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Egil Krogh, aide to President Nixon, 1971

On October 3, 1971, a Sunday, Assistant Attorney General Mardian asked John Ehrlichman to come and see him at home. The man who had custody of the wiretap transcripts was panicking.

‘Mardian was very afraid,’ Ehrlichman recalled, ‘not only of the integrity of the files but also of his own personal safety. He felt he was being surveilled by Hoover, that it was only a matter of time before Hoover caused agents of the FBI to break into his office vault and recover the records …’

At a meeting in the Oval Office that week, Ehrlichman and Attorney General Mitchell asked the President for guidance on what to do with the transcripts. What they said emerged only in 1991, on newly released tape recordings:

MITCHELL: Hoover is tearing the place up over there trying to get at them. The question is, should we get them out of Mardian’s office before Hoover blows the safe … and bring them over here?

EHRLICHMAN: My impression from talking with Mardian is that Hoover feels very insecure without having his own copy of those things. Because, of course, that gives him leverage with Mitchell and with you.

NIXON: Yeah.

EHRLICHMAN: Because they’re illegal. Now he doesn’t have any copies and he has agents all over this town interrogating people, trying to find out where they are. He’s got Mardian’s building under surveillance.

NIXON: Now, why the hell didn’t he have a copy, too?

EHRLICHMAN: If he does, he’ll beat you over the head with it.

NIXON: Oh … you’ve gotta get them out of there.

MITCHELL: Hoover won’t come and talk to me about it. He’s just got his Gestapo all over the place.

NIXON: Yeah … just say [to Mardian] that we want to see them. Put them in a special safe.

As Nixon ordered, so it was done. The telltale wiretap evidence was moved from Mardian’s office to a secure White House strongbox. Sullivan, moreover, told the President’s men that, before leaving, he had ordered the Washington field office to destroy its file on the compromising wiretap operation.

Nixon’s aides had been discussing how to remove Edgar from office for nearly a year. Once it had seemed politically risky to dump him, because he seemed too popular in the country. Now there were polls that showed the enthusiasm had waned, and a constant tattoo of criticism in the press.

Edgar made a speech about ‘journalistic prostitutes’ and issued orders that no one in the Bureau was to speak, ever, with The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CBS or NBC. Such tantrums, though, served only to convince White House advisers that the Director had become an embarrassing liability.

As early as January, the President himself had said Edgar was ‘a question.’ Deputy Attorney General Kleindienst now made a habit of holding the phone away from his ear when Edgar called, grinning hugely and making circular motions in the air. ‘That man has been out of his mind for three years,’ he told Sullivan after one such call. ‘How much longer do we have to put up with him?’

For all his public support of Edgar, Attorney General Mitchell assured colleagues privately that ‘we’ll get rid of him soon.’ According to Henry Kissinger, Nixon himself was ‘determined to get rid of Hoover at the earliest opportunity.’

One morning shortly before Sullivan’s showdown with Edgar, Mardian had called several senior FBI officials, including Sullivan, into his office at the Justice Department. The atmosphere was conspiratorial. At a quarter to ten Mardian pointed to the clock. ‘At ten A.M.,’ he said, ‘our problem with Hoover will be solved. It will all be over. The President has asked Hoover to see him at the White House at ten, and he’s going to ask Hoover to resign.’

The call never came. Anticipation turned to doubt, doubt to frustration, and the men drifted disconsolately away. They soon learned that, back in his office after seeing Nixon, Edgar was triumphantly dictating memos. Far from firing him, the President had cleared Edgar to open a string of new FBI offices around the world, an