1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-07-27; Part 3 of 5

yeah these beaches we can the watergate break in i apparently was one of the few senior members of the white house staff who was here in the city and the rest were either with the president's order or somewhere else and so for the brief time on the monday before that the presence of an event that i think they go back to late monday as i recall i

started all you do i called whisper didn't just returned from the philippines and he and i had a meeting on monday noon what instructions have you given i thought it was really fascinating events and in this matter he kept kept up with the with the developing events because i just i just five or so this is a real campaign issue the report to you frequently on what he was uncovering i saw a total of nine times in the next two weeks there's an

unusually large number of times and what did you see about doing very well among other things well twenty years ago i mean with respect or is there is being told me a number of things that i have here now he told me about being a general facts of the surveillance of the democratic national committee headquarters fact that the howard johnson's motel have been employed as a listening post which some of the birds possessions and the

fact that they used fictitious names of papers and that they have more money in the economy and not testify previously given meetings which the meeting which we held monday afternoon the time determining factor at once at one of the white house and that was as a result of a report from the st louis what did you feel and turn it and i don't want to go into all the detail you feel that mr dean was telling you almost everything that was uncovering on a day by day basis and to get this to continue even after the first two weeks no sir i believe it was

harrisburg mr lansing michigan i think we can save some time monster and when i just want to go through with you over the communications that you had been to respect the watergate over the long standing up until april fifteenth nineteen seventy three that work in the month until i saw him nine times and eight of those times related to work in a month until i assign three times a moment to time warner for a long

time on september three times and not be able to tell us to that one of those meetings with regard to the four million sales and i don't know boys one was with regard to watergate to with regard to segregate which additional going to the generals on december five times twice january seven times of which what would be considered rude than seventy three years late february five times which including will cost to work on the civil war and one of those times

no it doesn't what about the january meeting with respect and although we're so in effect you might buy bean about what we just heard and then would you say that then during those times which met with him that you weren't discussed fully all aspects of watergate era whitehouse possible involvement and also possible involvement of personality upbeat are you engaging and

speculation what was being used to who might be involved as a result of these conversations and that what if you figured farming knitwear discussed earlier conversations isn't that great now i will say that so well then then as a result of all this information and what you independently elected i use this as a basis are leaving messages the year the night to any press conferences that you might have had that he might have had i mean or is nearly as possible to talk over particularly technical mess for instance when civil that decisions were being vague this

is a conversation about a civilization with the rules of evidence were quiet here say the gunman civil deposition work that you have to survive good week mr ziegler eliminate too many press conferences and he might as well i don't think i think he's about my existence the issue and that was it

he did we interview various aspects of this case is that the law but you did you ever reach him on that watergate on the on the art or concern of the white house and so forth as well i believe which way is right now there were quite a few times by the white house by the president with respect to the war and if it and another inmate those in statements on august the twenty nine

nineteen seventy two the president in response to a question this is one of them in addition to that with the announced that under my direction and saw that the president was pretty as conducted a complete investigation of orleans which might involve any present members of the white house or anybody in the government i can say categorically that his investigation indicates that no one in the white house that no one in this administration president employee was involved in this bizarre vague desire is then a subsequent day the pope the president is october fifth nineteen seventy two state in response to a reporter's question

now when we talk about a clean this but let's look at what happened what's happened to the fbi assigned nine hundred and thirty he agents to this investigation and bought it under police conducted fifteen hundred interviews than none subsequently on during the press conference of april seventeen nineteen seventy three the president's allies twenty percent as a result of serious charges which came to my attention some of which were probably recorded i began intensive new inquiries into this moment assistant attorney general and i have met at the lincoln ne yo be a review of the act which a company

in my investigation and also a review of the progress that the department of justice investigation then he's made it as a result on march twenty first i personally assume the responsibility for coordinating intensive new inquiries into the matter and i personally or oppose conducting investigation to get all the facts and to report them directly to me right here in this office that he has responsibility do you conduct any further inquiry which was on march thirtieth nineteen seventy three is that correct about that press conference was it was seventy seven there's another thing that they don't want to

know after that he had been there talking to you other people in the white house have been talking to you and then and then when a few it goes in the washington post by mr woodward and what'd and then mr bernstein and in fact that most of the information about which you environmental event the i mean people had already appeared in the washington post now give you read the washington post on about that time during the during the course of your different conferences witnessed the voice of your different inquiries are you reading washington post about the roberts' through with it and ms jarrett well i'm certainly one

reliable information and what about the fbi there was no information coming well i think yeah i think i'll be in trouble i price of that is a league that the fbi reports which we were receiving that are on the on the base of them and from everything we know about him from everything the attorney general was telling us about everything that the idea of prosecuting attorneys were telling us could be reliable you said that you conducted

in pursuant to instructions from the president instructions which received on what is that now who did you investigate who did you interview and then with one objective in mind were you conducting the sand i was as i say it was not really an investigation in the technical sense of the word and i have declined to identify it as such of all time but as i said the top people whom i interviewed included johnny johnny johnny the whole conversation with mr gray which may or may not be considered to be included in that did you interview

those no no i do i think i should've done which was to settle it before you talk to somebody in my situation going top lawyer says you're the treasure you don't believe that the legal liability policy and a couple are due to go up more birds it would you say that you cannot get very intensive interviews with these people i can't i can't find this to be an exhaustive investigation i think reasonably well on tuesday the lead an hour two hours most of them right and that's where they connected know

basic principle of stare was a feel for whether anybody in the white house wasn't all so i felt that was a year so most of the questions were not directly to what people like mr martinez girl rubio that the committee occasionally people told me but my principal focus was to say what you know about people are not like you know about anybody else in the white house might be involved or not an individual white house i mean so what else do you know about him that might in any way involved in the incident not that was my principle was but the other part of my job other than just interviewing these hugely was trying to get on top of these very complex law questions which mr dean had been working with and which i have now and it's a great deal of my time and i might say this was the this was the one of the president's principal vocals and there's da

attorney client privilege just this morning and i don't want to hear petitions in my questioning and i don't want to irritation answers now i'm really interested and trying to ask that they knew what that would include does not during the interviews that you hadn't you did you on occasion take the conversations that these people want to look at one which were those of the estimates on the river well thanks in the possession of years that all did you buy any interviews

for their prescriptions in the sense of saying hey here's some were hearing yesterday a new head of those interviews well i think there is one my interview with film maybe the question isn't it one eighty six

people want things just so so i mention this morning senator and they want to do to tell this may op what to do after they initially thought these interviews with respect to each of the individuals they you know they might have been involved and the watergate affair june seventeenth floor in the cover up after june seventeen years that i knew named those

names yes sir it's been it's been is back my interview with the

and also my interview a must be the one which remains which is responsive to your question i think is my interview with the reliable forty four o'clock in the afternoon his attorneys and they'll just come into the united states in the interview if you like in the interview and according to the survey to be some

specific approval i planned to make the statement that this was a meeting and in addition to that particular project reporters and the fontainebleau hotel headquarters of the democratic convention where like wives to be what it was this again this was a an interview which i held on april fourteen nineteen seventy three at that point you know you understand the decision mr rivers i mean it it's funny that the proposal which was approved at that law and its genesis and a million dollar proposal which

mr damon mr levey but there i asked him specifically about the screen because as i said i was focusing on white house people in his description of mr deans participation in planning was quite mr liddy dole mr mcgrew he said that mr dean had authorized the one million dollar big as the beginning today to me we didn't have that kind of authority you believe that and you know what mr mcgrew was telling me that i didn't know what to believe at this time so many different there's a stories from so many different people i wasn't trying to evaluate what to believe and whatnot he said that they took me through the before meetings in early nineteen

seventy two separate this is this is a much looser now and then he said that at some point in time i get the informal straw was his primary contacted the white house that they have a right and intelligence capability he said i got no problems for mr stanton so i read that it's an okay from cairo i asked him whether the white house and in fact this isn't the only and the only people in the white house really focused on as having had any connection whatsoever with those workers to paulson's to be a minister now i am an object here one particular avoiding the strong hand there's this at the white house was

just on the white house staff that you are yeah during the campaign i understood that he was going home and office to see it and back and forth how do you know this assignment also have you've since found out about this assignment and it was a great deal more you mean you didn't find out what you were at the white house about his own design i knew almost nothing about this but mr strouse assignment wasn't until late in we wanted to find out why at that time he was obese keep at both ends of his lawyers on all of

the actual desired did you know him as are you known to be a very reliable young man well i didn't know him well enough and the canadian thing to the crp or anything would you say that he was carrying out his assignment property i couldn't speculate as to that's why well i just don't have that reliability is concern something occurs to be the perpetual know i first interviewed mr straw was on the occasion of this having just returned from the ranger and he came in and told me that he was looking for something to do he's just come back and testify major three hundred and fifty thousand dollars and he said i had because

i remember that date and i said well i don't announce it was the first thing i think he was with some advice second thing it seems to me that you know this is they don't tell us where you think you're going to stay in your test in fact that is probably the only real gauge i have of listeners problems testimony overall i well then not what you find out about what conclusion did you reach with respect and strong as result of the interviews that you had that what he told me in the second interview that i had was correct i am a political

will to reach any conclusion from the interviews with respect him as to what on it wasn't all either in the reid june seventeenth a complicity on after all it out he told me that he had received from the committee to realize notice that they had a religious people and i confronted <unk> which was that mr mcgregor had sent over to him about what he had included specific reference and he said no he wouldn't remember anything like mcconnell he was sure that he had never seen anything like that he said that he didn't receive from us some material designated sedan chair and looking him why somehow season of wire tapped information for census of the answer was not a lark

ascending the season mr aikman i'm just interested in what you concluded the interviews with respect to these individual mr stahl was that he was a message that he was not on a platter or executor of any plant but simply accept that they are backing paul ii not what conclusion did you reach with respect to her mr stack mr kohlmann oh i got my car back as you'll see in this never have now given this that i think i cracked it is best if i said the reviewers as my contemporaries conclusion of the best evidence yet i

know so senator any indication as to what you know what kind of an inquiry you had connected with respect to each individual is money raising efforts either very new circumstances i want to make you you interviewed i and then you take this conversation all for it and i've made this memorandum after work and in that i think you'll see that's my conclusion that he acted in the best that they thinking that he was simply engaged in raising money for i've been there

how many interviews did you not as a result of your being commissioned by the president they're going to this is a long and take a new album that these interviews lot of this in the period between the anti of working that they don't now the president indicated that he had also the key what was this a statement of the present all about when he stated that iran wants the twentieth birthday as a result of serious charges which came to my attention some of which were publicly reported i began

intensive new inquiries into this moment one of the series of events i'm calling this conversation right now the state of the state is turning the investigation over i have the reason why i don't need to be in any way diminish the efforts of the investigators in the department of justice and prosecutors also were doing an extraordinarily effective job right at this time

when i talked to regroup for instance he had already been to see the us attorney as a result of their efforts and that was it the president is meeting with the attorney general the reason they compared notes as to always investigations and then dissolving and then them would you say that that up until march you were convinced and then the president was convinced at the white house that there was no white house involvement as you were convinced that it is certain i would say now that because i believe and you kept saying yes to the president on the basis of information which you were receiving from muscatine and others in the best of the best i then why on january third way you so

concerned that mr hunt might blackmail the white house yet anytime somebody well so mr roy lilley on january the third year with respectively well he was asking if it was not making any threats well i believe the testimony which has been abused it indicated that mr hahn was getting kind of nervous that mr parkerson part of this information which she receives from its commitment to mr mitchell mr mitchell and journey to the white house and then this conference was used to being used also and i don't think that's going to be mr cotterill letters because i recall seeing the letter and that that was a

telephone call from service provider mr bittman i remember i went to mr golson zappos precipitated the meeting it's b and among senator among trial have some comments about a conflict in evidence public television's coverage of the senate hearings will continue after a pause for station identification on a bridge to coverage of these hearings is provided as a public service by the member stations of pbs a public broadcasting service fb the

pain has been it's

b from washington and pike continues its coverage of hearings by the senate select committee on presidential campaign activities here again correspondent robert mcneil as the hearings resume senator monterey is wrapping up at that point senator worker has some questions about the political espionage done by tony lutz yeah it's been able

to pass by i believe the last question i asked you why dave plemmons you know well i think

first take the assumptions of your question senator i can agree that there was so much concern around the white house for clemency for mr the fact is it and if that happens because paulson had a very strong concerns about this for its melancholy in this final minute news is letter word said that mr golson in effect had abandoned his friend and the post was moved by this it was the occasion for a meeting about what kind of a contact mr golson might mate with us per month to reassure it most always is the purpose of the meeting was b which was a very compelling well

ms nicholson testified about this meeting the great concern and that he might build the little men to get something which would be unsavory to the white house fiscal suicide i believe you did or someone else in the testimony of these years no at that meeting and the talk was that under no circumstances should be offered more stability discuss the jubilee is yes oh you do mr mccourt at that time

i believe that was a region with their whole unit at some at some other candidate comer mine in korea during interviews and some of these people did mr caulfield that ever communicate to you that that missile into work permits to be had communicated an opera now a penny i believe you have just five year that when the president authorized investigation of the overnight that and then in that discussion there was no confirmation that immigration the command it was never discussed it and it

also stated that you were unaware that where anyone else have given the authority but you're testimony was going to assume that most people had given permission to go into the elders i saw you assume the military right now which is at twenty seven i believe that they're doing a very fine justify this as a legal internet and not worry because the factory which yeah

gets to the president my heart over the security of ironing out if this particular thing for the region contemplates that the president take such measures in order for them to be your interpretation is correct the president did not take any measure to give a party the recall as you have testified you just assumed that he had authority but you're not sure that it and then there was the only person there that authority now when you say that it was

not illegal my assumption was not an act i was living right if the president had not contemplated when he get humans in fire or this investigation go well i suppose it's the difference between major general agency and what we used to call a special agency a law school but wouldn't you say that you agree that specific authority to get a new president of the united states was necessary in order to make it valid know i would think that the agents were talking about constitutional rather than statutory power that a general delegation of capacity to mr crowe would be required rather than some

specific authorization to some specific activities he was my only reason and in new york and that worries which is where it was illegal well here again your misstating what i understand about the most important thing that i said i have to assume was what past week when mr crow and that is not let me because i don't know i do know what passed between the president and mr groh and that was a delegation of very general authority on this subject and in my opinion that delegation of authority was very broad and varied the right now i

played it at you mr eckman that your testimony has been contradicted by many of the witnesses who appeared beautiful and i believe that this committee has the task against the testimony others with respect to other measures mr dean mikhail mr magruder strong through the callback ms cloe i believe you have indicated to your testimony the victory of days and another one detail and it is the duty of this committee to judge your testimony against this background and against all these threads of testimony

about these individual that's all i kept saying as chairman i'm not a lawyer between my testimony in some of those here at the lot number to understand the function of the committing of the legislative agenda so i don't think that you're necessarily in the business of making findings of fact just to the testimony of specific what's passing that the more it seems to me that whether there are on what's any evidence is not nearly as important as to whether or not and what's in the evidence for support one side or the other by corroborating independence on the tour i hope that you'll find impossible the other members of the committee will find impossible to

examine the various expensive pieces of evidence such as a letter from the cia and the fbi determine which of conflicting testimony and i'm sure that we will do that i personally will i can assure you mr ali the weight of the testimony and then i would also give consideration to any documentary evidence here thank you mendes memorandum of april sex object lesson they share they knew or was

it true nico it's underscored again for a vote on amendments to the campaign reform act as they come back to the year interim center workers questions about campaign ethics conflicts and john mitchell says the money and possible cia involvement in the cover up it's been great it's b and specifically

david president as the nation's chief executive but he is also a longstanding tradition his political party leader any president has a political role whether he's going to run for re election or not but it is again today and information and the president is a politician you need permission viewers

conventional you take an existing nixon political money by check and inappropriate employers monitor simons so far as i'm aware or two

so i like to try to get into the general nature of the investigation and the other investigations about is the fact that these investigations of these investigations were background checks on individuals and time to talk rest of all facets sexual habits it is usa

usa this testimony regarding characterizes entire nation that us marines responded national security measure domestic security measure that would be a political motive you indicate that you're a long was responsible in near council president

and turning over political information or information issues orders join us comments of this committee as to the information which you turned over to the president and again us i don't know what they do with us concerns referring to year in response to a question senator i can only speak poorly about six or seven months that this i think that the investigations which he did at the time i was baffled nineteen sixty nine and the first month or two nineteen seventeen perhaps not in any way relate

to the political campaign in nineteen seventy two so i don't know that this isn't the scope of europe are not just generally probably agree on the election campaign the lead group activities of the election in any event the one principle investigation that i recall mystery alaska what's reported to me ah and i'm sorry but i don't have i don't think there were very many major ones of a political nature of my recollection is that a great deal of what he did had to do with a black panthers another violent violent group intelligence and that's that's the other thing that stands out in our collection of mystery alaska rates was sent to

do and it slips my minds just with the baden that was what i do recall is keeping us informed on a regular basis of the violence as they become became available where nothing reporting of course with us was justified part of information to see is a matter of public record other information he received was a matter of hours every way

to have something like that you lesson which investigates what happens is there some reason why possibly the law enforcement on this is another julie we got this connection with the newark police department one point in time that the indian intelligence involving while groups of that and yet sources particularly in the new york police department intelligence division and so he when the recipient of information because of that former association well for years or wizards of inadequacy or in normal a previously all what i previously testified at its center that we were not getting an accumulation intelligence from the police and sheriff's offices in the state police of the various municipal state

organizations and that it was sometime i think it was probably the second year or possibly into the third year before there was set up and the justice department a facility or accumulating all this material estimates and that of sixty seven months only working out assaults when i was counsel i didn't have a makeshift job of getting some of this information join us hiring in the us i do he was he was fired

because of it and he was fired by me but principally on the colville say sell recommendation well what we're doing where i met him in an airport well i was unfair to the artist i recall and popular as i recall arranged date before us i hired him i guess in the white house i made the decision and operations often made it your first your first meeting with the idea that was that fb