- 2 days ago
Slow Burn - Se1 - Ep04 - The Hearings HD Watch [Full Movie] [Latest Version]Full EP - Full
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:11With the Watergate break-in fading from the news, mainstream Washington reporters struggled
00:18to spark public interest in the scandal, while one obscure California radio personality tried
00:24to convince the world that Watergate had exposed a very serious conspiracy.
00:30None of it had an impact, till one of the burglars dropped a bombshell, a letter pointing
00:35the finger directly at the White House.
00:47Okay.
00:49Put yourself in the shoes of someone working in the White House at the beginning of 1973.
00:55Someone working high up in the ranks.
00:58Someone close to President Nixon's inner circle.
01:03The President will be out in a moment to make a brief statement to you, ladies and gentlemen.
01:09The statement he will make to you is self-explanatory.
01:14Someone whose job it is to shield the President at all costs.
01:21The judicial process is moving ahead as it should.
01:25By March of 1973, that had become pretty hard to do.
01:31James McCord's letter to Judge Sirica, which claimed that the Watergate conspiracy went all
01:36the way to the top of the executive branch, all but pointed the finger right at the Oval
01:40Office.
01:41As I have said before, and have said throughout this entire matter, all government employees,
01:47and especially White House staff employees, are expected fully to cooperate.
01:54I condemn any attempts to cover up in this case, no matter who is involved.
02:02And with public pressure mounting, no one had the President's ear more on the Watergate problem
02:07than his senior counsel, John Dean.
02:11Let me tell you what happens after this.
02:15Once I really got down to the crunch and was trying to get him to deal with very serious
02:20problems, that's when I met the real Nixon.
02:38I said, Mr. President, people are going to go to jail.
02:42He said, like who?
02:43I said, like me, Mr. President.
02:46He says, no, no, no, the lawyers never go to jail, John.
02:49And on the morning of April 16th, the President called his counsel in for a meeting, perhaps
02:55to put that theory to the test.
03:01He slides two letters across the desk at me, and he says, he has prepared for my resignation.
03:20And they're remarkable open confessions to everything that's gone astray in the world.
03:26You know, that I'm confessing to.
03:31Imagine your John Dean, who had entered the White House as an ambitious 31-year-old political
03:36neophyte, now sitting across from the most powerful man in America, the man who is now
03:42demanding your loyalty to the bitter end.
03:45It was one of those pivotal moments in the Watergate story.
03:48of the Watergate story.
03:56of the Watergate story.
03:57of the Watergate story.
04:22It was a moment of reckoning for both Dean and Nixon, the importance of which, perhaps,
04:28neither fully understood at the time.
04:31Good evening.
04:32The biggest White House scandal in a century, the Watergate scandal, broke wide open today.
04:38The president's White House legal counsel, John Dean, has been fired.
04:42Reportedly, Dean is implicated in efforts to cover up the Watergate scandal.
04:48Up until this point in the story, people like Wright Patman and Bob Woodward had been trying
04:53to draw attention to what they saw as a rampant government conspiracy.
04:57And for a long time, their efforts went nowhere.
05:01But the tables were turning, rapidly.
05:05The firing of John Dean cued a new, unnerving chapter in the Watergate scandal.
05:10By spring of 1973, chaos was encircling the Oval Office.
05:16And the American public knew all about it.
05:18It's my constitutional responsibility to defend this great office against false charges.
05:26What was it like to live through Watergate without knowing how it was all going to end?
05:31Causing this nation to neglect matters of far greater importance.
05:38One way to find out is to look at that moment of American history as seen through the eyes of
05:44the people who lived it,
05:46back when they had no idea what was coming.
05:48If we learn the important lessons of Watergate, we can emerge from this experience a better and a stronger nation.
05:56I'm Leon Nafok.
05:59This is Slow Burn.
06:10And ahead on the last building on the left is the Watergate office building that you've been reading so much
06:17about the last few weeks.
06:19When stories about the Watergate scandal first started appearing, most people didn't understand what all the fuss was about.
06:26And the strange name Watergate simply added to the confusion.
06:30Now all that has changed.
06:32The name Watergate has become famous.
06:35Programs regularly scheduled for this time will not be seen today in order that we might bring you the following
06:40NBC News special report.
06:42May 17, 1973 was a bright spring day in Washington, D.C.
06:48It was also the first day of the Senate Watergate committee hearings.
06:53This is the Senate caucus room in Washington, D.C.
06:56As the Senate opens what is likely to become the most serious investigation it has ever made.
07:03Which, much to the frustration of the White House, was about to give the American public a front row seat
07:08to the scandal.
07:11That is the Senate committee, seven members, headed by Senator Sam Irvin of North Carolina.
07:18The committee will come to order.
07:20The leader of the committee was a relatively unknown senator by the name of Sam Irvin.
07:26We are beginning these hearings today in an atmosphere of utmost gravity.
07:31If the many allegations made to this day are true, then the burglars who broke into the headquarters of the
07:37Democratic National Committee at Watergate were in effect breaking into the home of every citizen of the United States.
07:46Because it was a Republican administration being investigated, the proceedings would have been easy to criticize as a partisan witch
07:52hunt.
07:53This resolution provides for a bipartisan investigation, thus it is clear that we have the...
07:58And that is one of the reasons Irvin, a Southern Democrat sympathetic to Nixon, was chosen to lead the committee.
08:04In a nation that still is the last best hope of mankind, in his eternal struggle to govern himself decently...
08:14The seven senators would be the public face of the committee.
08:19But working behind the scenes was a team of 80 legal staffers and investigators.
08:25I was initially unclear what it meant to be an investigator.
08:29Because remember, those headlines that everybody now knows about, they hadn't happened quite yet.
08:34They were...
08:35They were...
08:35That's not true.
08:36They were in the midst of happening.
08:37They were in the midst of happening.
08:38But you're taking down the government.
08:40It's terrifying.
08:41I mean, what do I know about that?
08:44I'm Mary DiOrio.
08:45I was an investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee.
08:48My name is Mark Lakritz.
08:49I was an assistant counsel on the Senate Watergate Committee.
08:54Before you got involved, what was going on in your lives?
08:57Where were you?
08:59Well, a funny thing happened in the summer of 1972.
09:04And on my first day at work, I saw the first paralegal that the firm had hired.
09:08That would be me.
09:09That would be me.
09:09But to ask who this burst of energy was going through the archway, I just saw her for a flash.
09:15And then two days later, on an elevator, this young woman stepped in with a young partner.
09:21Now wait, now it's my turn.
09:23Okay.
09:24On the lunch, this was Blue Blood, San Francisco, young partner.
09:29I thought, oh my God, this is so awesome.
09:32So I'm with this guy, getting onto a very crowded elevator.
09:37And he asked, you know, Mary, where are you from?
09:40And I said, Shaker Heights, Ohio.
09:41And from the back of this elevator comes this voice.
09:45And I turned to see who it is, and it's like Harpo Marx.
09:48It's this guy there with this huge head of curly hair.
09:51And he's saying, oh, I'm from Shaker Heights.
09:53And proceeds to follow us out the elevator, down the street, to the restaurant.
09:59Sometimes you just fall into things.
10:01You know, you don't have any intention.
10:03You just fall into things.
10:04It turns out that our very first date was the same night as the Watergate break-in.
10:10It was June 17th, 1972.
10:14It was the Watergate break-in and the subsequent events that occurred that brought us to Washington.
10:20The Senate today voted to make a full investigation of the Watergate case.
10:25Washington.
10:27I was the kid of the 60s.
10:29So the best I can say is anti-Vietnam, protester.
10:33I thought of myself as being sort of hip.
10:36They weren't the only ambitious 20-somethings to arrive in D.C. looking to join the effort.
10:41Far from it.
10:43At some point, it was just irresistible.
10:45I just jumped in my Volkswagen and drove to D.C.
10:49I had friends here.
10:50I stayed at their house.
10:52My name is Gordon Friedman, and I was a staff assistant on the Senate Watergate Committee.
10:59People came from all over, and it was almost like, you know, moths coming to a light in some sense.
11:04There were a lot of law students.
11:05There were a lot of people that had some legal background.
11:08There were others that just found this interesting and showed up and interviewed.
11:12They just needed to staff like crazy.
11:14And I think whomever of us were there and seemed to be able, we were hired.
11:24We had offices in the converted auditorium in the Dirksen Center office building.
11:30There was a big rundown space that was mainly storage.
11:36They brought in a bunch of cubicles.
11:39In that room, that auditorium, we had about 80 people.
11:43Gordon took all the pictures you see here, which, remarkably, are the only record of the
11:48Congressional Committee working behind the scenes.
11:51My camera just lived with me.
11:54And if something looked interesting, I took a picture.
11:57Looking back at those photographs now, they pretty much give you a feeling of what it was like
12:03to be on that staff.
12:04It was personable, but purposeful.
12:07The committee staff was split into a Democratic team and a Republican team.
12:11And their investigative work formed the basis for the questions that the senators asked at
12:15public hearings.
12:17My day consisted of conducting interviews of potential witnesses and individuals that
12:23had information, issuing subpoenas to get documents.
12:28At one point, I went up to New York to go through John Mitchell's files in his apartment.
12:32I'm sure I'll see you in the morning.
12:35And it took me most of the day to get through them.
12:38And I don't know where Martha was.
12:40She was still...
12:40Martha was back in Arkansas.
12:42She was locked up someplace.
12:45Mitchell sits back in his chair.
12:47Actually, he offered me a drink, and I said, no, I don't...
12:49He greets you with a drink.
12:50I don't drink while I'm working.
12:52And he said, do you mind if I do?
12:54And he sits down in his rocking chair, and he misses it.
12:56So he slipped.
12:57He falls on the floor.
12:58The drink falls out of his hand.
12:59He falls back and hits his head.
13:01And my first thought is, holy shit.
13:03I can just see the headline of the New York Post.
13:05Watergate investigator kills former attorney general.
13:08That's right.
13:09Fortunately, he was okay.
13:15Now you have the grunt work.
13:18Because at the end of the day, which was like 9.30, 10 o'clock,
13:22these books had to be put together.
13:24And it was our responsibility to put a book together
13:27for each of the members of the committee.
13:29And that book would say, here's the witness.
13:32Here's some potential questions.
13:34Here's some backup documentation.
13:39Oh, for God's sakes, we were exhausted.
13:49Anything you want to know, let's talk it out.
13:51All right, can you answer me?
13:52I don't know the question, Mick.
13:55There's everybody in the family.
13:57Were they in on a little conspiracy?
14:00What conspiracy?
14:05Watergate, Senate hearings.
14:07This is the familiar scene, the Senate caucus room
14:10in the old Senate office building in Washington, D.C.
14:13Day two of the Watergate.
14:15Watergate, by this point, was a mystery.
14:18It was a mystery to be solved.
14:19It was something to be cracked.
14:23And that is James McCord, expected to be the star witness
14:26at today's hearings.
14:28I believe the committee is coming in now, Carl.
14:30I believe Senator Irving is coming now.
14:32Yes, he is.
14:32He may not be in camera view yet, but he will momentarily.
14:35Senator Irving, could you tell us what your committee has done?
14:37Not a word from Senator Irving.
14:39He walked by.
14:41He walked by as if we weren't there.
14:43Well, he seems to be in a rush to get these hearings started.
14:46And the thing is, people really wanted
14:49to see what's going to happen next.
14:50He's got his gavel in his hand, and I believe these hearings
14:54are about to get underway again.
14:56Maybe this would be a glimpse into the inner workings
15:00of the Nixon administration.
15:04Councilor Caldwell, first witness.
15:06Yes, is it Officer Schottler?
15:15Now, Mr. Odle, would you please go to the chart?
15:23All of a sudden, we realized it wasn't just an investigation,
15:25but we were putting on a TV show every day.
15:29This is a chart of the Committee
15:31for the re-election of the president.
15:33The staffers basically were the architects
15:37of the Irving Committee hearings,
15:39and they decided to structure it like a pyramid.
15:43They began at the bottom.
15:45You know, the people who had the least power.
15:48The budget committee between the two committees.
15:51The first witness was the guy who was kind of like the accountant.
15:54There are three principal divisions, the political division.
15:57And he went through this boring recitation
15:59of, you know, how they requisitioned money
16:02to buy briefcases.
16:04And so I think part of what putting on the hearings was about
16:08was trying to script how to tell a story effectively.
16:13Mobile crime did a search
16:15of the whole six-floor complex, the conference room.
16:17And communicated effectively
16:20in the medium that we had at the time,
16:22which was a hearing that was being televised.
16:25Could you state briefly what, if anything,
16:27was found in that search of the hotel room?
16:30About $4,200 and $100 bills all in sequence.
16:35Some electronic equipment.
16:37Part of that involved thinking,
16:39well, what's our plot today?
16:41The cover would be taken off of the telephone.
16:47And two of the wires would be interconnected
16:51within the phone itself
16:52for the purpose of transmitting those conversations
16:55over the phone.
16:56You know, what's our story?
16:58Who's our character?
17:01Have you ever received any telephone logs
17:03from Mr. McCord?
17:04Do you know Mr. McCord?
17:05Yes, I have met Mr. McCord.
17:08And how do we get that out?
17:10My employer was G. Gordon Liddy.
17:12Mr. Liddy had printed a stationery
17:16with the name gemstone across the top of it.
17:20Mr. Liddy occasionally did
17:22some fairly bizarre things.
17:24He gave a secretary in our office
17:26a large poster of himself.
17:31I don't know if we should pursue that any further,
17:34but what kind of picture was it?
17:36I believe it was a picture of himself
17:38with a bullhorn,
17:39and he may have had a gun in his hand,
17:42conducting a raid of some kind.
17:44He was in front of a police car.
17:46There was another poster,
17:47as a matter of fact,
17:48him next to an airplane
17:49or something like that,
17:51but it was occasionally...
17:53There were a number of telegrams
17:54that were drafted and then sent.
17:57We'd spend a fair amount of time
17:59sort of thinking through
18:00what the questions were,
18:01how to ask the questions,
18:03who should ask the questions,
18:04and trying to script it in a sense.
18:07Well, they're destroyed
18:08before or after the break-in.
18:11They were destroyed after.
18:15Was there ever any consideration
18:17of presenting this material
18:19to the president?
18:21Again, Senator,
18:22I would not have been in a position
18:23to do that.
18:24It would have been people
18:25at the other level.
18:28With the Watergate hearings,
18:29the power of television
18:31is so clear.
18:33When you have someone
18:36testifying,
18:38presumably telling the truth,
18:41you can see the person's face.
18:43You can pass your own judgment
18:44as to whether or not
18:45the person is telling the truth
18:47or lying.
18:49It was sort of this daily soap opera.
18:55Believe me.
18:58I didn't do anything
19:00that I shouldn't have done.
19:02I wanted to believe that then,
19:05and I want so much
19:07to believe it now.
19:12Is that correct?
19:14At least I can only speak
19:16for myself, Senator,
19:17but I think that's
19:18a correct statement.
19:28Over the course of that spring,
19:30the hearings started to take on
19:31a life of their own.
19:33We're waiting for the
19:34Senate Watergate Committee
19:36to begin its hearings
19:37in the old Senate Office Building.
19:40We come to work,
19:41and there were lines around
19:43the Russell Office Building
19:44of people trying to get
19:45into the hearing.
19:45And we realized
19:46that obviously something
19:48had happened.
19:50And it became
19:51sort of this communal event
19:54where people would
19:55watch the hearings
19:56and it was something
19:58you could then share
19:58with one another.
20:01I'm glad to see
20:02what's coming out
20:02is coming out.
20:03What's going on
20:04is really what
20:05the public needs.
20:06I hope
20:07that President Nixon
20:08isn't involved,
20:09but the way things look,
20:10things are pointing
20:11towards him.
20:11Everyone here in Washington
20:13today was talking
20:13about the Watergate cover-up.
20:15There was practically
20:16no other topic of conversation.
20:18This morning at the White House...
20:20These are genuinely
20:21new items.
20:22You're sort of saying
20:23this college...
20:24You get kind of
20:25a Watergate craze.
20:27I think what has happened,
20:29things have become
20:30almost like a game.
20:31Then there's the
20:32Watergate game.
20:33We call it takeoff
20:34on Monopoly.
20:35People were riveted.
20:36You know, people
20:37were obsessed.
20:38I still think there are
20:39a lot of unanswered
20:40questions, and I haven't
20:41formed a conclusion
20:42in my own mind.
20:43You know, I had someone
20:44tell me that they were
20:46thrilled to have thrown
20:47out their back
20:48in the spring of 1973
20:50because that meant
20:50they could sit home
20:51and watch Watergate
20:52hearings every day.
21:01One reason the public
21:02obsession got to this
21:03point was the emergence
21:05of vivid characters,
21:06which brings us back
21:07to Chairman Sam.
21:09There was a wise man
21:10named William Shakespeare
21:11that wrote a play
21:13called Henry IV.
21:14And in that,
21:15one of his characters
21:16said,
21:17Had I but served my God
21:20with half the zeal,
21:22I served my king.
21:24He would not,
21:26in mine age,
21:27left me naked
21:28to mine enemies.
21:30You have...
21:34Please cut out the applause.
21:37He would say all these
21:39things like,
21:40don't stand on
21:41the windy side
21:42of the law.
21:43I have a little book
21:45with the weather night
21:47and just cracking up
21:48at some of the...
21:49I found this book
21:50in the garage.
21:53He said,
21:54it's more important
21:55for the American
21:56people to find out
21:57the truth about
21:58Watergate
21:59than just sending
22:00one or two people
22:01to jail.
22:02I think that's...
22:03that was...
22:05that's an important
22:12thing.
22:13Back then,
22:14I had long hair
22:15and a big handlebar
22:17mustache,
22:18and we started
22:19watching the Watergate
22:20hearings,
22:21and it...
22:21it was riveting.
22:23And I thought
22:24Sam Irvin
22:25is a pretty substantial guy.
22:27Well, I'm sorry
22:28that my distinguished
22:29friend from Florida
22:30does not approve
22:31of my method
22:32of examining the witness.
22:33I'm an old country lawyer,
22:35and I don't know
22:35the fine ways to do it.
22:37I just have to do it
22:38my way.
22:38I didn't say...
22:43I think if we have
22:45a fault at this time,
22:47it is a fault of conformity.
22:50We've had an effort
22:51to make people think
22:52the same thing,
22:54to entertain
22:54the same views,
22:56to support
22:56the same laws.
22:57I wrote to Senator Irvin
23:00and asked for a button,
23:02a Sam Irvin button
23:03for my button collection.
23:05And they said,
23:07he doesn't have any buttons.
23:08He's never had any buttons
23:09or used any buttons
23:10in his campaign.
23:12So I talked to my friend
23:13David about,
23:14well, maybe...
23:15maybe we should print
23:16up some buttons.
23:19And one of David's friends
23:20did the logo
23:22and we called him
23:23Uncle Sam.
23:25Now, this statue
23:26has nothing to do
23:27with burglary.
23:28How do you know that,
23:29Mr. Chairman?
23:30Because I can understand
23:31English language
23:32as my mother tongue.
23:38Irvin had a very expressive face.
23:41And this was what
23:42Mr. Mitchell said.
23:45He had these bouncing eyebrows.
23:48These thick,
23:50tangly eyebrows.
23:51Eyebrows that would rise
23:52and fall,
23:53you know, quizzically.
23:55I will not support it.
23:56It was wrong.
23:57Well, the scriptures say
23:58that men love darkness
23:59rather than light
24:00because it needs evil,
24:01so somebody that must have
24:03covered up something
24:04back in the scriptural days
24:05to quote that.
24:07He spoke in very
24:08oratund sentences
24:10about how the king's writ,
24:12you know,
24:12ended at the front door
24:14of the most humble
24:15cottager's home.
24:17And then,
24:18we thought,
24:19well, maybe
24:19we should have
24:21a club
24:22and give away
24:24membership cards.
24:25And we thought
24:25that it would be fun
24:26to have card-carrying
24:28and,
24:29if you sent us
24:30a self-addressed
24:31stamped envelope,
24:32an old Sam Irvin fan club.
24:34That's what we called it.
24:35For young people
24:36to be encouraged
24:37to participate in politics.
24:38Asm.
24:40When we first met him
24:41in his office there,
24:43he was kind of amused
24:44and,
24:45and confused
24:46and bemused
24:48by a couple of long-haired
24:51California hippies
24:52that started a fan club.
24:56I think that,
24:58perhaps we've had
24:59too much emphasis
25:00on success.
25:03I've thought
25:04that Southerners
25:05have a certain
25:06peculiarity
25:07due to the fact
25:08that all of their
25:09greatest heroes
25:10were men who failed.
25:12Because of his televised role,
25:14Senator Irvin emerged
25:16in the public consciousness
25:17as a custodian
25:18of democracy,
25:19a defender
25:19of the Constitution,
25:21and a hero
25:21to liberals
25:22looking to unseat
25:23what they saw
25:23as a corrupt Republican president.
25:26But to get the full picture,
25:28there's a little more
25:29you should know.
25:30Sam Irvin became
25:32a liberal hero,
25:33which required
25:35a little bit
25:35of amnesia
25:36on the part of liberals.
25:37Like myself,
25:39as a young
25:40California Democrat,
25:41I knew I was a member
25:43of the, you know,
25:44the civil rights movement
25:45was going on then.
25:50So I knew about his
25:51bad positions
25:52in my mind on that.
25:54Can we just lay out
25:55what were his views
25:56on civil rights?
26:03All the positions
26:04on civil rights.
26:06He would have been on
26:07what I would have considered
26:08the wrong side
26:09of the issue.
26:11In other words,
26:13the greatest heroes
26:13of Southerners
26:14are men like
26:15Robert E. Lee
26:17and Stonewall Jackson
26:19and Jeb Stewart.
26:21These men failed
26:22in their objective.
26:26Like most
26:28Southern Democrats
26:29at that time,
26:31he was conservative
26:32on racial issues.
26:34What about this problem
26:36which we've heard so much
26:37about recently
26:38of integration
26:39of the races
26:41in the schools?
26:42The people
26:43of North Carolina
26:44as a whole,
26:46both white
26:47and colored,
26:49before the integrated
26:50school system
26:52as it,
26:52the segregated school system
26:54as it now exists.
26:57and he became
26:59one of the authors
27:00of the 1956
27:02Southern Manifesto
27:03which was an
27:04absolutely impassioned
27:05defense of Southern segregation.
27:09of the nation.
27:11Freedom!
27:12Freedom!
27:13Freedom!
27:14Freedom!
27:14We will leave you
27:15standing before the world
27:17and before your God
27:19splattered with the blood
27:20and wreaking with the stench
27:22of your Negro brother.
27:23Freedom!
27:25Freedom!
27:27Freedom!
27:31Freedom!
27:33Freedom!
27:34national opinion
27:35becomes so great
27:36and so aroused
27:38that they have to end
27:40their brutality.
27:48the truth
27:48Because to me,
27:50Robert E. Lee
27:50and Stonewall Jackson
27:52and Jeb Stuart
27:53exemplified in their lives
27:55and in their deaths
27:56the truth stated
27:57in this little poem.
28:01Defeat may serve
28:02as well as victory
28:03to shake the soul
28:05and let the glory out.
28:09And it wasn't just
28:10the issue of integration
28:11that disturbed
28:11the world
28:11Senator Irvin.
28:13I think he was against the Equal Rights Amendment for women too.
28:27Here is Senator Irvin, the chairman of the Select Committee.
28:32So Irvin was certainly not someone who would have been a hero to students, to liberals or
28:40radicals, by any stretch of the imagination, but in the course of the Watergate hearings
28:45develops this heroic aura.
28:50Back with our Watergate committee coverage in the Senate caucus room, it's jammed in there
28:56today.
28:57Sam Irvin was not the only character that captivated the imagination of the American public in this
29:02political soap opera.
29:04Almost daily, there was a new witness on television for the public to meet, someone who would testify
29:09to the inner workings of the Nixon administration.
29:14The committee will come to order, and counsel will call the first witness.
29:18Mr. John W. Dean III.
29:21One of those witnesses was a man named John Dean.
29:25Stand up and raise your right hand.
29:27Remember him?
29:28You swear.
29:28What a witness.
29:29This was the crown jewel, so to speak.
29:31And he wasn't just the guy who was the assistant to the guy.
29:35He was the guy.
29:36Well, he was the White House Kelce.
29:37That's what I'm...
29:40That's what I meant.
29:42He was the guy.
29:45He has not always told the truth before in hearings.
29:50What is in his head, we don't know.
29:52That's what I meant.
29:57That's what I meant.
29:57To fully grasp John Dean's star turn at the Watergate hearings, it helps to understand
30:02why he made the decision to testify in the first place.
30:05It was not an easy one.
30:08There may be more imposing structures than this, but few so loved.
30:13Here, each in his time has weighed the fateful decisions that have become our history.
30:25John Dean was 31 years old when he got offered what he knew was going to be a tough job,
30:31counsel
30:31to the President of the United States.
30:35At the time I was offered the job at the White House, I was at the Department of Justice.
30:42And my immediate superior was the Deputy Attorney General, Dick Kleindienst.
30:47And I told him of the offer and he said, don't take it.
30:52He said, I wouldn't work at that zoo up the street if they paid me five times what they're paying
30:58me.
30:59In retrospect, this was quite a premonition.
31:03But Dean did not take the advice.
31:12I took the job because the title was too good to turn down at that stage of my career.
31:19And in fact, what he found there impressed him.
31:25I found my colleagues to be very capable, truly the best and brightest.
31:32They could have walked out and gotten much higher paying jobs anywhere.
31:39And the senior staff was a highly disciplined White House, well organized.
31:45The chief of staff arrangements and the staffing setup has become the model for modern presidents.
32:04I thought Nixon was somebody who was a mature statesman type figure.
32:11We seldom glimpse the president behind the scenes.
32:16But now we shall take measure of the man as he wakes.
32:23John Dean was one of Nixon's aides who worked on the periphery of the Oval Office.
32:28He was present for plenty of official business, but his relationship to Nixon was not what you would call chummy.
32:35The president must be jealous of his time.
32:37The function of his staff is to assist the decision making process.
32:41Nobody in the White House staff, other than a small handful, really had a tight working relationship with him.
32:51Which brings us to the people who were in Nixon's inner sphere, John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman.
32:59John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman were considered by detractors as the Nazis because they had these German last names.
33:09It was entirely not fair, but they were considered the Berlin Wall because they shielded Nixon from anybody just barreling
33:20into the Oval Office.
33:24What my office did was all the grunt work.
33:28Ehrlichman really stayed close to the president for his legal advice.
33:33But that was all about to change.
33:40By late February, several months after the presidential election and a few weeks after the formation of the Senate Committee,
33:47John Dean found himself facing a new Nixon.
33:53February 27th, he calls me out of the blue and he asked me to come over.
34:04And he tells me that he wants me to handle the Watergate problem.
34:16And I realized what had happened is post-election, he'd put Haldeman and Ehrlichman on the second term and doesn't
34:25want them tied up with Watergate, wants to get them out of it.
34:30Seems simple enough.
34:32Get the top brass out of the fray altogether.
34:35And as Dean was brought into the inner circle, a new face of the president emerged.
34:54He clearly likes me.
34:56He likes what the information I'm giving him.
35:01And he's showing off for me is what's really remarkable.
35:15Nixon is doing things like gossiping about former president Lyndon Johnson.
35:24And Bobby Kennedy.
35:34And recently deceased FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
35:44He's dangling access and power in front of Dean trying to impress him.
35:50And Dean, for his part, is doing the same.
36:10The question was, why now?
36:15Why was Nixon bringing Dean into the fold now?
36:21After years of a relatively chilly relationship?
36:29Anything I may have done, I did for what I believe to be in the best interests of my country.
36:35The answer would reveal itself as months passed and the White House's efforts to wash its hands of the Watergate
36:40affair
36:41started to look increasingly futile.
36:50On the 19th of March, Howard Hunt has sent a threat to me directly.
36:57If he isn't paid $120,000 like yesterday,
37:03he's going to have seamy things to say about what he did for John Ehrlichman.
37:13And it just snapped.
37:18And I realized I may blow up the whole dam deeper and deeper.
37:23And I don't know if it'll ever end.
37:34Two days later, Dean walked into the Oval Office to have a heart-to-heart with the president.
37:40His intention was to convince Nixon to cut his losses and end the cover-up altogether.
37:45I think that there's no doubt about the seriousness of the problem we've got.
37:51I start by making sure I have his attention.
37:54We have a cancer within close to the presidency that's growing.
38:01It's growing daily.
38:02It's compounding.
38:04Here's what's happening right now.
38:06The blackmail is continuing now.
38:09And I said, Mr. President, there's no way to know how much these guys will ask,
38:13and if they'll ever stop.
38:15I said, I think they'll keep going, and we're going to be extorted indefinitely.
38:20We just don't know about those things.
38:21We're not used to, you know, we're not criminals.
38:23We're not used to dealing in that business.
38:25Plus, there's a real problem in raising money.
38:27This is quite funny.
38:31And I pulled out of thin air what I thought of a number that would offend him.
38:35I would say these people are going to cost a million dollars over the next few years.
38:43Out of nowhere I pulled that, thinking, what's that five and a half million today's dollars?
38:48That that will offend him.
38:51But it was exactly the opposite reaction.
38:54You want the money when you need the money.
38:57I mean, you can get it.
39:00Well, I think that's where money is.
39:02I mean, you can get it $80, and you can get it in cash.
39:05I don't know where I think we got it.
39:07Mm-hmm.
39:09So I try to put him in a situation he's got to deal with.
39:13I said, Mr. President, people are going to go to jail.
39:16He said, like who?
39:17I said, like me, Mr. President.
39:20I said, Mr. President, I have been involved in obstruction of justice.
39:24It's something that's not going to go away.
39:28What is it?
39:28It is not going to go away, sir.
39:31It's not going to go away.
39:33He really was just waiting for his fist to come down on the table and say, this has got to
39:38end.
39:39You're going to be listening to this.
39:40You just can't continue.
39:42It's made alive.
39:43I think that's our greatest jeopardy.
39:45But this is the morning I meet Richard Nixon, the real Nixon.
39:59And I am deeply disappointed.
40:02Instead of taking his counsel's advice to stop the coverup, Nixon doubled down.
40:08He sent Dean off to Camp David with instructions to write a report which would clear the White House of
40:13connection to the Watergate burglary once and for all.
40:16They want me to write a lie.
40:18And the President can pull this out of the drawer and say, well, my counsel doesn't think anything is amiss
40:25here.
40:25So this has been what I've been relying on.
40:29I condemn any attempts to cover up in this case, no matter who is involved.
40:38It was around this time that Dean learned something else that Nixon was planning.
40:42It was a hint that would be the final test of his patience as counsel for the White House.
40:49I get wind from somebody on the White House staff that they figured out how to deal with it.
40:56And they're going to make Mitchell responsible for the break in.
40:59Excuse me.
41:02And me responsible for the cover up.
41:06How did you find out what they're planning for?
41:10I'm not sharing that today.
41:14So I'm giving you good nuggets, not every nuggets.
41:21Dean was at a crossroads.
41:23Because although it wasn't the whole story, the White House scheme to make him a scapegoat wasn't totally based on
41:29a fabrication.
41:31Dean had been complicit in protecting Nixon in the months after the break in.
41:35His hands were far from clean.
41:38So he came to his own conclusions about what to do next.
41:42I got my secretary in.
41:44I said, Jane, I never talked to the press, but I want you to read this to the Washington Post,
41:49the New York Times, and the Associated Press.
41:52I dictate a very brief statement to her about if they think I am going to be their scapegoat.
42:10They have made a very serious misjudgment.
42:39Dean's lawyer, Charlie Schaefer, came to speak to us.
42:45It indicated that Dean was willing to talk.
42:51My name is Jim Hamilton, and I was assistant chief counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee.
42:58I mean, I can remember being skeptical initially.
43:02I ended up spending a lot of time with John, eventually, going over his statement, you know, word for word.
43:12I mean, look, if somebody comes in and he says the president of the United States is involved in a
43:17cover-up of what somebody had called a third-rate burglary, you say, okay, let's test this.
43:23Let's make sure that what John Dean is saying is the truth and that he's not spinning some tail just
43:30to protect his rub.
43:36I suppose it's a cliché to suggest it isn't the heat, it's the humidity.
43:42June 1973, an unusually hot start to summer in Washington, D.C.
43:47With the kind of heat wave they've been having here in the east, temperatures well into the 90s and the
43:52humidity almost matching it, it pretty clearly is both the heat and the humidity.
43:57The summer was really hot. It was hot and muggy, just stifling. It was like a steam bath.
44:03In the meantime, the advice is, don't overexate.
44:08And then it was time for Dean to go public.
44:14While the committee staff had done all they could to confirm what he was about to say, they were still
44:19on edge.
44:21A million people, you put him on national television, you're taking a chance.
44:25The White House has moved to discredit him. There was a campaign.
44:30There were going to be people that didn't believe him.
44:34And there will be men in this room with calendars checking what the White House said against what Dean said.
44:41And if he turned out to be a liar, it would have been disastrous for the committee.
44:47So it was a, you know, it was a tenuous moment.
44:51John, we've just been given the first half of Mr. Dean's testimony.
44:56It looks like a copy of Gone with the Wind.
44:59When one of the network anchormen was kind of previewing the testimony and was kind of paging through, you could
45:07almost see the color drain from his face.
45:09I have read it. I won't give the plot away. It's going to be an interesting morning, so everybody has
45:14to stay tuned.
45:15Yes. Mr. Dean, you have a statement you wish to present to the committee.
45:20That's correct, Mr. Dash.
45:22Had I known I was going to have to read it, I would not have written 60,000 words, which
45:29even then was bare bones.
45:34To one who was in the White House and became somewhat familiar with its inner workings,
45:39the Watergate matter was an inevitable outgrowth of a climate of excessive concern over the political impact of demonstrators,
45:48excessive concern over leaks, an insatiable appetite for political intelligence,
45:54all coupled with a do-it-yourself White House staff, regardless of the law.
46:00John Dean had quite the story to tell.
46:03Turning now to the so-called plumber's unit that was created to deal with leaks.
46:08And he made sure to tell it in a very specific way.
46:11I first heard of the plumber's unit.
46:13John was a very cool customer.
46:17Herman Talmadge, who was a member of the committee, once said that Dean appeared so cool
46:23he looked like he could have performed open-heart surgery in the back of a pickup truck.
46:27These discussions could not go on in the office of the Attorney General of the United States,
46:32and the meeting should terminate immediately.
46:35At this point, the meeting ended.
46:37John Dean, in a very sort of monotone tone of voice,
46:41couldn't sound less enthused or less excited about the information that he's passing along.
46:47But he was saying the craziest things!
46:51He told me to shred the documents and deep-six the briefcase.
46:55I asked him what he meant by deep-six.
46:58He leaned back in his chair and said,
47:00When you cross over the bridge on your way home, just toss the briefcase into the river.
47:06I thought about what he had told me to do and was very troubled.
47:08And also to add to that, the thing that was surprising was his amazing recall for detail.
47:17We were really lucky. We were really lucky that John Dean...
47:20He's a lawyer's lawyer.
47:22I would now like to turn to the meetings I had with the President in February and March of this
47:28year.
47:29It was at this time we discussed preventing anybody from going before any Senate committee...
47:35The real meat of his testimony, the substance of it, the part that made it most dangerous for Richard Nixon,
47:43was that very slowly, very methodically, and with great detail, he went through meeting...
47:50The meeting on February 28th.
47:51By meeting...
47:52Meeting on March 13th.
47:53By meeting...
47:54Meetings on March 20th.
47:55...of the times he had met with Richard Nixon in the Oval Office...
47:58Meeting of March 21st.
47:59...and discussed the conspiracy to cover up the crime and Richard Nixon's connection to the crime.
48:06He asked me how much it would cost.
48:08I told him I could only make an estimate that it might be as high as a million as no
48:13problem.
48:14Over six hours, I tore up the cover-up.
48:17The real breaking point for me was John Dean.
48:22When you're only a staffer, a council...
48:26Boy, that tastes... that tastes...
48:27Page 14 of your testimony, you refer to another incident that occurred.
48:33John Dean lived across the street from me in Alexandria, Virginia.
48:37He didn't trust me at the outset, but...
48:42Eventually, we got to become friends.
48:46He indicated to you that Mr. Hoover...
48:49Part of the testimony, right?
48:51In which Lowell Wyke basically is going on and on about something that John Dean knows is going nowhere.
48:56All right, any other...
49:03And almost out of pity for him, he seems to kind of...
49:06Continually being updated.
49:11And these are lists of people that basically we're going to do our best to destroy.
49:16You can't imagine how profoundly disconcerting this was to people.
49:22I'm not going to ask who was on it.
49:26I'm afraid you might answer.
49:29And these lists were produced in evidence, right?
49:32And suddenly people find out that the White House considers, you know, Carol Channing, the Broadway star who starred in
49:38Hello Dolly as an enemy.
49:39You know, Joe Namath is one of their enemies.
49:42Reporters are their enemies.
49:43You know, the heads of the networks are their enemies.
49:47And the White House now had a new enemy.
49:50Dean's testimony was explosive.
49:54His deadpan implication of the president's objected Nixon to a kind of scrutiny that up until this point he had
49:59been able to avoid.
50:03At that point, the Republicans went into attack mode of trying to tear his testimony apart.
50:10Former White House aide Charles Colson said today that the president had been misled about Watergate by John Dean and
50:16others who Colson said were trying to protect themselves.
50:19And speaking to a Democrat.
50:21Oh, they were doing everything that they could conceive of to try to discredit me.
50:26According to Joseph Alsop, who was basically the most prominent and respected columnist of the time, who was acting on
50:35kind of leaked White House intelligence.
50:37John Dean was a smooth faced young man who was reportedly obsessed by fear of going to jail because of
50:45consciousness of his own good looks.
50:49He said that the idea of this case turning on the self serving allegations of a bottom dwelling slug like
50:55Dean was enough to make all common sensible Americans exclaim this can't go on.
51:01I felt neither like a pariah nor a hero in testifying.
51:06What I felt like was a fact witness is which I was.
51:11And I was trying to end this episode so it would go away and wouldn't haunt me the rest of
51:20my life.
51:24But in some ways, Dean's five days on the stand in 1970 testifying before a committee about his time as
51:29White House counsel.
51:31I accepted the invitation to come to Oracle perspective on the Mueller report.
51:36But this time, the circumstances had more to do with the 45th president than it did with the 37th.
51:42The so-called Watergate roadmap.
51:44Well, guess what? This committee is now hearing from the 70s and they want their star witness back.
51:51But back to 1973 for a moment.
51:53And I earnestly pray that this committee reaches the truth in this entire matter and reaches it as quickly as
52:02possible because I think that there's a terrible cloud over this government that must be removed so that we can
52:08have effective government.
52:12Since Mr. Dean has testified under an order of immunity, I would think that his counsel would be wise to
52:20give him the same advice that I used to give my clients and that is keep his mouth shut.
52:30John Dean won himself a place in history this week.
52:34His word is now in the record. Now it will be up to other witnesses to dispute that word if
52:39they wish.
52:39That's the big question. Did he manage to prove presidential involvement in the Watergate?
52:46After this testimony, the fact of the matter is, it's just his word against the president's.
52:54After my testimony, there was a lot of polling on who do you believe, Dean or Nixon.
52:59And I was holding my own with the president at that point.
53:04So there was a big debate as to who is telling the truth.
53:09And it riled up the American public so much that Dean was fearing for his life.
53:15In fact, I've had a recommendation that I go into the witness protection program.
53:20The threats are so serious against me.
53:25And so I was in and out of the witness protection program for the next 18 months.
53:33I left town. I was down in Florida.
53:40Dean didn't much want to be seen again.
53:44And he wasn't.
53:50Until he was called upon in July of 1973.
53:53I got a call from Sam Dash.
53:56Sam Dash was the chief counsel of the Senate Watergate committee.
54:00It was on a Friday afternoon.
54:02He said, you need to come up and meet with me on Sunday.
54:05It's essential. I said, what for, Sam?
54:08He said, I can't tell you.
54:10The purpose of the meeting was cloaked in secrecy.
54:13The Dean knew that Sam Dash wouldn't have called him unless it was for a good reason.
54:18Sam is panicked.
54:19And that's why he asked me to, he said, I got to meet with you Sunday.
54:27Well, what had happened is it had come out that, indeed, there were still lots of skeletons in the closet.
54:35Suddenly the capsule fills up water and sinks. Sailors in deep sea diver suits are going to the rescue.
54:41Dean's testimony paved the way for another revelation by a Nixon aide.
54:46But wait a minute, wait a minute, stay with me.
54:48It was as clear as Sam Dash's panicked voice.
54:52Something serious was happening.
54:54No, no, let me get there. Let me get there.
54:57The capsule is radioactive.
55:00I knew it was the story of the decade. It had to be.
55:04Take up a different adventure every day with G.I. Jones.
55:09Good evening. There was a surprise witness at the Watergate hearings today and he made a dramatic disclosure.
55:14Alexander Butterfield.
55:16Butterfield, I understand you previously were employed by the White House.
55:20Is that correct?
55:22That's correct.
55:24If I could pick a pinnacle, it was Alexander Butterfield.
55:29Where the hell did you get this? Because I'm thinking to myself, holy smoke, it's a secret I've been keeping
55:35for two years.
55:35And even though we didn't sign anything in blood, it was very clear, understanding, that nobody would ever say anything
55:44to anybody.
55:48Well, Tigers, you know, we've gone a long road on this thing now. I thought it was an impossible path
55:55to hold together until after the election, until things just started squaring out that we've made it this far.
56:03And I'm convinced we're going to make it the whole road and put this thing in 20 pages of the
56:09history books rather than anything serious.
56:13Well, good morning. All right.
56:15Well, good morning. All right.
Comments