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Some people may doubt my Watergate fanatacism. These people have obviously never carried on a conversation with me for more than five minutes, much less been inside my apartment, but they are out there, I'm sure. To those people I have only one thing to say. I. Have. Read. A novel. By. John Ehrlichman.
This may not seem like such a big deal- there are plenty of bad novels out there, and plenty of people who read them, whether because Oprah told them to or because it was the only thing available in the Des Moines airport newsstand. But none of these books are thinly fictionalized accounts of national crises, written by one of the crisis' main perpetrator. None of them involve... well, I jump ahead of myself.
"The Whole Truth" is a laughable title for anything written by a member of the Nixon administration. (Total aside: I was told by a friend of Ehrlichman's grandson the following anecdote. He and Ehrlichman's grandson and Ehrlichman were all driving somewhere together, and the friend accidentally gave the wrong directions. When it was obvious they were lost, Ehrlichman said "You can't lie to people, son, they'll put you in jail." Apparently that was his favorite joke.) Written in 1979, it is the tale of a Republican post-Carter presidency that is nearly brought to an end due to the cover-up of a Uruguayan assasination attempt.
The novel begins on June 21st (did Ehrlichman know that's my birthday? I think he did, and knew that the toddler I was when he wrote this would grow up to read this novel and be flattered by the shout-out.) as the President gives a press conference, in which he lies about ordering the attempt. It then flashes back to the circumstances that brought about the attempt, and returns to the coverup. I'll spare you the details. But there are thinly veiled John and Martha Mitchell characters serving as the Attorney General and his alcoholic aging Southern Bell wife. There is a thinly veiled Manolo Sanchez. A thinly veiled Haldeman, Nixon, and Dean. The thinly veiled John Dean is the focus of the novel, and it is a bit surprising that Ehrlichman's sympathies seem to lie with the goodlooking, naive, semi-weaselly Robin Warren. It is disgusting, however, to read the many, many soft porn sex scenes between Robin Warren and his various paramours. Having him married to a thinly veiled Mo would've, I suppose, not provided enough opportunity to insinuate Warren/Dean as a major womanizer. The sex scenes are gross. Really, really gross.
In the end, the President, facing impeachment for planning the cover-up,takes his flimsy "National Security" rationale to the American people, and confesses all, Checkers-style, on television. He pardons the members of his cabinet who are facing prosecution. Everyone comes out a-ok, except Warren/Dean, who is left unemployed and unambitious. I don't know what the message of that is supposed to be. I honestly don't.
Hadley's comment: "All I have to say is: is there a made-for-TV movie?"