Dean Alleges Nixon Knew of Cover-up Plan

By the time of the March 26 phone call, investigators said, Dean had made it clear to Mr. Nixon that he intended to cooperate with the Watergate prosecutors. Dean, according to investigators, felt that Mr. Nixon was attempting in the phone call to retract a statement that could later prove damaging to the President.

In a later conversation, Dean told investigators, Mr. Nixon attempted to force him to sign a letter of resignation that amounted to a confession that Dean had directed the Watergate cover-up without the knowledge of the President, Haldeman or Ehrlichman.

When Dean refused to sign, the former counsel told investigators, Mr. Nixon warned him "in the strongest terms" never to reveal the covert activities and plans of the Nixon administration, the sources reported.

Dean has also told investigators and prosecutors that Mr. Nixon, acting with knowledge that a cover-up was occurring, wrote out orders last year relating to Watergate developments in the margins of daily news summaries prepared the White house staff. The handwritten orders effectively directed Haldeman, who was then the White House chief of staff, to counterattack the press in regard to the matters mentioned in the news summaries; the sources said Dean told investigators.

Dean told investigators that, until Jan. 1 of this year, he usually reported directly to Haldeman and Ehrlichman on action he undertook in the Watergate cover-up, the sources reported.

After Jan. 1, however, Mr. Nixon began calling Dean personally to find out the status of the cover-up and frequently summoned him to the presidential office to discuss aspects of the case, the sources said Dean told investigators.

In some of those purported meetings and other conversations, Dean has told prosecutors and Senate investigators, the President gave him direct orders to carry out aspects of the cover-up, the sources said.

According to the sources, Dean has met secretly with the Watergate prosecutors on eight occasions and twice with Samuel Dash, the chief counsel of the Senate's Watergate investigating committee.

Senate and Justice Department sources reported that although initially skeptical of Dean's version of events, Dash and the prosecutors now take the former presidential counsel's account seriously.

According to Senate and Justice Department sources, Dean has said that he met with the President only about 10 times from July, 1970 to January, 1973 in contrast to about 35 this year. Dean has told the investigators and prosecutors that he believes the President increased the number of meetings this year to establish a clear-cut attorney client relationship that Mr. Nixon could use insist that Dean not testify about the conversations.

One source with first hand knowledge of Dean's statements to investigators said that "there were about 35 meetings with the President during which Dean says the cover-up was discussed. It might have been 33 or 39, but 35 is the best approximation."

Haldeman and Ehrlichman were present at many of those meetings, the sources quoted Dean as saying, and the main portion of several conversations was between Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Dean with the President just listening.