Ziegler now said that the announcement just made by the president was the “operative” statement. Jasper immediately recognized that as a weasel word, deliberately vague, intended to obscure the truth rather than to clarify it. The other journalists in the room saw it too.

It was Johnny Apple of The New York Times who asked whether that implied all previous statements were inoperative.

“Yes,” said Ziegler.

The press corps were furious. This meant they had been lied to. For years they had been faithfully reporting Nixon’s statements, giving them the credence due to the leader of the nation. They had been taken for fools.

They would never trust him again.

Jasper went back to the office of This Day, still wondering who had been the real target of Nixon’s statement about immunity.

He got the answer two days later. He picked up the phone to hear a woman say, in a trembling voice, that she was secretary to White House counsel John Dean, and she was calling senior reporters in Washington to read a statement from him.

This in itself was bizarre. If the president’s legal adviser wanted to say something to the press, he should have done so through Ron Ziegler. Clearly there was a rift.

“‘Some may hope or think that I will become a scapegoat in the Watergate case,’” the secretary read. “‘Anyone who believes that does not know me . . .’”

Ah, thought Jasper, the first rat abandons the sinking ship.

• • •

Maria was amazed by Nixon. He had no dignity. As more and more people realized what a fraud he was, he did not resign, but stayed in the White House, blustering and obfuscating and threatening and lying, lying, lying.

At the end of April, John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman resigned together. Both had been close to Nixon. Because of their German names they had been dubbed “the Berlin Wall” by those who felt shut out by them. They had organized criminal activities such as burglary and perjury for the president: could anyone possibly believe that they had done those things against his will and without telling him? The idea was laughable.

Next day, the Senate voted unanimously for a special prosecutor to be appointed, independent of the tainted Justice Department, to investigate whether the president should be charged with crimes.

Ten days later, Nixon’s approval rating fell to 44–45—the first time he had ever scored negative.

The special prosecutor went to work fast. He began to hire a team of lawyers. Maria knew one of them, a former Justice Department official called Antonia Capel. Antonia lived in Georgetown, not far from Maria’s apartment, and one evening Maria rang her doorbell.

Antonia opened the door and looked surprised.

“Don’t say my name,” said Maria.

Antonia was puzzled, but she was quick-witted. “Okay,” she said.

“Could we talk?”

“Of course—come in.”

“Would you meet me at the coffee shop along the block?”

Antonia looked bewildered but said: “Sure. I’ll ask my husband to bathe the kids . . . um, give me fifteen minutes?”