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Begging to Differ
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Since my book The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate presents a revisionist account of Watergate, and thus constitutes a frontal assault on the Woodward-Bernstein version of events, I never expected The Washington Post, so invested in prevailing mythology, to send me any valentines. But I was disappointed by the failure of Lincoln Caplan, in his review of my book (Book World, June 1), to address it seriously.
Instead, Caplan resorted to snide, often counterfactual, disparagement, as when he dismissed Mitchell's law firm, a leader in municipal bond law, as "second-tier," and Mitchell himself as not among the nation's "most elite lawyers" -- as if Mudge Rose, or the Rockefellers, did business with any other kind. Equally off-base were Caplan's assertions that Mitchell "had a hefty ego" and "was known for outbursts of crude language." None of the 250 individuals I interviewed so described Mitchell; to the contrary, he "was known for" taciturnity and self-effacement, traits that made him elusive prey to the big game hunters in the worlds of publishing and the Watergate Special Prosecution Force (WSPF).
As I wrote in my book, Mitchell's only crude outburst, regarding Post publisher Katharine Graham, was provoked by Carl Bernstein's false allegation that Mitchell, while attorney general, controlled a secret fund used to spy on Democrats. In support of Bernstein's contention, and the juvenile claim that I've "crossed over to an alternate universe," Caplan cited, solely and without citation, the word of Clark MacGregor, Mitchell's successor at the Nixon re-election campaign. How MacGregor, truly a second-tier player, would've known what Mitchell did in his Justice Department office Caplan never said; nor did he explain why, if evidence of Mitchell's bursar role existed, it was never presented before the Senate or House Watergate committees, or at U.S. v. Mitchell, where the WSPF surely would have made good use of it. Perhaps it resides in some user-friendly archive in Lincoln Caplan's alternate universe?
Lastly, rather than address the overwhelming evidence I presented, old and new, showing that Mitchell never ordered the Watergate break-in, Caplan simply averred to the contrary conclusion of J. Anthony Lukas in Nightmare (1976). This ignored Lukas's subsequent admonition, in July 1994, that "those of us who helped tell the Watergate story twenty years ago should, of course, beware any tendency to defend the received version against challenge by latecomers," and his corresponding wish that fellow historians would be "less loftily dismissive [of] and more eager to grapple with" revisionist scholars, particularly on the question of culpability in the break-in.
JAMES ROSEN
Washington, D.C.
Alex Nabaum, the cover artist of your June 1 issue, doesn't give credit to Saul Bass for inspiring the drawing/design of the arms, hands and rifle in his illustration. It is from Bass's film title and poster for "Exodus."
PAT TAYLOR
Washington, D.C.
The Editor replies:
Alex Nabaum sent along Saul Bass's original to show us where the inspiration had come from. The failure to spell out that credit was ours.
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