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In the privacy of his office, Mardian called the White House to find out what had happened. ‘Nothing happened,’ Ehrlichman told him irritably. ‘Nothing. Nixon couldn’t pull the string … He got cold feet.’

‘I’m willing to fight him, but I don’t,’ the President said lamely at the Oval Office meeting on October 8, 1971. ‘We’ve got to avoid the situation where he could leave with a blast … I sorta, I went all around with him … There are some problems. If I fire Hoover, if you think we’ve got an uprising and a riot now … If he does go, he’s got to go of his own volition …’

Two weeks later, Ehrlichman handed the President a special report on Edgar and the FBI. Further delay, it warned, could be disastrous:

The concern with image, the cultism, has finally taken its toll. Virtually any genuine innovation or imaginative approach is stifled … Morale of FBI agents in the field has deteriorated badly … All clandestine activities have been terminated. Liaison with the intelligence community has been disrupted and key men forced out … Hoover has reportedly threatened the President … Years of intense adulation have inured Hoover to self-doubt. He remains realistic, however, and on June 30 his most trusted confidant, Clyde Tolson, stated to a reliable source, ‘Hoover knows that, no matter who wins in ’72, he’s through.’

Sullivan has been ‘keeping book’ on Hoover for some time. He is a skilled writer. His book could be devastating should he choose to expose such matters as the supervisor who handled Hoover’s stock portfolio and tax matters; the painting of Hoover’s house by the FBI Exhibits Section; the ghostwriting of Hoover’s books by FBI employees; the rewriting of FBI history and the ‘donation’ by ‘admiring’ facility owners of accommodations and services which are often in fact underwritten by employee contributions … The situation was probably best stated by Alfred Tennyson in The Idylls of the King:

The old order changeth, yielding place to new;

And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

The report recommended that Edgar retire before the end of 1971, and Nixon agreed wholeheartedly. ‘Hoover,’ he told colleagues, ‘has to realize that he can’t stay forever … he’s too old.’ ‘I guess, I guess … I think I could get him to resign, if I put it to him directly that without it he’s going to be hurt politically … But I want this closely held – it’s just got to be.’

This time the operation was carefully planned, starting with a phone call from John Mitchell to Edgar’s former aide Cartha DeLoach. ‘I walked into the Attorney General’s office,’ DeLoach recalled, ‘and he told me to close the door. Then right out of a clear blue sky he told me, “We’ve got to get rid of Hoover, but we don’t want him kicking over the traces. Can you suggest a way we might he able to do it without him saying or doing anything?” I said, “Well, if you’re going to do it, you’ve got to allow him to save face. Let him keep his bulletproof car and his chauffeur. That’s a mark of prestige, and he likes that. Let him keep Helen Gandy as his secretary, because she does ordering of groceries for him and paying of bills, all the things he’s never had to do himself. Make him Director Emeritus, or Ambassador of Internal Security. And have the President call him once in a while, to ask for counsel and advice …”’

At the White House, a nervous Nixon worked out a slick compromise. Instead of firing Edgar abruptly he would tell him he could stay until the 1972 election. That way, the FBI would not become a political football during the campaign. To defuse the critics, however, the retirement plan would be announced at once. And, to preserve Edgar’s dignity, he would be allowed to do it himself.

With Ehrlichman taking notes, Nixon rehearsed the little speech he intended to make, still preserved in the archives. ‘Edgar,’ it ran. ‘As you can imagine I’ve been giving your situation a great deal of thought. I am absolutely