1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-09-26; Part 5 of 5

it's b and as i say if any sectarian tensions secretary of state i would take center stage instead of our politics because secondary defense of defense budget is a national issue as it was in sixty four were certain actors as was listening to a secular they're perfectly within their rights to speak out and defend the policies of the administration in connotation i know but they should be you know i see nothing wrong i was not referring to the secretary of defense any mention of the lawyers at the justice department you suggested and agencies on the capital political campaigns at what categories at all they should not be using the seat central intelligence agency quite i think that was forbidden course if you have

a lot of the recitation should have no the cover photo for us to the us canadian talk about america which individuals conceivably could be indicted in the next week i don't know i'm not a lawyer i don't know the responsibilities upon layers two and some individuals were said to have known about this are lawyers aw to report this to be a trial judge at which point these are matters which with which i'm not i just this was the most serious murder a lot of social political campaign of nineteen seventy two

thousand and they can take place july nineteen nineteen seventy one well i would just disagree with the attorney general fined billions to this extent effective that have occurred we come forward in an unsaid so explain i don't think it would've been a fatal blow well i think if you look back in retrospect i think certainly a big thing to have done would've been not even to wait for the seventy two campaign i think that's right i think with the wits with anatomist that discussion just as his as things done during the campaign by political organizations it was not a

political campaigns wait wait wait thanks joe in testimony this morning the amendment passed i think i said in a statement his position so these are your works that rhetoric has not left wing

rhetoric but the statement on that must've position on gun control is accurate on the state without black americans there is not an inaccuracy in terms of the writing well not sleeping well it's not to say that the season but this is a combination of where the record is david regis ones where the record has stated is because they were the record and stayed with you on gun control attack as i stated the rhetoric is is it something else and i mean this does not think that the state's basically opinion with regard to the blacks and this is not a good sign well you say that the statement contained in the brochure is not accurate it's exaggerated political rhetoric that's correct well isn't that inaccurately then well it's yes to mean right

political speeches a canadian actress as carefully and for senators my recollection that i may have had someone else in tuesday this morning on the record that was tricky given that told you that you had a panic and mcewen how about about his work the jig in rome when he came back from the committee and he said that he had prepared it and that he had learned i mean for editing i was his recollection that he's a truthful individual so i stand on that recollection it muskie

as americans that there is no law mr majeski cnn is the year mr marsalis at invesco the show from a press conference in september eighth nineteen seventy one reporter what was the soviet army leaders in watts yesterday mr musk the question was particularly out how we could move actively to deal with the problems that concern black people including the election and so i was asked in that context whether a black candidate and beacons in what the nineteen seventy two election if i were a candidate for the president

i said that in my judgment sends a ticket but not a likeable now i said what and that's such a ticket would be defeated and that if it were it would be a setback to our efforts to implement our commitment to equality for blacks in this country we must work to eliminate death row i consider it a wrong but i don't think we've done so yet so this is the choice that faces blacked and those of us who are committed to the ideals of equality in america how best we move effectively in the direction of equality including political equality which will make it realistically possible for black mexican americans and representatives of any other minority to inspire the vice presidency the presidency of the united states that ought to be our goal and then they were asking for the

question report senator are you saying that it's the wrong time for a black man to run for vice president or you say that there isn't a black man qualified to run and there must be oh no like who are qualified to rhyme well i do aspire to the vice president i know and they ought to be eligible for consideration now so do you think that the year and that has put the whole thing and i think the eu if you asked me is this is pamphlet affair from what i've read in a fair reflection at the reflection center muskie's civil rights position i would say now this is exaggerated hyperbolic political rhetoric i don't the vision of unpublished i would tell you know that says it's wrong to do this

that the voting members right on gun controls a certain some of the rhetoric and here is strong just by the center must be this thing probably should not have been published if it is my oversight this thing went through and in addition to that detailed have only proper identification and responsibility to things this is not as ben as comparing president united states had offered for him is not as dead as comparing american policy in indochina to that of the nazis in germany does not justify has not precisely i can't just go to the letter which was sent to miami to a local of the manchester right and then eventually the seventeen you know about that murder scene later that's the so called annabelle or right i do you think that that was a fair thing to do that was a political dirty trick on you the amazon

echo was unethical now there was another layer they did the same thing with respect to happen unless i was unaware that maybe you're trying to grow which one of these are relatively arid land they cannot grasp suppose i did not know the work to understand and then you think oh the canuck letter is the only one that doesn't refer to be assertive you think that certainly should be counted and drug but it also i think there's a myth you know that notion of that there's another building up that this song was responsible for senator muskie's emotional moment outside the union leader building and that is not true of senator must be himself has stated the reason for that emotional moment the primary reason was against his way i which was not made in an economic whether it was made in women's

wear daily was transmitted via newsweek magazine which happened to be a subsidiary of the washington post and so i think it's a mistake to say that this emotional law bolivar senator muskie's was the year was the result of a canuck letter that is not justified the so called ladder well they were interconnected way when they were nina senator master himself says it was just lonely one is why cvs lowe's one eye now there was another letter that appeared in a new hampshire campaign by my campaign it was on stationary united democrats for candidate robin that you're not done that and i know that there was one right in the caribbean is and then in on it our investigation and then the letter was designed to create a

light in atmosphere are particularly in their new hampshire this was not actually all that is endangered you're playing well mr robert raben think this is unique oh is that turkey approaches that they're pro candidate you know years and somebody's funding to do there's somebody got him to sign a letter under false pretenses that kennedy people were arrested today you need to

follow the individual that that is it that say a borderline case and they just give you one example sentimentally in nineteen fourteen whether that's the actual situation may would you say that that was unethical or improper but to give you an example which when harry truman in nineteen forty in state of missouri against governor stark he was in some difficulty as i remember the story because governor stark said he was one hundred but tom pendergast away and harry truman's friends got some individual name was nobody in the family was the prosecutor in the case and they ran him as the third guy in the race results of which was to put harry truman in the sun and that's the same type of our operation whoever did this probably did this to draw votes offer now senator must mean i would guess in new hampshire tomorrow is martin hopkinson say it's something that in the same vein as that i would think and

they will be making a judgment one and fund your opponent so you can give it to the united states are getting involved it's a tough call already is is booted out of the democratic convention on his arrival at his mayor's office and you call me too nowadays to say demonstrators are you just call me a republican committee up there and that is a year or three when kazan made of funds who were on what happens this again is another incentive i knew or wannabe

appear explaining all my memoranda this little item not included are whether it's a proper again this is a case of identifying your opponent with an unpopular with an unpopular individual figure i know what you're going to think it's ethical i don't again i have to say i don't think this is an ethical challenge yet again assigning their daily contact that convention and we seek to be innocent oh it's not be improper well then i know that you're not the center of this and were given the differentiation well it's this well something it's not improperly mean it might be a lot less by winning the interior of pranks but secondly i think that's an area of pranks like the karin a sign or would you say

i would say that's in the same range with the nixon the ones now you suggested i know all the black radio stations in the swing states we should run ends on musty statement about no blacks provides there's vision beijing if he doesn't then you follow without ivf centers pop this is part of the regular if he doesn't think the time has come for one of us to be even considered for vice president then the time has come for black american to tell it must be we don't think it is time for him to be considered for president right in shelley says the road and you think that was a wall

yes i do in the senate sen obama oh there was a point in time in nineteen sixty nineteen seventy one when congressman john conyers and senator eugene mccarthy each of them considering the candidacy in my judgment that would have been i would've helped us along what i can see to what i consider a gold a long time which is a realignment of political parties in my judgment would not have been an ethical or illicit to have made an alliance of convenience with a hero democrat to the left of the national democratic party because of the advantages than it would've advantages to pause oh same thing as i would think in the senate and he had done little on senator on the sale no less satisfaction get together with the right center on the right side of the spectrum to

support a bill but he wanted in exchange for support there i think i think it would be in that category i hear you're implying that this is politics as usual an important crop to say no i don't pay that insistence that's being done previous visits the nigerians is proper unethical to get individually i just think this is a this week on in the area of what senator baker i think was what he was reading i you know will continue as well and senator mcgovern is a lawyer in ohio a broken into these in washington dc were broken into the muscles were broken this

or i should say i don't want to look at things now this was that it is wednesday and and that one of his aides it was right in now also begun sarah jackson's campaign in florida but i would be unwise animosities in washington john barr presented as an aside some examples of the implications chapman's friends my understanding was a political operators reporter who traveled toward the various campaign planes two separate individuals as we reported

then things work ethic wasn't about this is it was ethical or joe mcginniss to pose a reporter to come and our campaign in nineteen sixty eight bob himself was an eighties do my memorandum publishing then a bestselling book and have inhaled in washington post ms jennifer has been praised and applauded and cheered until it was done by republicans against democrats well just because there was a long in the democratic camp i am not going to condone i am asking you wave these things were wrong when you asked me about a thing that happened similarly in the democratic campaign were wrong then out we would what particular incident downbeat the infiltration not talk to the question of political spies is not something i would do it in cinema myself and vigils confidence and then

betrayed their conscience now other people have other standards on the question of being a political spies it's just not something i would do i don't think i should sit in judgment on their effects i don't know that i could really a i would want to draw a line that says this is thoroughly unethical to do this i don't know that will draw i think it's part of the civic association and various activities in your evaluation of the way

true justice campaign services the fans alike are litany of wrongdoing saying you can't handle you've got the definition down every illegal act and things like that but want to be with them out to learn what i've seen is it people in the campaign and in the engine compartment he'd been committed our ongoing amounting to crimes the legalities and but i think that by and large concerns were ahead and none of the heart a thought that i wanted to do to make sure the united states was reelected and a lot of

mistakes things were done there's no question about that but these people are about to get the right to a trial a lot of the compositions about them pontificate on the ethics of them and the question is wait at times so i'm trying to find out the news and you talk about a sort of the examples of the fall while republicans in the campaign and so to differentiate between those activities in these activities which really you know has a dead set against his eye why can't i believe that the same way i can have these as

legitimate campaign practices nobody has covered watergate as legitimate campaign activity for the last time fifteen tons would certainly agree that really we are in any manner shape or form of the top operations of course when i did not know until i was up in disgust watergate break in he's a customer are they saying as they chop top type activities of any breaking barriers notion that kind of surveillance democratic convention sixteen they had to conduct surveillance we've done i believe one vice president united states post sixty four years

electronic surveillance for political purposes wrong this is really significant i don't know any political reporter and latino men he's substantiation and if you tell an individual to go do that the individual who have contacts in the national press for the political press corps you can i don't know a single political reporter sen mcgovern eyes get an icon and his money will say is that right where's your evidence every single one of that no one on the basis of years

of course this is the subject of the memorandum within the white house i've not been watching all the testimony on television whenever it was it was a jaunty note johnny is not an individual who don't read us troop withdrawal in separate memorandums digging but what that sounded occasionally because gandhi was not an individual doctor hassan who's gonna call i think that bothers me in discussions you learn it while others are fully aware that the president would have won this election are eyeing like you voted for i'm yours

confidential memo than a month now there are obviously if i knew my confidential papers dozens of them were going to be called up for inspection i was going to be held account for phrases parents that is a confidential communication with the president i certainly would have written a different there's no question about that i'm sure that we went through your for your own files and got every political moment you were sent by step is there's some things that are by both you and your own staff made not terms of wrongdoing but simply because you would phrase things differently when i write a first draft and no commerce speech some of the copy is extraordinarily hard i would not made public i would like to be held responsible for what i write is the final speech and for what i say publicly but with my private communications and in effect which are almost her private letters

to be called to account on national television for your phrase is not it's not a very pleasant altogether pleasant experience and i don't think that senator you would find in a more pleasant and i had to go through here see things i haven't seen for years find things that maybe were my own person a radical rhetoric in a memorandum was excessive so it's very bitter holy grail to be awesome farwell is a long term and that i've seen in my memoranda that the next senator mcgovern or suggests he's connected with a communist party senator mcgovern was the candidate in the last election he was a candidate of the left in the democratic party

mr schmitz who's a candidate nevada civil rights we had the right and the center these are not these are the reasons the french general assembly and seventeen eighteen hour her phrase that senator mcgovern was perceived our people because of statements he made especially with regard to foreign policy especially with regard to vietnam in that and then they say he was an american i would say space agency well what you know what is precisely what you you're taking particular mine or phrases that of memos written in the heat of the campaign and that statement senator is far less offensive to me even now but in public they senator mcgovern statement and then the president's desk that offer he's a senatorial candidate and he may get probably not in some confidential memorandum and he

can't i think that so many people myself included goals write i think you should be held accountable for what you say publicly but i think the man's attempt to the privacy of his own views expressed in his own way in his private papers in as essays have to explain them on television mr wessel absolutely there's no industry this year he ever do any of it well mr caulfield activities in sixty eight campaign certainly was campaign security he had conduct investigation of the things that have come out subsequently

coffee over very well is a very decent in my judgment even though fiction is very decent individual basically i'm saying do i think that that's not by and campaign visits and that stations are down her sister in atlanta paper were certain reverence in a hundred people to investigate president always all of those different about any dirt is that there were like that too the getty's aspects to campaigns i don't think i've ever been in a political campaign where i haven't heard stories about the private lives of the

personal habits of individuals are on but that's not that's not my stock in trade for overdue what you'd say that shouldn't be here it had the weight of all investigations and the ongoing investigations into backgrounds candidates one of satan's hometown newspaper in signing statements say like senator mcgovern in forty eight and in the question that things would you do if you come across all if you come across an individual libya depends on how to be involved it's basically an excellent as possible this investigation that's

my own personal pravda canada candidates they should not be this should not be a nation not being discussed at the candidates and and with the political not like you're just like a journalist and you don't have this until and i don't i would not do it myself and i don't want to sit up here and i'm an end soon and judgment and other people who do these investigations thank you for saying that because you are on the administration you've made a statement that was made before the words we've heard that yes these things are proper manners a political campaign and it hasn't just been said by any person or other representatives of the administration and to have the american

people believe that personal data for example is a valid part of the political process investigation on investigations that matters of great proponent and i was just this is something should you have all the green i don't think their problems i mean really

i am and the three letters in my examination of the witness one began and i know that the senate baker referred to survive man or the third letter writing and then i think about writing an answer well known civic association social organizations and semolina

and their writing right four letters and they themselves write messages that they want the right to be offensive began in between that and warily the message the campaign itself and they basically just amazing and as you can imagine i was wrong i personally feel very strongly that the issue of abortion and i'm opposed to an idea i drafted that letter in need did you go to get another person's signature on the matter an individual went to frankfort was in the right to life movement who believed in that and in effect i posted that letter for the individual signed and sent incentive to

the papers i believe in michigan that to me that is on a par i think with the rhetoric of the political speech which is delivered by a candidate who believes as well as i do and i write the rhetoric and he delivers i think those those things are analogous would you say the same thing they are indicators the video there's a memorandum which indicates that ten kilograms of intrepid on this cannon and sense of the time and newsweek and that is really one of them the number to the editor of the best proof yet of the allegations of vice president agnew about the nation's news media was there in credibility in performance before the entire nation unless there's not a lot

of those people to stand up and read other insults the president united states and then it is very common that you can get and then set an amount of the recession i think is an animal i'm not i don't know i'm asking for information which is and there's a sign and they say it's a look at the idea the sand that all of these have been actually manufactured in a little low i

ran into a well that there is a difference with the inspired individual to read a telegram and directing the telegram for his signature i mean they don't seem to be here i don't see a known heroes and the business of all they have to do is you can indeed that is something like that wants to leave my desk and what the what they do with the company now i mean that its citizens was innocent bodies signed you know what i get paid for my ghosts until the committee will stand in recess for fugitive mom

needed a pain in the center the most intriguing four a half hours with presidential system that you can enter into a white house correspondent for newsweek magazine is here now what is your general assessment mr buchanan's day before the senate committee it was fascinating to him in that and that mr buchanan appeared as the unintelligible yellow was mentioned earlier he spoken very unvarnished terms to the members of the committee about american politics the way it's played in both parties in that sense i think it was an education for the american public and then began was making really no apologies for it and above all i think it underscored how difficult it's going to be for the committee to write in campaign law which will take into account all the rapid developments of abuse in the american system you're going to get today really marked a real departure for the canadian turns a word must go now mean they're out of gathering

evidence in a way and gone into this whole business of how politics is practiced right you you've really gotten out of the business of hard fact except as the specific episodes relate to the abstractions the committee has to deal with and riding riding in campaign law we're dealing with political philosophy as much as anything else the way park but baseball so i'm always on a date you think that there's going to be more partisanship slip through shell would say only that the committee itself i think inevitably it has to be that the partisanship has to be more overt we saw that a couple of times today is one not lifted buchanan laid out several elements in his own memos and they were picked up by howard baker who quite obviously entered into a colloquy with mr buchanan directed at the devastatingly purity and the world of the republican party in general is history from the literary treks episodes were being said yes i want to ask a less than ever in the past her up to this point really

the committee members whether the republicans or democrats are going to try very hard to please state the case that i'm trying to be nonpartisan i'm a republican around the democrat montana this gift to the fact now what you're saying is that there's going to be more open about it now i'm a republican and i'm here to defend the republican position on the democrat not needed and the democratic position you think this economic or more honest hearing or were syrian or what you think well that'll do away with some of the superficial always weaving barrett in the past in these hearings i suppose the desert there's a legacy of good humor about this really end the members of the committee will make considerable effort to preserve that answer you noticed from time to time the day when chairman urban and up and senator baker were were badgering about the political implications of this they did try to keep to do that his guest jonathan soble plane i think the public is going to feel that there is that degeneration in the process which which may be unfortunate because this is

quite serious business and and terribly difficult to resolve well what about the course at this point would you not agree it would be fair to characterize the kinds of bain basically anti republican at least in terms of the kind of information the watergate etc etc etc so maybe it's timely oh certainly certainly mr buchanan seized every opportunity to point out that we the democrats engaged in similar or perhaps even worse activities in the past and sell that was also was inevitable and thoroughly predictable on his party on a lot of course he tried to make the point that he did not believe that there were two wrongs may arrive and so forth nonetheless he he felt constrained to region of the past bringing forward democratic misdeeds is as president or you sort of question that it's an obvious one knows people i'm sure i watched that would be canada day and listened to what his various positions were here at the white house recovered

regularly you believe that based on your observations as a professional reporter that patrick buchanan patrick buchanan views represent a white house position or should they be taken as patrick buchanan individual at the white house position and say that well but i get the point of course yes patrick buchanan to repeat again is an ideal heat several times made the point today that he didn't want to be held accountable or responsible for the the phrase our friends our family is included excessive rhetoric including some reasonable to the presence of applause but frank bit preposterous that is a man whose faces view with that he put those views in his memos to the president in passionate parents but those are the terms which were factored into the decision making process in the white house these worldly the elements of raw discussing in the inner circle which really going into the making of policy perfectly understandable that he doesn't

want a be held accountable for what he must be and i think every politician on the committee understands that and i daresay that there was even a collision remorse on the part of some of the members of the committee again because the the necklace which were set out that they are so general american politics at that most politicians don't like to discuss them again perfectly understandable but that does have to be held accountable for what the remarks he makes and in private in the inner circle once they come to the public and i think the conclusion of today's session peter carey who's been around politics a long time and so also had some observations about the political techniques discussed by the canon not enough i can add anything very profound of the practical politics lesson that the pat buchanan gave the committee today with a long time observer of dick nixon and that i'd like to make a few personal observations there is a difference between political planks and character assassination

compared to the danziger it would be like including frank sinatra and frankenstein talk of the political original a free soul attached himself to former california governor pat brown to the kennedy's and finally george mcgovern i was on the nixon campaign train and talked directly live off of the california side and back on the line and i opened a fortune cookie later in that campaign that as nixon chinese to explain the huge loan and i still have a hard hat that he gave me to ward off supposedly hostile <unk> supporters attack was never want to let politics stand in the way of his sense of humor to think that a room full of white house strategist program at the time well that's just ridiculous instead they came up with a cigarette with forte was character assassination actually as a practical politicians on the committee relies far better than say and there's this rather puritanical lieutenants a lot of what was agonize over today's as always typically new and tyler too as a supposedly friendly newsman i was asked

as long as fifteen years ago by nixon staff people to pass on information despite if you will on the rival candidates are also was asked who has planted questions of press conferences i didn't do it but i didn't take offense we're not dirty tricks are nothing new but like so many other things got way out of line in nineteen seventy two why that line is whether it can be drawn by this committee remains to be seen a lot of today's hearing the senators are off to a bad start by committing outtakes of five day break from its public hearings and right now the schedule calls for the first witness next tuesday debate in ketchikan who is a buchanan assistant but as they noted last night the witness list but anyway we'll be back tuesday night when the spaghetti again or whoever does just walk until then for our destiny to a friend back and peter kay i'm jim lehrer thank you and goodnight and washington you've been watching gavel to

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