about politics in general. When I called him at the White House the day before, the first thing he said was "Yeah, I just finished your book." to say. I spent most of one Sat.u.r.day afternoon with Pat lounging around a tin umbrella table beside the Watergate pool and talking lazily about politics in general. When I called him at the White House the day before, the first thing he said was "Yeah, I just finished your book."

"Oh Jesus," I replied, thinking this naturally meant the end of any relations.h.i.+p we'd ever have. But he laughed. "Yeah, it's one of the funniest things I've ever read."

One of the first things I asked him that afternoon was something that had been simmering in my head for at least a year or so and that was how he could feel comfortable with strange friends like me and Rick Sterns, and particularly how he could possibly feel comfortable sitting out in the open -- in plain sight of the whole Watergate crowd -- with a known monster whose affection for Richard Nixon was a matter of fairly brutal common knowledge -- or how he felt comfortable playing poker once or twice a week sometimes with Rick Sterns, whose political views are almost as diametrically opposed to Buchanan's as mine are. He shrugged it off with a grin, opening another beer. "Oh, well, we ideologues seem to get along better than the others. I don't agree with Rick on anything at all that I can think of, but I like him and I respect his honesty."

A strange notion, the far left and far right finding some kind of odd common ground beside the Watergate pool and particularly when one of them is a top Nixon speechwriter, spending most of his time trying to keep the Boss from sinking like a stone in foul water, yet now and then laughingly referring to the White House as The Bunker.

After the sixth or seventh beer, I told him about our abortive plot several nights earlier to seize Colson out of his house and drag him down Pennsylvania Avenue tied behind a huge gold Oldsmobile Cutla.s.s. He laughed and said something to the effect that "Colson's so tough, he might like it." And then, talking further about Colson, he said, "But you know he's not really a Conservative."

And that's what seems to separate the two GOP camps, like it separates Barry Goldwater from Richard Nixon. Very much like the difference between the Humphrey Democrats and the McGovern Democrats. The ideological wing versus the pragmatists, and by Buchanan's standards it's doubtful that he even considers Richard Nixon a Conservative.

My strange and violent reference to Colson seemed to amuse him more than anything else. "I want to be very clear on one thing," I a.s.sured him. "If you're thinking about having me busted for conspiracy on this, remember that I've already deliberately dragged you into it." He laughed again and then mentioned something about the "one overt act" necessary for a conspiracy charge, and I quickly said that I had no idea where Tex Colson even lived and didn't really want to know, so that even if we'd wanted to drag the vicious b.a.s.t.a.r.d down Pennsylvania Avenue at 60 miles per hour behind a gold Oldsmobile Cutla.s.s we had no idea, that night, where to find him, and about halfway into the plot we crashed into a black and gold Cadillac on Connecticut Avenue and drew a huge mob of angry blacks who ended all thought of taking vengeance on Colson. It was all I could do to get out of that scene without getting beaten like a gong for the small crease our rented Cutla.s.s had put in the fender of the Cadillac.

Which brings us back to that accident report I just wrote and sent off to Mr. Roach at Avis Mid-Atlantic Headquarters in Arlington. The accident occurred about 3:30 in the morning when either Warren Beatty or Pat Caddell opened the door of a gold Oldsmobile Cutla.s.s I'd rented at Dulles airport earlier that day, and banged the door against the fender of a ma.s.sive black & gold Cadillac roadster parked in front of a late-night restaurant on Connecticut Avenue called Anna Maria's. It seemed like a small thing at the time, but in retrospect it might have spared us all -- including McGovern -- an extremely nasty episode.

Because somewhere in the late hours of that evening, when the drink had taken hold and people were jabbering loosely about anything that came into their heads, somebody mentioned that "the worst and most vicious" of Nixon's backstairs White House hit men -- Charles "Tex" Colson -- was probably the only one of the dozen or more Nixon/CRP functionaries thus far sucked into "the Watergate scandal" who was not likely to do any time, or even be indicted.

It was a long, free-falling conversation, with people wandering in and out, over a time-span of an hour or so -- journalists, pols, spectators -- and the focus of it, as I recall, was a question that I was trying to get some bets on: How many of the primary Watergate figures would actually serve time in prison?

The reactions ranged from my own guess that only Magruder and Dean would live long enough to serve time in prison, to Mankiewicz's flat a.s.sertion that "everybody except Colson" would be indicted, convicted, sentenced and actually hauled off to prison.

(Everybody involved in this conversation will no doubt deny any connection with it -- or even hearing about it, for that matter -- but what the h.e.l.l? It did, in fact, take place over the course of some two or three days, in several locations, but the seed of speculation took root in the final early-morning hours of McGovern's party. . . although I don't remember that George himself was involved or even within earshot at any time. He has finally come around to the point where his friends don't mind calling him "George" in the friendly privacy of his own home, but that is not quite the same thing as getting him involved in a felony-conspiracy/attempted murder charge that some wild-eyed, Nixon-appointed geek in the Justice Department might try to crank up on the basis of a series of boozy conversations among journalists, politicians and other half-drunk cynics. Anybody who has spent any time around late-night motel bars with the press corps on a presidential campaign knows better than to take their talk seriously. . . but after reading reviews of my book on the '72 campaign, it occurs to me that some people will believe almost anything anything that fits their preconceived notions.) that fits their preconceived notions.) And so much for all that.

August 2nd Patio Bar beside the Was.h.i.+ngton Hilton Swimming Pool Steadman and his wife had just arrived from England. Sandy had flown in the day before from Colorado and I had come up from Miami after a long vacation in the decompression chamber. It was a Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon, I think, and the Watergate Hearings were in progress but we'd decided to take the first day off and get ourselves under control. One of the first things I had to do was make out a long overdue accident report for that night, two weeks earlier, when the door of my rented car smacked into the Cadillac at four in the morning. The Avis people were threatening to cut off my coverage for "non-cooperation" so I'd brought the insanely complicated accident report down to the patio table by the pool, thinking to fill it out with the help of eight or nine Carlsbergs.

Steadman was already sketching distractedly, swilling beers at a feverish rate and muttering darkly to himself about the terrible conditions in the hotel and how earlier that morning while pa.s.sing thru the coffee shop, a huge ceiling lamp had fallen from the ceiling and nearly killed him.

It was "teddible teddible," he said, "the d.a.m.n thing came so close that it knocked my briefcase full of drawings out of my hand. Six inches closer and it would have caved in my head!"

I nodded sympathetically, thinking it was just another one of those ugly twists of luck that always seem to affect Ralph in this country, and I kept on grappling with the accident report.

Steadman was still babbling. "G.o.d, it's hot. . . Ah, this teddible thirst. . . what's that you've got there?"

"The G.o.dd.a.m.n accident report. I've got to make it out."

"Accident report?"

"Yeah, I had a small wreck the last time I was here about two weeks ago. . ."

"Alright, alright. . . Yes, two more Carlsbergs."