1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-08-06; Part 6 of 6

the pope and so after a day and a half of testimony former acting head of the fbi l patrick gray concluded his appearance before the committee tomorrow gray's former boss richard kleindienst who testified kleindienst who succeeded john mitchell as attorney general resigned in april saying he felt he could not be effective any longer because it has close connections with several of the central characters in watergate l patrick gray a lot to say today about the fbi's investigation of watergate and also about the attempts by some to involve beyond the chief investigator in the cover up of watergate and some of its ramifications will jack murphy of the

georgetown university law center near abortion and he's with us now as is david wise author of the new book the politics of wine mr hugh jackman in your opinion how does patrick gray's testimony fit into the total picture of what we now know about the alleged white house cover up to watergate a very general jim i i don't think that anything has to grate testified to provide the basis for a final determinations on the key issues of water ice water and land there's nothing that definitive on the basic issues but i think you could say that what was degraded have to tell us so was generally damage and harmful to the presidency and the justice department and indeed to the fbi you know he protested the country respect about the organization they point to a couple of things which i found troubles with respect to the presidency for example as we anticipate there were questions today notably from senator thomas and so in a way with respect to that phone conversation on july six nineteen seventy two but when asked to grade the present the question came

up ivan of the hemingway why didn't the president ask you who would what you had in mind on his staff who was going to mourn him that was just that i think effectively it remains a very serious question here said that if he had been asked by the person he would have given the names dean an argument that's true but what changed in point which i think that my colleague eric a negative effect a reason to remake itself or why wasn't on june twentieth mr gray was lonely and without serious question taking on files from the american and an eight days later on july the sixties compared to attack them with a pleasant very curious a contradiction there so theres about the president though which are worrisome the decision apparently on april twenty six that meeting attended by climbing says the sheer we attended by findings of that appears in the system for a general amnesty gray at which those water bills for a gentleman that has been filed phone call was made to the president present despite this information conveyed the message that the great acting director of the fbi found that amazing

action by the president so you know it was pointed out by some of the wider that as the president said on april thirtieth in his speech to the country have personally taken over control of the investigation because of women on march twenty first of this year and i personally ordered all the people entrusted with the investigation to report to him personally mr greco is a response to this that for march twenty first on he was never contacted by the presidency with respect to this investigation the justice department i think suffers like tarnation effect on its image because of the information that an october of seventy three to one great one to expand the operation of the investigation team from political activities and submit a mare he was told the justice department not to do that on the basis of the evidence that would be imprudent also jack couple three times during the course of the day the question of the fbi investigation and all the statistics recited that i kept coming back to the fact that yes all the statistics of the work was done and yet the truth of how it all was never got to the idea he outsourced that's a question which

brings me to the question when as you did it go your next or on the intelligence activities the intelligence agencies in this country wrote not only the politics one but also the invisible government which was specifically about the cia's are years ago what do you think of mr gray's proposal that the fbi should be made completely independent well you know with any institution in a democracy the question is how do you control of how you control power to take that the democratic system in the hall and you say will we control the power by having elections every four years in the case of the national level know what this question is particularly sensitive when you're talking about is we are here a secret police or a secret intelligence agency under mr hoover most liberal certainly felt that the problem was that the fbi was too independent and the response of responsive enough to political control and i think that was certainly true presidents

in some cases tried to persuade mr hoover to retire and they were not successful they didn't really control the fbi now that watergate has raised very interesting opposite question which is at police agency the fbi and to some extent the cia becoming too response is not independent enough so here are the homes of the dilemma it's either going to be to independent or it's going to be too partisan and to responses i'm not sure that in fact i would definitely say that i don't agree with at great suggestion that the solution to this kind of problem we've seen is to make the fbi independent because then i think we'll be back to a situation where we were but much worse i think i think that the answer is to find some kind of middle ground i think the idea of a more active role for congress would be very important for both the cia and the fbi all that has been done you know first steps on that line

at oversight committee in the senate has been appointed to the fbi which was done i think last week that there's no distinction have to be made that they've endured we talk about hard our the fbi and the crowd investigate that they do not have a power to prosecute and that is the distinction is not yes but you know one of the things that they said today that i found very interesting was that when he wanted to warn the president of the united states that some of his advisors we're serving email that his subordinates were going to mortally wound him as famous quote the call he didn't call the president in whom he was actually found himself over awed by as he testified he called croc mcgregor who was the man in charge of the president's political campaigns and none of the senators seem to take l patrick gray up on this point but i think it does demonstrate the danger of the fbi becoming too responsive politically too partisan and why as i

said before that there's a need for a middle ground like very much one of the things that made us curious as we sat here in washington through all these weeks of hearings is what the broad range of americans are really thinking about the disclosures coming up through the senate hearings we know the national polls showing mr nixon's popularity is sagging in the twenty four percent of the people are said to be in favor of impeachment the polls also say that sixty two percent of americans have a positive attitude are the work of urban comedy but what does the average american think of it all well last year when in fact was covering the presidential campaign we chose with very careful attention to statistics on income and other matters such an average american and we followed his views through the political year here's richard johnson a white collar worker in the steel industry lives in the chicago suburb of rolling meadows and has three children as a democrat richard nixon played in september i asked johnson on the

government's use of the watergate issue i'm ready i'm not convinced that yes this is important to the great but it doesn't really have too much persuasion which way i'm going to vote ten days ago that story appeared on the front page of the rolling meadows herald in it mr average americans the press came to call and said that if he'd known in november what he knows now he would not have a for richard nixon johnson does not say he would've voted for mcgovern he says he simply wouldn't have voted at all like many of the witnesses before these hearings mr johnson is exercising some retrospect and he says in hindsight i didn't know that this thing was thirty i didn't know that much about the awkward break in but i'm becoming more convinced that nixon knew about johnson goes on i believe that nixon knows about watergate i

think that sooner or later next month to come out and defend himself i think that without the tapes they won't get to the bottom of it but i don't think they will ever really get to the bottom of it it's a real mess as far as i'm concerned no i think if i'd known then what i know now i would just not a vote to johnson's ad well i don't know how representative mr johnson's views on today but i can tell you that we found last year that he accurately merit attitudes that a great many voters later demonstrated at the polls in november and robert mcneil jr from washington and you've been watching gavel to gavel videotape coverage of hearing about the senate select committee on presidential campaign activities as coverage is made possible by grants for special events coverage from the corporation for public broadcasting and the ford foundation and has been a production of unpacked and a vision of a greater washington educational telecommunications association <unk>

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