Harold Rosenberg
THUGS ADRIFT
The hijackers radioed to officials in the Dubai control tower
that they were "awaiting instructions," but they did not say
from whom or where. -- Report in
Newsday,
August 1973
Like the story of the hung-up hijackers, that of Watergate
is a mystery dealing with sources of instruction. In whose mind did
the idea of the break-in originate? Who authorized it? And who
passed it on as an order to those who executed it? Witnesses testified
at the Senate hearings that they were simply "carrying out an assign–
ment" which in their view seemed, at least at the time, within the
normal range of their duties. John Mitchell, Herbert Kalmbach,
Anthony Ulasewicz, and other White House-connected persons refused
to admit that they had done anything wrong, though considering the
events in retrospect some now believed they ought perhaps to have
behaved differently. Ulasewicz, the ex- New York cop who initiated
complicated methods for having paper bags full of one-hundred–
dollar bills fall into the hands of Watergate defendants, saw himself
as strictly a "tool." But Kalmbach, Nixon's lawyer, from whom Ulase–
wicz received
his
assignment, said he was also acting on instructions
and also saw himself as a tool. The tool and the tool of the tool each
agreed separately that he had been "used," which
is
what tools are
for. But neither Ulasewicz or Kalmbach could say by whom they
were used. The Watergaters acted within what they kept calling, with
evident pleasure at playing soldier, a "chain of command." In the
sum of the hearing's testimony, however, the chain led nowhere. At
most it consisted of two or three links - e.g., Dean, Kalmbach, Ulase–
wicz - reaching down from the empty air. Erlichman even denied
that he had advised Kalmbach as a friend that it was "proper" to
raise money to help the defendents, though Nixon said later in his
press conference that people were always raising money for defendants.
Mitchell denied that he had listened to Liddy. With Erlichman and
