was a fiasco. >> the mccord letter was the first real indication that we had that maybe this thing went high up in both the campaign and perhaps the nixon administration. >> watergate was really a nonissue with the public. it wasn't a campaign issue. it was a big story in "the washington post" when they could find something. but most of the rest of the national press was paying no attention, up until mccord's letter. >> i mean, he didn't say nixon himself was involved. he just brought into it the white house. . >> nixon called me and said what you predicted that somebody was going to blow certainly appears to have happened. and i said i'm not surprised, but i said it's obviously not good. he said well, why don't you go up to camp david and collect your thoughts about how we deal with it.