1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-06-06; Part 1 of 5

thepainis anattackdemocrats in the senate of the united states aresolution to establish a select committee to send an investigationstunning event illegal improper or unethicalactivities were engaged in by any person's acting individually or in combination withothers in the presidential election of nineteen seventy two when a campaigncampus or other activities related to it from washington now and black bringsyou traveled to gavel videotape today's hearings with the senate select committee onpresidential campaign activities here is in fact senior correspondent robert

mike leigh and the watergate hearings today detailsabout nearly two million dollars in cash was parceled out to watergate conspiratorsg gordon liddy and others involved and president nixon's campaign today'switness the former treasurer of the election committee who resigned in disgustafter watergate hugh sloan jr also gave a full account of how peopletried to keep him from coming out of the full truth and the watergate scandal continued to haveconsequences at the nixon white house president nixon moved today toreconstruct their white house staff that was reduced by resignations last month he announced thatmelvin laird will become head of the domestic counseling will be counsel to the presidentjonathan's replacement other words blair met with reporters today and city return to public lifereluctantly but he said governor in some quarters as almost at a standstilland this cannot be allowed to continue and quote our hormones replacement as

white house chief of staff will be general alexander haig he's come under criticism forremaining in the military while working at the job temporarily up till now today thewhite house announced he will retire from the rt august one and will then officially be namedcounselor to the president the white house also confirmed reports that communications cheaperklein is leaving to join matt for media in los angeles ron ziegler remains presidential presssecretary and will also be an advisor to the president with only athird of their schedule witnesses now heard from the big names still to come itbecame clear today that more hearings are going to be necessary the vice chairman of the committeerepublican senator howard baker disclosed this in an interview with impact peter careyi don't or haven'tour country daily basis apparently and i expect we'll wait forthe fourth of july recess but of that and of the lambs who

writes that he's flown jr as treasurer thepresident's re election campaign is the highest rank she ranking functionary haveto testify before the senators and be a television before saul but he was much morethan the actor his day on the witness stand there are many hard news aspects of histestimony but as you will say one of his overriding things was is continual desiredetails above in to get to the bottom of watergate the top a presidential appointmentsecretary white shape and presidential advisor john ehrlichman reelection committee officialsfred mogul rupert jeb magruder among others one of the most interesting of his tripswas to the officer former attorney general john mitchell sloan was asked if he spoke tomitchell about the watergate break in and cash given the g gordon liddyit wasessentially

twenty nine yearslibya's but itisbig it is an invasion could lead theballot we're going to draw your own conclusions about hislong and that's the beauty of being able to say the hearings in full a little background on the manhimself might be helpful if you want human action though he's thirty two years old a graduate ofprinceton university he attended before and services georgetown university brieflythat's here in washington and wasn't as a navy veteran he comes from a business family hisfather is vice president of a major paper cup as republican political activitybegan in nineteen sixty six when he worked for the gop senate campaign finance committeeand he worked later in the nineteen sixty eight presidential campaign and then joined the white house

staff for two and half years before going to the committee to re elect the president for thenineteen seventy two campaign his wife deborah and we met when both worked at thewhite house was there today whether earth and you'll get a glimpse of or from time to timeduring the evenings she's the young lady in the green dress sitting directly behind her husbandwhat kind of witness was use long pause i said that's the conclusion where all three liberalsenator sam irvin has his opinion though and use some of his down home quotations tostay calm and at the risk of being accused of wanting to back here's what the gentleman from northcarolina say about the witness long like youwerecalmwe wondespite the

committee's about happiness with his testimony sloan will be back on the stand when the hearings resumetomorrow there's no estimate of how much longer he'll be questioned but when he finishes thenext witness will be no more was press aide for the committee to reelect president andherbert horner who served his schedule and director of that committee neither man has beenmentioned significantly in the testimony thus far that his testimony today sloan returnedrepeatedly to the federal law which took effect on april seventh nineteen seventy two lawrequiring candidates for federal office report contributions and spending oh man in charge ofadministering outlaw the director of office of elections in the general accounting office thegao is with a strike the us uses these nine that is so ouraudience could more easily follow mistress was testimony could you tell us what that was all about thefederal election campaign act out trying first of all thelaw became effective on april seven that's a magic date for us as wellas for mr sharon and four campaign committees because prior to that

date committees operated in effect under the corrupt practices act whichlyndon johnson characterizes more local law but as of april seventhavenue became effective the general accounting office the office andwatch the loss of federal elections as cows got into the campaignfinance disclosure business for the first time and as of that datecampaign contributors and campaign expendituresin any significant amount are required to be disclosed in considerabledetail and is that date april seventh day around whichmuch of the so called watergate controversyswirls one of the things that mr sloan mentions as the audience will see is the greatconfusion that existed in a changeover from prior aprilseven regulations to new regulations that when in effect it went intoeffect on april so what was the confusion was there not a clear guidelines laid out for everybody to know what to

do all i think inevitably any change in the law as a sourceof some confusion i think the new law at least on the points thatare an issue in the president's set of circumstances was quiteclear and certainly our office was availablefor consultation and we had rather extensive consultations withall kinds of political committees all parties so but it is someconfusion is inevitable i think perhaps much of a problem is centered around thefact that after forty five years i guess and the corrupt practices actit was very difficult for candidates and committees at least in some caseslula realize that the new law was being taken seriouslyby many including of course the general accounting officethank you very much really that's optimistic is a great ally until mosul matter of

the new campaign law at the closer to my three ply as rigganduring each night are broken the testimony down into segments are here is ourguide for unions doing and the fire starts useof almost two million dollars in cash including some one hundred and ninety ninethousand dollars to g gordon liddy went as nixon finance chairman murray stands what the money wasused for stem said i don't want to know and you don't want to know either in the secondhour of song describes her stanzas to take forty thousand dollars from it's atelling investigators about it stern says he assumed sloan says he assumesfans took possession of a similar amount of catch sloane also says that when he tried to telljohn ehrlichman about secret cash payments the presidential aide said he didn't want to hear aboutit is that on the stern sloan offers his suggestions for campaignreform getting a time limit on religion at the questioning he admits heshould have a book of cash donations to do what for states in the final hour of today's

hearing sloan starts about more efforts to keep him silent he says he was told the ladypayments were politically sensitive and damaging there was a need to minimize the amount andduring a trial and he relates white house counsel john dean called his attorneyurging absolutely perfect and then all of this will be covered in the glorious detailby the committee that is long we can tojustify this morningdecisionseasonal variations

thismini seasonthank youit isduring the

recesswomen's rightssing itimean youknow

q w long june sevenknow two to house a ceoat fouryesbunniestreesyou're right

thisseasonsincenineteen seventy oneassistantthe citizens committee for the relationshipthe organization

he was looking for someone who had experience from the nineteen sixty andso forththat's rightin my conversations with thefinal decision but it was niceoh geezserve the

citizens of the religionthis is anappealthat was essentiallya political and financialthis on reliefall decision was made to divide the campaign into twoseparate committees and one having political functionresponsibilityi assume the chairmanship committee which was inexistence until february fifteen nineteen seventy two at thetime secretary stands left his position as secretary of commerce

he wished to restructure the committees in the campaignand have a fresh start is coming and so we changed the name of the committeeat that point it had been a finance committee for the reelection of president nixonbecame the finance committee for the reelection of the president he became chairman of thatcommittee i became her desk amid rampant really effectiveat the new campaign law which was april seventh nineteen seventy twoseventy twowas created the finance committee to re elect the president which wasto be the principals committee in operation for aneffective charitable a secretary stands maintaining thesame positiondescribe

this processthe planetthe selection of personnel differencesa pigeonas we proceeded this involves one nation of variouscommittees or receipt of campaign contributionsall i'm asking people if they won't serve as german spokenof these various committees which votes on four hundred and fifty four are affected butall sort of central character of seeking outpeople getting people in place to be ready for a fullfledged campaign says with the advent of the new law the situation

was complicated because of the issues an unprecedented situation and acandidate presidential campaign recently up the ground rules changed inmidstream so that at this point there's a tremendous responsibility on mypart to provide an organizational manuals to review the new lawtoo providing instruction to the various state committees that we wouldset up and operate around the country in the post so there wasa great educational function here i'mjust finemrpritchard does go away the introductionwhich divides to select committee but i served in the finance area of

president nixon's re election campaign for march six nineteen seventy oneuntil my resignation on july fourteen nineteen seventy twolast seasonincluding special federal bureau investigationfederal prosecutors in washington and in new york the office of federalelections within the general accounting office i've testified before grand juries inwashington and in new york and testified at the trial a person's indicted in washingtondc have also testified at a trial in miami floridain addition i've given extensive depositions in three separate civil casesrelated to the nineteen seventy two presidential election campaign andbecome known as the watergate affair i stand ready to continue this cooperation andanswer all of your questions about models thank you

security checksthank yousay in terms of the total campaigneffort up to the april seventh period he proceedsto have the president's reelection in totaltwenty million dollars a year

eight hundred thousand dollarsyesbecausewhen that's a directanswerwellover the entire period to march forwardin various types of this happened in different places at the outset that we used tosay deposit boxes which are our headquarters located fornatural by washington we obtained a safe

and stay within the confines of the finance committeeat that point on were moved into the one of the other thestates and south koreano onewants a voice physically in my office that the other safe of what's kept inthe office of armed chambers the secretary to disrespectthe policethere's aline

and jesusbecause of theheat in the period of march seventy one upuntil secretary stanton and the campaign was essentiallywatching a lot of instructions he was the principal fundraiser for thepresident's re election campaign during that period theperiod of the market until april seventhtwo hundred and fifty thousand dollarsit lays in the sunso in terms of oil

he receivedtwo hundred and fifty thousand dollarsonenosir this entireperiodfor the whitehouse campaign committee this three hundred andfifty thousand dollars to come back on a day just prior

to precisely my best recollection would be within tendays prior to be affected at lawto request from the white house for freein the conversationsomepoint in the same day mr strong was present in the committeecomeback indicated to me that the research on arranged to have his pick upmr levy money was physicallyor to my secretarynow

the nominationfor a time some fifty yearsthree hundred and fifty thousand dollarsthat was thursdayi do not believe this was the subject of the meeting i think itwas a very brief reference my recollection is the district indicated tomisunderstand this request for three hundred fifty thousand dollars they'd asked me to gettogether my best recollection is disrespectful nono

speakers in placestarting in decemberblanket authorityhe would come in in an indicator on various occasions the tenthousand dollars his hundred thousand dollars is not a single dispersed themthe increments of dispersants over distribution would probablyin the range of ten fifteen thousand dollars over aperiod of time running up to april seventh nprsix thousand dollars

inhis testimony to the general accounting office which the figure higher eleven thousanddollars per se thus for memory i would not dispute his recollection and i believehe also recollects the total think you'd be somewhat less upi hadn't instructions and i forget who from the regionthat mr porter received no further funds after what's upi want industrystands i asked him what i indicated to him the likelier understandingwas a reporter would no longer receive any caste want it to me

at the time but that was his understanding of what all that he would take the matter up withmr mitchell and let me know and it's returned it to get it to me andi checked in and making payments on request from the court i'm agentlemanmr carmichael he did not physically or spend muchtime in washington dc every week or twowith his investments at some point i'm fairly earlyyou going to get made and i believe in an unusually us with regard toall thought that i would not to disperse any moneywithout proof of thiswould be prior to leaving the justice department

been probably the summer of seventy onewhat happened in this regardwas essentially that i don't believe any cash payments came upbefore the forty years you saw what had been done priorto my singing the dispersants on a campaign going back to the services committee thatwhen we first moved into the campaign before there was a division of the financing political armname is jared fleming was handling the disbursementsi received stock during that period of time he did establisha procedure with this provision let's send them down a monthly budgetin what i care that procedure and withregard to meet operating expenses of the committee each month i was and then to the justice departmenta memorandum outlining the beat

the campaign for the following monthseventy sevenwould be approvednasaaskedwhat what was happening with mr mcgregor was meeting withmr mitchell regularly at the justice department with regard to planningfor the political side of the campaign during those meetings heevidently was discussing financial matters expenditures and so forth andgetting clearance from mr mitchell to go ahead and make those expensesfollowing the district instruction to come back when the reader cameback to me and said this has been thejustice department

and issued instructions from nineteenforty four its rivers are interms of customers and donated any time i asked you for aword money you could count this as mr mitchell's wordsconversationspencer's them in the campaign andit was no commentyou knowbut the situation is very similar tothe border situation that

it was at that point agreat time to begin receiving cash and was general counsel to the politicalcommittee the committee for the reelection of the president a subsequent day he became general counselfor the finance committee to re election i knowcircumstances it was a similartype arrangement does a reporter's becomecombination give me a figure out how much how many muchas he would need to leavejoey after the time he gave the finance committee these were the journal in thesame province pours a family of ten thousand dollars orfifteen thousand dollars a month there came a time in the

us more about your very close to the april seven stateand i'm not cost employers forbid before after my best recollection of recollection would bethat it was before you came to me with a big budgettwo hundred and fifty thousand no less thanthe new issue of me to think and he said i will be coming to you orsubstantial and the first item of which will be eighty threethousand dollars and i would like the government there he saidin the case of these additional expenditures beyond itsdistributions beyond what it didn't previously indicated that the procedure hadchanged that i was to clear each and everydistribution not going on with mr mcgregor i called wasregarded as two hundred fifty thousand dollars budget

at three dollars but its subsequentdecisionstime to reviewas iunderstandit in this situationi said my judgment because i've been sittingon top and ate the total figures that it'ssignificantly the cactus division's becoming massive and thisparticular this provision and arito make these

kind of decisionsthe returns and that was themodel and eight he confirmed it was intended that was a storythat i had with regard to my question andconcern about the post season and i do not want to know you dont knownowthis iswhen the preliminary design understand from serving the nineteen sixty eightelection and president interpretation of the corrupt practices actthat for a

presidential candidate msleachman has a difference in terms of administrative overreachfrom astandpoint it's obviously much easier thing to do with there was no disclosurethe tables on the campaign election law isvery stringent as massive accountingwas recently in the disclosureit also puts restrictions on the advertising and so but whatit essentially meant to us as a campaign was inthe middle of the campaign we had to essentially restructuring closed down fourhundred and fifty committees and set up a whole new structure under wholeincident now you knowi'm sorry i miss

the moneyit's the right thingthe context of the top at that we didn't interpretit that kind of remark because of continuing problems between thepolitical and finance committee was that he was unhappy and a sense thatfor a lot of his hands about the loss of control over the fundingtraditionally the rolls ben political people spendhowever there is a responsibility of the finance campaign to setrealistic limits of what we can be raised and twofor by a mechanism to monitor these benefits of thecampaign so that he will be properly properly kcur have thewherewithal the home stretch i had the impression that with regard to the piano

and the cash warning situation but this is just a runaway situation thathe lostyasser one when it came to thefinances but it was clearly understood ofmonogamy and secretary stance that you would be able to devotetime to askcontinuing responsibilitieswhich would take on special projectsmm hmmhe was

ineuropeyes it isand sometimeearly ninetiesprobably more than were marginal members buriedin londonyouknowduring the early part of a campaign i cannot penetrate on this in terms of

disbursement but he was at the time hecame in to receive this morning from secretary stanton was the bestmy recollection was the political chairman of the republican party in america andis even theknowledge ofthe narrative time it was turn over my understanding was it the situation ofthose over thirty five pre april seventh period we'reestimating to recede in the state to be turned into a nationalcommittee that in the case of ronald reagan was madesimply between secretary stanton two of the other principles were thatthey were going to have a dinner virtually vice president agnew at a later date which they knewabout and that yes they would be willing to turn on what you know at this point whatthey would expect a loan back as seed money for these dinner and

that money would come back to us again in terms of receipti know thehonest about it that this would be a nineteen seventy one was theadministrative assistant to roger moore and the carpenteristhat right but certainlycreative attempts to get those filesand the question for the purpose of aiding in the special election for acongressional seat vacated by robert morton when he assumed the sectorsreporter and the names on the listthe

executive director of the california thecommittee for the reelection of the president i'm not positive that was incash but it's likely that was i had noknowledge at the time of the purpose of this would be truly areset for groomers since then from people againthis was used for some purpose with regard to the walls aremr stonethere wasa political decisionas i understand the circumstances there mr stone have made a very large contributionto the president's campaignthat includes

the national mall that this would be instantlycontribution for all political activities in the nineteen seventy two election yearso it does and it was a request from history before a turn of certainportion of his contribution to be you that i believe in illinoisfor a bipartisan vote for uncommitted and i made a commitment to fifteen thousanddollars to back out of itand that case i'm not sure it willlast or whether that was checked or catch up withrobert though that point onwards the chairman of the republican national committeei do not recall how this request was made othermembers within the committee was disputed the funds i understood the more topay for the trip to visit in vietnamwe could not understand why

mr dorffrightrightrightmovies of the period of thenineteen seventiesi think it's beenthe news of the breakdowns briefly inthe seventies but wasnow

they're ata new user idnot sure precisely of the timing of this but i believe it was i asi came into the chameleon morning which would've beeni'm thirty fouroutside his office i stopped him whetherthere to say good morning or whether i had a specific questioni really can't call you is obviously in a hurrysomething heading down the hall at the point i'm at the statement you madethe best of my recollection that my boys got caught last night imade a mistake i knew somebody from here which i told them i would neverdo i'm afraid to lose my job you'd betternot write that it was not stapled to

make obviously i have no knowledge at that point in time of the break in itselfand no real relevance as soonas people doit would have been ireceived knowledge of the break in orderis wrong would eventually after that meeting with mr woodyes and that conversation isabout forget all the circumstancessurrounding that that's my recollection as a biggeneral time frame that time period i forgethis office

for suggested to me at whati'd given to mr libby in the range of the summer seventy five to eighty thousanddollars i did not i do not believe at that point on my headit sounds really interestinghowever i did know that this song wasconsiderably larger than that because mr mcgregor himself at authorizing payments for eighty threethousand dollars in one single stall icecream well just isn't the right figure out on whether i thinkthat's too low he indicated at that time white said tohim you must have been inconsistent because i remember making him amedication that statement i have no intention of performance artthat you said you may have tohe was a

special assistantthis point intime was a gentle weirdness within the campaign that an internalinvestigation was going on and that the room was conducted and a halfmr mitchell at that meeting we have discussedi believe in general terms and again my recollection of the time is right i would not have the rightmaybe figure we're just generally disgusting figures catchproblems when he specifically mentioned it at a singer i'd received a fiftythousand dollar contribution from reporterand it's really afterwards he saidthat i said i've done nothing because i don't know wistful and i'm waiting for a kidneythat information economist reporter this was in thecontext of the risk and invest expo investigation are there any remaining problems

in barswe've done nothing foran attorney in washingtoni'm not sure at aprotestant and then are my secretary which indicated there were two agentsin the fbi in my office on with the projecti don't think you said there without saying john mitchell forthat reason we hear and it went down the hallcame back and got into the mornings in with waddle itis intimate

it wasinterestingit was falling apart for i said nobody was coming up with answersas to what was really going on there at very strong concerns about thatit whichis the positionjust one thingi'm sixteen

i'mgoing to doand none of the questions which werebothering me at that point i'm in opinion inmy office following that interview essentially two find outwhat i've said and what matters to a lot of at that point heindicated to me that the precise wordsthose that three percentthe money is a problem was verypolitically sensitive weekend just not come out with a high figure were goingafter them that's apositive but if there's a problem i can see him as individuals two hundred dollars and two hundred thousanddollars drop the conversation

yes siri believe in some of these events i'mdescribing the fbimeetings probably happened on thebecause i was a foreignerand the army at the presidentand i remember my wife picking up that day andi assumed it was probably in the voter filealonzo has gone through

is my movieparty a number of peoplei talk to can call<unk> nasa council to change in the presence of one secretary andpat buchanan who was a speechwriter for the president iremember the depth with which iexpressed the concern of the problem but i believe it is generally expressing concern thatthere's something very wrong at the campaign volunteersand leeyes sir mr colonit was expensive that idon't that john ehrlichman and tom goldman should be aware that there was aproblem i do not indicate that i do not know what i specifically

requested eight theyhave this knowledge and he has a meeting comes in the next day at noon ican state called me at some point andsulfur summers' office that john erlichman would like to submit to a caucusand i want to tryit again there's been here ido not precisely know what degree of not sure what conclusions i come tothis pointtremendous problem or something has to be donewith jake and evaluate my condition at that point it's been asomewhat over rock and suggested a vacation which in fact i was quiteleave on the next weekend edition it's been planned for a long time

and suggested that the important thing is that the president be protectedtwenty threei started to get into the same problembananasi don't believe it waspointing fingerssomebody gets the campaign has to look into this because the

concern of the reason my mind at that point at the possibility that the entire campaignorganization involvement for good investigated sois his responseasfor the white house but don't tellmany details of the us i don't wanna know my positionwould have to be until after the election and i think executivenow this is long and thereyou metat that time to discuss thatquestion remains that issue ofimmigration since april seventh of

secretary stanton been pressuring very hard onmyself for the preparation of records in the final of any one of themhonestly permanent record of the creators of the series is a very mammothtask with regard to solving the contributions and so forth would have been received at thatpoint the problem with producing andsellingwas that in the reportyou want to be sure that everyindividualthey acknowledged a lot of money on that list of having been received by themselves that there wouldnever be an internal conflict or possibility of somebodysaying some it's got within one so at this time and the reason forthe delightful this late date with regard to this process was that