really got to hand it to ya

Howard Simons slouched ---------[book excerpt]-----in a chair, drawing deeply on a cigarette, the color gone from his face.  "A director of the FBI destroying evidence?  I never thought it could happen," he said quietly.

[a space in the text]

In the late afternoon of April 27, Bernstein and Woodward were called over by one of the editors to look at a story that had just come across the Associated Press wire as a bulletin.

...In Los Angeles, at the trial of Daniel Ellsberg, Judge Matthew Byrne had announced that he had learned from the Watergate prosecutors that Hunt and Liddy supervised the burglary of the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist in 1971.

Bernstein reached John Dean's associate for their daily conversation.

"Carl, how do you think they learned about that little bag job on the coast?" the associate asked.

Dean again?

..."...John has knowledge of illegal activities that go way back."
How far back?
"Way back . . . to the beginning."
More wiretapping?
"I wouldn't challenge that assumption."
Burglaries?

"Would you keep a squad of burglars around the house for years if you only wanted them for one or two jobs? . . . H and E are upset about what has come out so far....We are laying a foundation to protect ourselves.

"Haldeman and Ehrlichman have been trying to get John to take a dive and convince the P that he should save their skins and blame it all on John.  The P has agreed."
Is Dean going to implicate the P?
"There were lots of meetings. . . . The P was there.  The cover-up was being discussed."

The next evening, Woodward went to the White House.  He had asked a senior presidential aide for an interview to talk about John Dean.  Woodward sat in one of the colorfully decorated offices in the old Executive Office Building and drank coffee out of a cup bearing the Presidential Seal.

Haldeman and Ehrlichman were finished, the man said.

And, yes, it was coming.  John Dean was going to implicate the President in the cover-up.  The aide had a pained expression on his face.
What did Dean have?
"I'm not sure.  I'm not sure it is evidence. . . . The President's former lawyer is going to say that the President is . . . well, a felon."  The man's face trembled.  He asked Woodward to leave.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Guess that it was bound to happen
Was just a matter of time
But now I've come to my decision
And it's a-one of the painful kind

'Cause now it seems that
you wanted a martyr
Just a regular guy wouldn't do
But baby I can't hang upon no
lover's cross for you

You really got to hand it to ya
'Cause girl you really tried
but for every time
that we spent laughin'
There were two times that I cried

And you were tryin' to
make me your martyr
And that's the one
thing I just couldn't do
'Cause baby, I can't hang upon
no lover's cross for you

'Cause tables are meant for turnin'
And people are bound to change
And bridges are meant for burnin'
When the people
and memories
they join
aren't the same...

Still I hope that you can find another
Who can take what I could not
He'll have to be a super guy
or maybe a super god

'Cause I never was
much of a martyr before
And I ain't 'bout to start nothin' new
And baby, I can't hang upon
no lover's cross for you

=====================

{book excerpt - All The President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.  Copyright 1974.  Simon & Schuster.  New York, New York}
{song:  "Lover's Cross" - Photographs & Memories - His Greatest Hits, Jim Croce, 1974}

-30-