This is Dan Baum recalling a conversation with a dead Ehrlichmann after he got out of prison, 20 years after he served with Nixon. Dan puts quotes around this passage but I don't believe for a second that that is what Ehrlichmann said. And Ehrlichmann died 17 years ago, so he's not around to defend himself.
Note also that Erlichmann's family based their denial of the Baum story partly on the notion that he never said anything racist in front of them - though his propensity for racism is definitely confirmed in the Watergate tapes.
Look, I'm not really here to stick up for Ehrlichmann. After all, he did go to jail for some time for conspiracy and obstruction of justice. First of all, that already makes him the least reliable of witnesses, even if he really did say that. Second, he's an easy target for a journalist that wants to sensationalize their story, and instead believing him just because "he's a journalist" is not rational. Dan Baum has written about that interview before and there was never anything close to that damning of a quote. This is why I think this quote is total hogwash. It fits exactly what you want to hear deep down about two bad people: Ehrlichmann and Nixon. Too bad it's likely a fabrication, with zero evidence otherwise.
"likely a fabrication"
"with zero evidence otherwise"
The burden of proof is on you to show that the quote is a fabrication, not on the journalist.
Let's go through it, though.
Going to jail for conspiracy and obstruction of justice makes him a criminal, but not necessarily a liar on techniques the U.S. government used against counterculture.
Secondly, Nixon and his administration did outrageous things. You can hardly dismiss more allegations of outrageous acts as more-likely-to-be-fabricated because it fits pre-existing narrative. That's, like, the opposite of how priors work. "It fits exactly what you want to hear deep down about two bad people: Ehrlichmann and Nixon" -- YES! Nixon and Ehrlichmann were bad people and did bad things. Did they do what Ehrlichmann (allegedly) describes? Who knows, but it isn't an argument against their having done something horrific that they had other horrific policies.
Nixon, you may remember, bugged a Supreme Court justice.
He had a good argument I think. Not sure if he's right but good argument.
The family thinks this quote is bunk, too.
"We never saw or heard anything from our dad, John Ehrlichman, that was derogatory about any person of color," wrote Peter Ehrlichman, Tom Ehrlichman, Jan Ehrlichman, Michael Ehrlichman and Jody E. Pineda in a statement provided to CNN.
"The 1994 alleged 'quote' we saw repeated in social media for the first time today does not square with what we know of our father. And collectively, that spans over 185 years of time with him," the Ehrlichman family wrote. "We do not subscribe to the alleged racist point of view that this writer now implies 22 years following the so-called interview of John and 16 years following our father's death, when dad can no longer respond. None of us have raised our kids that way, and that's because we were not raised that way."
from: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-r...
If you're falsely claiming a journalist is lying, it damn well is. We're talking about someone who referred to his notes of an interview and flat out quoted Erlichman by name with a lengthy quote. If you're contradicting him, it's hard to see how you're suggesting an innocent misquote - either Baum is lying or you're wrong.
> The family thinks this quote is bunk, too.
The family clearly doesn't know shit about Ehrlichman's racist views. He was caught on one of Nixon's tapes, released in 2003, ranting that black people were sexual degenerates with no family values, and in another tape that black people should be stuck in boxcars to work as domestics.
I'd point you at the recordings (good luck denying those), but the Nixon archives are really hard to search, so it might take some time. The latter is quoted in John Dean's book "The Nixon Defence", but google books isn't giving up the footnote today!