The Ends of Power

by H. R. Haldeman

H. R. Haldeman, as the world now knows, tells all and proves virtually nothing but the crumminess of everyone concerned in this glazed and wooden account of Watergate and after. Nixon, he thinks, spurred strong-arm Colson to push Hunt and Liddy--abetted by weakling Magruder--""to get the goods"" on Larry O'Brien's connection with Howard Hughes (who, indirectly, may have caused him ""to lose two elections""). According to this scheme of things, the Democrats let the break-in occur (to shame the GOP--shame, shame) and the CIA--in the person of suddenly inexpert James McCord--probably sabotaged it (to defuse Nixon's threat to CIA independence). Similar reasoning from weakness leads Haldeman to finger mechanically inept Nixon as the one who erased the critical [8(apple) minutes from the June 20, 1972, tapes; he was trying, by fits and starts, to erase all the Watergate talk, and gave up. The answer to ""Who Is Deep Throat?"" is, if anything, even more conjectural. As for the foreign policy