1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-08-02; Part 1 of 6

it's been mr benjamin what recommendations you make of his main concern the new legislation to help prevent the misuse of the central intelligence agency all of them in place these matters i've never understood how moral decency can be legislated about the year and washington over the years there have been many occasions when the various people have tried to manipulate some

organization or another in the proper way it's just an investigation really really the watergate committee heard today from two former senior officials of the central intelligence agency about how it helped watergate burglar e howard hunt at the request of the white house the request a year before the

watergate break in him from john ehrlichman when i was working for the white house farmers grow former cia director richard helms vehemently denied today that the agency had any part in the watergate and said he was puzzled why it was so difficult to get that message across to acting fbi director grey just after the watergate break in but helms did disclosed today that one of the watergate burglars uk neil martinez was on the cia payroll at the time of watergate and was hastily dropped that was former deputy robert kirsch and now the general commanding the marine corps describe supplying hunt with equipment and use it including at the stars and false papers in the summer of nineteen seventy one for a secret white house project after being asked by john erlichman for help cushion also regarded his troubles earlier this winter when ehrlichman said he couldn't remember ever making such a request ocean today confirmed that you get outside the hearings convicted watergate conspirator james mccord

today charged that the fbi followed special procedures in the watergate investigation but slow down the pro record says a newspaper article at the fbi was required to clear all important leader the justice department for pollen them up if this hadn't been the case as mccord and a page and sensors to his home and carson after his arrest it would come they would have come up with eighteen thousand dollars and one dollar bills and the other clues to a broken the case wide open i saw the sidelines that come out of these hearings are as interesting as revelations of major developments today such a topic with what spies talk about and casual conversation and that's peter kenyon reports that has not been pretty have you ever wondered what real spies talk about whatever conversation tape recorded july twenty second nineteen seventy one when he's white house e howard hunt went down to the cia to meet deputy director robert each cushion for the first time out i've been charged with quite a highly sensitive mission by the

white house to visit an illicit information from an individual whose ideology we aren't entirely sure of the effort to come over here and see if you could get me two things flesh documentation and some degree of physical disguise gen grimsley i don't see why not if you cut my saying so you seem to have lost a little weight general christian yes i've taken some officers go up and down when i go down it's because i go on the wagon and dodi very much at all and others help ailing irving entertaining going embassies and dinners with the only way i can lose weight is to be miserable really miserable a little later in the conversation hunt says if i'm not a physical disguises going to stick i wouldn't be seen walking out of here i'm sure they've got psy facilities downtown freshman a place i used to be people with an office building under the press club yesterday a nightclub on the second floor and we used to meet people out there i had a guy who thought it was just lots of fun to be in this

business she used every meeting people and the conversation around the transcript of this which was recorded by general cushman incidentally also had the embarrassing revelation that the meeting with top was set up by john ehrlichman of the white house staff affect the christian and really couldn't seem to recall during a series of flip flop mammals and testimony earlier this year by tomorrow peter reports the major witness will be former acting fbi director l patrick gray more startling result with a forty page statement that's very critical white house presumably you will also be asked about them in court charges that the closer to live broadcast eleven interview with dick cavett we've just completed a program with for committee members to help you watch the intervening hour series and that's nightly viewing died in our number one former cia director helms says he felt obliged by law to help with the psychological profile and daniel ellsberg you suggest that law dealing with government leaked the change

baum says that when john being put out fillers about using cia funds issued orders to john waters that you do absolutely nothing about the cia's reputation number two with getting a cia monthly retainer to keep an eye on the state he's from cuba helms also says he bought when our thunder should request for the use of the cia secretary located in paris and the third unannounced describes as resistance to john dean's inquiries about using the site cia to pay bail money and so it's a lot of the defendant helms says his office turned everything i've learned over to the fbi and the fourth hour of the former deputy director of the cia agent robert fishman details hard hams request for false identification papers for abundant living also in that hour he says he complained to john ehrlichman about hunts requires american city would restrain in the fifth hour question and justifies the power plant wanted a camera in a tobacco pouch for use on the new

assignment and in our ocean and admits that the profile of daniel ellsberg the only one dominant american that he can recall it's three years but there's a dissenter in today's proceedings the committee will come although i pray and mark who committed some of the bennett and away ally of the whole week is sort

of an american made it more american of japanese ancestry i don't want on the market he'd show his devotion about poetry the way not only live about living free world and the second world war he's up above so baylor with investigative the application of his right arm he was decorated with the distinguished service cross for extraordinary heroism a connection with the united states and it has proved himself in the latter days as one of the most dedicated americans this

country has ever known not the aleppo offensive yesterday make it appropriate for me to make these remarks concerning member this committee proves that one of the most talented of all americans and the us republican chairman center right mr mann say that i've known then only a sense of that in the senate there's no man i think is more loyal and dedicated to this country i don't know of anyone on this committee has made their contribution to its efforts and jennifer null and i had a great affection for him as well as a great admiration we are an attention fill the atmosphere and it's unfortunate kind of the short term i think the marker of central asia greatness is that i'm sure it will not affect is no other consideration matters wrote

our attention i'm sorry that the events of the last several days have occurred how open think that it would not affect the objectivity and the efficiency of the effectiveness of this committee and i commend you for that matter to the attention of the official record and i believe now is behind us and we can get on this and you know for the common cold or director house you're welcome mike thank you

as richard it's been fb

is being questioned initially about it mr dave dorsett association council mark this year

and prior to that we you the director of the central intelligence agency the director of central intelligence was like a whole new director approximately six and a half years was sworn in on june thirtieth nineteen sixty six and i left office when mr schlesinger became director on the second of four were in nineteen seventy three how long you alone in worrying that the state central intelligence agency in the stores opened in nineteen forty seven you're very aggressive helms in july of nineteen seventy one that e howard hunt had made a consultant to the white house i was informed of this and you recall how you were not specifically any longer had this i remember being told that he had gone to work for the white house precisely under what

circumstances i was told on one specific date did you have a conversation with a general question concerning our clients in the summer of nineteen seventy one giving a tape recorder and i asked what purpose in the city won the conductor one time interviewing that you've been improperly authenticated by the white house than they were when he was working at their best how long have you know in our town i've known him over the years when he worked for the agency and the recall crossley how long he worked for the agency must work for almost no somewhere over fifteen years anyway what was general questions position at that time in july

your knowledge was the tape recorder and the camera you're going to listen and i was informed that it was my preoccupation that time was to find out whether this new normal he says an important by normal i mean simply available in the store in downtown washington kerry is going there was something creepy about him and i was assured they're pretty routine straightforward piece of equipment i might say parenthetically that when the last couple of days in talking with some of the gentlemen the special prosecutor toxins office was a memorandum about a clandestine campaign having been given i frankly sir don't want to invest in camera is a camera takes pictures or it doesn't you know it was concealed i've been

told you advise them any further requests for assistance subsequent through this conversation which i've just been speaking i learned i believe in a memorandum that mr hubbard that's secretary who is stationed with the cia in paris brought back from paris and assigned to him in the white house he also it has to be done that secretly and you didn't want anybody to know now that delay was an acceptable saw no reason for this scene today that the agency was being used doing shores of the white house so i got all the fishermen told and i thought this is totally unacceptable i wouldn't stand for i don't recall whether it was then or a few days later

some point this additional requests which ones making of the agencies seem to be totally unacceptable and i asked gen gration and ehrlichman and finally this we're going to do this anymore some trouble here you to the rear the room perhaps if you could bring michael novel because if you see me the story of my life and senate committees i don't raise my voice on an awful lot of speaking and by now indicating that in your conversation with general question in that you indicated mr john ehrlichman to people why wasn't that john erlichman was legal because of my distinct impression that he was the one who had arranged with general question and these pieces of equipment bass baritone scott

walker the first time and they're an ugly burglary was buildings or businesses or psychotic disorders i forget which weekend and that was i think the second weekend of may the sheer nineteen seventy three i was unsure us and i picked up on sunday and english language newspaper and saw on the front page of a burglary of the office of the psychotic assassin california primary had been done is it's set in a newspaper story with the assistance of cia the first time i remember feeling a do you know of your own olive whether anybody was used inadvertently that was the property of the cia i've been assured members of the agency in this assurance was given me when i was back here and i testified before for other congressional

committees that is given the hunt was not used in the portrait of dr albert office the action was physically not oppose the officer who has staked out a packed the effect of hillary's race and and that says he wasn't given any burger at the boys wondering how it was to use that in the wake of this is one of the things that seems have been perpetuated this one that surround here that he somehow got very important for the agency which operate in places and i'm not aware of any record that helps during the summer of nineteen seventy one you learn about the request on a member of the white house staff when the central intelligence agency to do psychological or psychiatric hold on october yes i was familiar with this request some time before this is david young

who was one of the assistants at the white house had originally been on the staff and for me that he was going to work and they've been given his duties in connection with general security procedures and the government classification of documents the investigation of leaks such of other such matters a subsequent to that he called win sympathy and i want to get into these things he wanted to find out how the agency and intelligence community have over classification of actions other security procedures so that's on the circumstances the best deal at the department of the agency's director of security this week it was does it did briefly summarize presence on what this pro

quo as well i guess searching for having me putting together a lot of information about a farmer libya foreign states or foreign dignitary and then attempting to analyze what's on the human being he was these psychological profiles a psychological study that there was to give insights into what motivated some of these individuals while making things worse david young too so

you want to be and i think this is an imposition ask us to do this he said the white house was very much interested in that is the true story about that who showed no signs of those kind of not going and please note we do so i will say here that nineteen forty seven which makes the director responsible for the protection of intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure of as written into the wall

ms johnston yes public information things that demonstrate that investigators that agency estimates that this is purposes and the investigation has been a very difficult relationship back in may language that was the issue so did the staff of the central intelligence agency you know they're out there such a

profile and was according to mr young i understand i'm fine so that was it it was the second did you have a conversation with mr young in connection with the delivery of the second of all i don't call him until alexis they didn't feel

they're being put in an unfair position they didn't want their professional reputations put on the line as a result of this kind of an exercise and he was insisting on professional reputation to hear it i believe was tapas into their late november of nineteen seventy one what was your understanding as to the identity of the persons over at the white house were involved in arresting profile and providing information to the agency for the profile i know at the agency that created

this psychologist i'd been consulting with david young at the white house and the president on one occasion anyway and that he had specifically asked him not to inform me that the president certainly did not inform his i was totally unaware of his identification of this exercise participation was made in nineteen seventy three to the best of your knowledge experience we've got the resources like another director attention to june of nineteen seventy two as you want the first time to hear the democratic national committee headquarters in the watergate

yes fight back so that was a big move and thirty days following a break and whether conversations at the cia concerning over again as in the first place without us and the director of security to inform a victim of the names of the individuals who just write in and also to say that mr hutton some fashion was connected with that ms jones chardonnay with

director security to inform me whenever anybody in the agency got in any kind of trouble with their present employees are best employees in other ways right now so that i didn't have to catch up with these events like suicides and house break ins and rapes and the various things that happened when employees of any organization in the city like washington so this is a pretty routine thing when he heard about the sexy i are great he called me up you know on monday when i came to the articles that the no mention in the papers of the store so i got all the stuff you tell me that this was a lot less these guys those conversations in the agency's we went to work on various requests from the fbi information about people go back to farming and

politicians alike wreckage is important also is a former employee of the agency was and when the most important and it's there and be the employee of the agency left at different times in nineteen seventy they would hire a desirable now direct your attention to june twenty second nineteen seventy two which was the day before you're meeting with mr erlichman was haldeman and general walter white house you have a conversation with actual raid on that after noon maybe the afternoon of june twenty second i believe that the committee is in possession of a memorandum which says the memorandum or note for mr gray that says i have this conversation i have no reason to question read various times in connection with this watergate break and i have no reason to doubt that was

one in twenty seventeen and in these conversations the two discuss the possibility of cia involvement in the break and i sure know and all right and with my preoccupation consistently for mentors time to make this point i'm going to be sure that everybody understands that doesn't seem to get across for some reason that the agency had nothing to go with the watergate break in the room here mr helms that's of june twenty third nineteen seventy so and ask you if you recall attending the meeting with mr erlichman was the alderman and john walters i do recall attending that meeting where was that he held meetings held office in the second week would you please describe to us in substance what happens at that

meeting journalists and i arrived first and waited for a few minutes and then there's the home in the sterling came into the room as best i can recall what was said and as the most jobs and whatever mr erlichman contribute in the course of this was the not instead of a smile said i just want to introduce it this way because it's a little bit easier to describe ms jones a lot of flak about what the opposition's they're capitalizing on it unidentified man whoa the agency he even said

that the five men who have been found in the democratic national committee headquarters have been arrested that seem to be here at what the circumstances the fbi was investigating what this was all about it they unidentified were concerned about an fbi investigations in mexico you also at that time they say what to me was in an incoherent reference to an investigation of mexico an fbi investigation running into the bank because i don't know what the reference was allegedly i have no interest in the bay of pigs that many years later their the information without a while they ran into in connection with that at some juncture

in this conversation with almonds a severely affected has been decided that the general will have to go talk to acting director of the fbi indicating that these operations of these investigations of the fbi cia operations in mexico and it was desirable that that's not happening that the investigation therefore should be at the tapered off or reduced to or something that was no i'm saying stop there's going to be references to mexico apple recognizes that if the white house doesn't just call somebody an authority that information about something in mexico which i did not have information about possible white house because of health information that would be a thing for me to find out

was going to be effective and therefore i want to save time to do this and i say this an explanation of the fact that since i have consistently pointed out those cia operations have been violated by an investigation of the very fact that it was a if the investigation continue to go on it might run into something really new mexico possibility always that means there's nobody knows everything about everything so at this point i think it was repeated the second time the general wants to go see acting director grey with his charge i was intimidated by calling

us should take place as soon as possible so the conversation which was that we should be balancing grey is just vastly could we left this meeting is that there was and i went downstairs to the automobile mr williams yeah and find yourself too reminding agency and the fbi have the limitation and understanding for many years the agency runs in the fbi agents are operations the fbi should be immediately notified of the fbi made an agency agents operation i wasn't sure whether to do with this i think only about six weeks

the fbi the cia operations in mexico in place of that of the us immediately restrict this conversation that point precisely what he did the journal will have a meeting with actor curtis yet one after this meeting in the white house because he reportedly owed later in the day about a pregnancy the general report what they've discussed and then are the first time i learned acting director brett jordan toward me about someone having been sent to mexico even that explanation didn't say what the money was for

let's listen at this moment anyway writing for the record the information vacuum now on monday june twenty six the general ward has received a telephone call from john dean mm hmm you know there's a seal all right and it hadn't

been surge in orders that you want to verify my bona fide hits and who i am in my authority to talk to you is called john ehrlichman so by the time morris talk to me he said he had thought the conversation for it and he was going down to say when general motors came back from seeing that again did he talk about the meeting he reported being raised the question of the watergate burglary but anyway that was quite clear that some kind of human being put out the cia was an agency and follow up on the web the agency was

it was at this meeting absolutely certain the heat from that nothing happens in the agency's named facilities or anything else in connection with its business i said i didn't care what he would be a scapegoat i didn't care what he was prepared to quit over the issue i don't care anything about that i simply wanted to do absolutely nothing as i told you anybody else as he reported me and subsequent two conversations being unknowingly of those but i said though you hang in there

you will see these two meetings a general walter tagged with a jaunty nineteen twenty seven twenty eight the general was notable you already comedian and review as to what occurred after it it was going to take place either you briefly summarize of course about what general was told you with respect to the beating of the twenty seven and the meaning of the twenty eight my recollection of it was supposed to do but that issue first came up over whether or not the cia out of its corporate funds and provide bail money for the defense in the watergate burglary knowing that this issue come up

but i also believe that additional point and maybe it would be possible for the cia to pay the salaries of these individuals well a survey jail sentences general laurence conversation and don't want to blame for about how he got himself in this matter that is the theory of the agency couldn't possibly do anything like that that he had no authority to do it on his own and his authorities derived from me in the view of my position was in addition to convincing the group forever and last but not least the ground rules which we operate with the congress and that the agency operates in the congress of the united states an exceptional expenditure of this kind have to be identified with the chairman of the senate appropriations committee and chairman of the house appropriations committee

during the danger and it was so important to you during the week of the twenty six june received a telephone call i respect or setting up a meeting between representatives of the two agencies yes i do also former cia people that the fbi was trying to be a lot of leaks out of the fbi for the first time or that i could remember on matters of this kind of leaks of ongoing operational material and i want to get together with him and some of his people to see if we couldn't get some of these things that straightened out so much of it you're walking along in harmony so we're going to have a meeting the next day the next

morning which i believe was a twenty eight million the second song on the record i'm sure he called back and said that he was so busy that he couldn't make the media wasn't possible for normal following wait sorry about that because i was planning to leave the end of the weekend which was beginning to go to australia and i want to be there the following week we had a meeting of the lawyers now a rare second to meetings i'm twenty seven and twenty eight when gen walters enlisted the summary that gave us apply to the two meetings together or was that slowly withers that immediately twenty seven i'm not into it the

second question lifelong fascination with russia this is morning edition you were that was rick perry memoranda of these meetings us because after the issue came up a possible jail or paying the salaries of those were broken in the struggle may but we're getting into an area here which was very questionable movie and that therefore these various meetings on to be a matter of record and cases never came up with any future times those that point in a conversation as i recall a general or i agree that the saudi reasons audience

to write and record i might recommend that you did go to australia around the first of july and it sounded so innocent and that patrick gray did not schedule the meeting between the schedule the meeting between the two of you for us animal and fred thompson wants to compare today's testimony were some earlier statements made by mr helms public television's coverage of the senate hearings will continue after a pause for a station identification on a great coverage of these hearings is provided as a public service of the member stations of pbs and public broadcasting service it's been the point

fb from washington and drive continues its coverage of hearings by the senate select committee on presidential campaign activities here

again correspondent robert reich new as they go back to the areas minority counsel fred thompson knows about the question suppose britain's been the pushback michael fazio a conversation with the factory owners in the placenta give us to see him was your conversation limited to cia involvement by

candidate you are going to learn that the investigation might undergo other cia operations but i don't recall ever discussed this question of cia operations director breakin discussion that we had no involvement and i believe the party's conversations this is about a mexican lawyer i don't recall anyone specifically mention the mixing our attention about kind of just a gray hat on his mind in some way the idea that the lesson cia involvement they were running into the regime i said yes i'm scott simon so the next day you have the conversation with the

person i was first in that conversation i believe you stated it mr herrmann to the origins been home to the five men have been arrested in the same thing obviously the watergate investigation was was the reason for the meeting was anonymous what what the investigation might disclose that was the basis for the new guy can only assume in hindsight it was because the family had to identify donors why whooping cough iraq and waited to hear what some in the us the investigation

i assumed this environment in a moment ago and i do want to underline this i was totally unfamiliar that time with what we actually do anything before that's evident when the mexican lawyers name was mentioned there was never any implications for why there were even asking about it so this was not very revealing which one of these situations an investigation so this

is morning for me forrester research you know the republican nominee i take it that there is no objection on the part of the party line or maybe that it does not have the apartment of every right to mandate or in part

with them what is it thank you just the letters in the same tone of this

fitting within the same medication agenda war ii arrived and two questions in the room together and now the media reporting peace it is mr helms well you can make an intimation of motion picture malignant it was emotional for

self destruction i'm david greene i mentioned the case it's a conversation and no you did not know you know but the committee was so even though there's a lot of red in the opposition political

and as we came in mm hmm the government says much the point of him for help japan whether you disagree

with thank you anything new good morning i was aware of talk time since announcing their

general of memoranda for the record i thought about this and we went over again one of the quran and i think that point had forgotten this lead into the conversation and after i'd been away for some time ive been volatile things in my memory was less than perfect listing for you know i had no intention of you you're a poker anything else you know lowell says

there are regional submitted in which you mentioned is referring to immerse ourselves record leave custody of the committee which has written several days after twenty three which i have not seen at the time that i was testifying i talked to in the waters about it i had no reason to at that point to question the general warrants and then he has an excellent of the leader of college you know where it is an actual linguistic an acquaintance big five or six languages believe that he can serve at that level apartment recall something for five days obviously talking about this and i actually forgotten that introductory as

one unknown your own memory or for no one ms bee well is the