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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Few people were deeper into the Watergate cover up than

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Speaker 1: President Nixon's White House Council John Dene Then he flipped.

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Speaker 1: He was a star witness for the Congressional investigation. And

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Speaker 1: while some Wartergate conspirators had religious conversions in prison, Dean

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Speaker 1: left prison with a commitment to teaching in classrooms and

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Speaker 1: beyond the lessons of the scandal and advocating for better government.

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Speaker 1: I recently had the opportunity to talk with him in

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Speaker 1: front of a live audience at NYU's Skirball Center.

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Speaker 2: Tell us the.

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Speaker 1: Jobs you had in government prior to you becoming counsel

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Speaker 1: to the president.

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Speaker 2: I was at the House Judiciary Committee, was my first

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Speaker 2: job in government, and from there I went to a

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Speaker 2: commission that was revising the federal Criminal Code. I didn't

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Speaker 2: study enough while they were working on I have a

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Speaker 2: question about it. I then went from there to become

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Speaker 2: the Associate Deputy Attorney General in the Nixon administration. At

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Speaker 2: the outset of the administration, and while they're working in justice,

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Speaker 2: I was invited to become counselor of the president who

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Speaker 2: invited you Richard Nixon.

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Speaker 1: Nixon, someone's making a recommendation to him, or he knew

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Speaker 1: you personally.

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Speaker 2: Well, they sent a feeler out. In fact, I over

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Speaker 2: the years, in going through the archives, I haven't collected

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Speaker 2: at all, but I have collected bits and pieces. I

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Speaker 2: didn't realize they were doing reconnaissance on me for many

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Speaker 2: many months before they asked me to come over to

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Speaker 2: the White House, Questions like could I really be loyal

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Speaker 2: to Nixon? Literally? Literally?

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Speaker 1: What did you think that they saw in you? That

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Speaker 1: they thought you were a Nixon man?

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Speaker 2: You know, that's one of the mysteries to me is

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Speaker 2: why someone as young and inexperienced as I was was

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Speaker 2: given that job. I was given, actually the title, I

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Speaker 2: wasn't given the job. Initially, John Erlickman had been White

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Speaker 2: House counsel. He was the initial White House counsel. He

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Speaker 2: gave up the title, he didn't give up the job,

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Speaker 2: and I think Nixon throughout really relied on Erlickman for

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Speaker 2: his legal advice.

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Speaker 1: Did you come from a Republican family? Your dad was

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Speaker 1: he an executive Firestone? He worked at Firestone.

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Speaker 2: My father spent eighteen years at Firestone and then went out.

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Speaker 2: He was a turnaround expert. He would go into a plant,

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Speaker 2: a manufacturing plant, could see why it wasn't working. He

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Speaker 2: was the numbers man as well as a mechanical engineer

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Speaker 2: from Carnegie Mellon and could straighten these plants out.

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Speaker 1: So did you have some kind of Republican credentials throughout your.

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Speaker 2: My family was not particularly political for you. I actually

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Speaker 2: became interested in politics when I was in prep school

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Speaker 2: and my roommate happened to be the son of a

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Speaker 2: United States senator, and we would go up to Washington

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Speaker 2: and stop and see Senator Goldwater, his son and I

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Speaker 2: and and that's when I became interested in that world.

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Speaker 2: I can still recall and visualize walking down those marble

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Speaker 2: halls with the Senator leading the way, taking us on

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Speaker 2: a tour here or there, and saying, this is pretty impressive.

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Speaker 2: He was also, I thought, an impressive guy. He had

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Speaker 2: one of the first Thunderbird For thunderbirds, I was at

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Speaker 2: that age just thinking about getting a Drynse, and we'd

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Speaker 2: ride around in his car that was more like the

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Speaker 2: cockpit of an airplane. He was a ham radio operator

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Speaker 2: and could also talk to any air base he wanted

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Speaker 2: to talk to from his thunderbird.

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Speaker 1: Now, when you finally go to the White House as

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Speaker 1: a counsel to the president, what was your sense of

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Speaker 1: what the job was and what did you discover the

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Speaker 1: job actually was.

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Speaker 2: One of the things that was really strange is I

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Speaker 2: was never given much guidance as to what the White

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Speaker 2: House counsel did when Erlikman was there. He never really

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Speaker 2: told me anything about it. When Hallaman interviewed me before

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Speaker 2: I went in to have the President, say would you

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Speaker 2: take the job, he said, I suppose you will just

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Speaker 2: do whatever you lawyers do. He wasn't a lawyer, And

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Speaker 2: that was about the guidance I got.

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Speaker 1: What were some of the things you did? What were

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Speaker 1: some of the things you worked on you start the job?

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Speaker 1: One year?

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Speaker 2: When I started the job, it was a lot of

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Speaker 2: I realized that Erlickman was sending my office all the minutia,

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Speaker 2: things like clearing people for conflict of interest, preparing us

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Speaker 2: for example. There was no staff manual when I got there,

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Speaker 2: so my office prepared a staff manual to tell people,

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Speaker 2: you know, what forms letters had to be in. As

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Speaker 2: well as the fact they couldn't contact independent regulatory agencies.

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Speaker 2: They had to go through our office or not at all,

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Speaker 2: sort of just basic mechanics. And I told initially I

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Speaker 2: was a solo and I think they were sort of

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Speaker 2: testing to see who I was and what would go on.

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Speaker 2: And it was about six months before they let me

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Speaker 2: hire an assistant, and I needed the help because there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of work. In fact, today in the archives,

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Speaker 2: the White House Council's office for the Nixon presidency is

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Speaker 2: one of the largest collections of papers.

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Speaker 1: Well, thank god you weren't doing the conflict of interest

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Speaker 1: work in the White House. Now you'd be dead from

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Speaker 1: exhaustion and you need about five hundred.

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Speaker 2: Either that or there is no clearance at all and

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Speaker 2: no work at all.

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Speaker 1: They probably just closed that office this term. You know,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to bother with that conflict. Just send

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Speaker 1: them home. But describe for me, because I think a

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Speaker 1: lot of people you get into that kind of cult

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Speaker 1: of personality with someone like Nixon, and what was it

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Speaker 1: like to work with him? What was he like? Because

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Speaker 1: it's just nothing like being in the presence of the

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Speaker 1: person themselves, rather than through the filter of the media.

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Speaker 1: What was he like when you.

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Speaker 2: Worked with him? You know, when I went over there,

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Speaker 2: I was old enough and been around enough to know

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Speaker 2: there was a Tricky Dick. But I believed in the

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Speaker 2: sixty eight campaign that Tricky Dick had matured. He was

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Speaker 2: now a former vice president who really understood how government operated,

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Speaker 2: and he would be a great senior statesman. That's the

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Speaker 2: image that was put out. The White House staff itself

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Speaker 2: was operated so tightly that very few on the staff

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Speaker 2: actually knew what the president did and how he did it,

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Speaker 2: and when he did it. It was more they read

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Speaker 2: what was in the paper that was being cranked out

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Speaker 2: by everybody else. As to the image of the president, I've,

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Speaker 2: for example, really other than in group meetings and just

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Speaker 2: passed through meetings, had no dealings with him until eight

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Speaker 2: months after the arrests at the Watergate and then I'll

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Speaker 2: have some thirty seven thirty eight meetings with him.

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Speaker 1: You become more useful to him once the issue.

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Speaker 2: What happens is after his successful reelection. I have been

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Speaker 2: reporting to either Halleman or Erlickman everything I'm able to

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Speaker 2: pick up about Watergate and the investigation and where it's

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Speaker 2: going and what its implications are. And nothing looks good

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Speaker 2: at that point. Nixon decides rather and have well not

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Speaker 2: at that point, but several months later, in February, he

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Speaker 2: decided rather than have Hallman Erlickman filtering what I have

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Speaker 2: to say, he decides to deal directly with me. And

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Speaker 2: thankfully it was recorded.

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Speaker 1: So when you so the news breaks, the burglary breaks

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Speaker 1: in what month of seventy two?

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Speaker 2: June seventeenth of seventy two.

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Speaker 1: June of seventy two, he's overwhelmingly elected. After that, And

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Speaker 1: when you found out of these guys who had links

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Speaker 1: to the White House or to the Committee to be

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Speaker 1: elect had broken into the DNC office at the Watergate Hotel,

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Speaker 1: what did you make of it?

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Speaker 2: Well, I happn't have been in Manila in the Philippiness

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Speaker 2: convenience or was it the first mistake was coming home?

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Speaker 2: That's on June nineteenth, two days after the arrest, I'm

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Speaker 2: sent to interview Gordon Lyddy, who confesses to me. He says,

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Speaker 2: it's our men, my men.

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Speaker 1: And when he said my men, what was his no, No,

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Speaker 1: Lyddy was.

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Speaker 2: X FBI former FBI was x CIA, x CIA.

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Speaker 1: When he said my men, what was there?

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Speaker 2: Well, what he was explaining is that there was On

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Speaker 2: the morning of the nineteenth, the Washington Post knew more

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Speaker 2: than we did at the White House as far as Watergate,

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Speaker 2: And there was a big story that morning that amongst

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Speaker 2: those arrested was the chief of security for the re

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Speaker 2: election Committee, James McCord, which was a pretty good clue

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Speaker 2: that it somehow involved the re election Committee, John Mitchell.

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Speaker 2: Ahead of the re election Committee, the former Attorney General

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Speaker 2: now director of the Election Committee, put out a statement saying, Oh,

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Speaker 2: we don't know anything about what these guys were doing.

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Speaker 2: They were freelancing on their own. It didn't take me

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Speaker 2: very long to realize that that was beloney. Today, I

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Speaker 2: know that really the conspiracy was hatched over that weekend

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Speaker 2: and the decision to cover it up, and there was

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Speaker 2: a real reason to cover it up for the White House,

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Speaker 2: which I learned when talking to Liddy on the morning

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Speaker 2: of the nineteenth. In fact, I intercepted him rather than

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Speaker 2: come to my office. I didn't want him in my office,

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Speaker 2: but rather walk down seventeenth Street. That's when he said,

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Speaker 2: these are my men who did this. He said, I

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Speaker 2: was foolish to use McCord, who was part of the

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Speaker 2: re election Committee. Liddy himself was the general counsel of

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Speaker 2: the Finance Committee of the re Election Committee. Where that

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Speaker 2: was his supposed principal responsibility. But he was running this

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Speaker 2: on the side. And on the way back up he

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Speaker 2: said two things that were back up seventeen tries were

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Speaker 2: really quite startling. He said, you should know, John, while

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Speaker 2: I work at the White House, that Howard Hunt who

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Speaker 2: helped me get the men for this operation. And I

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Speaker 2: did a what he called a national security operation by

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Speaker 2: breaking in Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. What I didn't know

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Speaker 2: at that time is that had been really authorized in

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Speaker 2: writing by John Erlickman, my predecessor, who wrote on a

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Speaker 2: sheet asking his approval so long is not traceable to

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Speaker 2: the White House. I didn't know that at that time. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: I did go back and report to Erlickman what I

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Speaker 2: had learned. The other thing that Liddy said on the

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Speaker 2: way back up seventeenth Street, he said, I realized I've

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Speaker 2: made a terrible error, and if anybody wants to take

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Speaker 2: me out, just tell me what street corner.

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Speaker 1: He yeah, he literally said.

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Speaker 2: He said, anybody wants to take me out, just don't

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Speaker 2: do it at my house. I've got children there.

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Speaker 1: What do you think was behind that? Why would he,

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Speaker 1: I mean, other than his own having maybe a screw

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Speaker 1: loose or something. Why did he believe that the operation

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Speaker 1: of the White House, the executive branch of the government,

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Speaker 1: would want to whack him on a street in Washington.

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Speaker 2: Why. I have no idea. He's a little dramatic, probably

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Speaker 2: a mistake not to no, no, just to clarify.

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Speaker 1: And of course the day he was shot, you were

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Speaker 1: in Manila, right right, so, but no explain to people

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Speaker 1: what were they after.

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Speaker 2: It's taken a long time to assemble what they were

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Speaker 2: really after because no one really talked about it, and

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Speaker 2: it was kind of embarrassing. One of the reasons I'm

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Speaker 2: convinced that Lyddy was silent is because of the stupidity

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Speaker 2: of all the activities that have been carried on the

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Speaker 2: For example, he post Watergate acted like he was some

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Speaker 2: James Bond type character who had been hired by the

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Speaker 2: White House to come in and do these things. As

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Speaker 2: the historical record shows, he's not quite at the Maxwell's

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Speaker 2: smart level in most of his undertakings.

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Speaker 1: Another reference from our childhoods if you don't Maxwell's.

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Speaker 2: Spot anyway, what they were looking for? It appears to me.

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Speaker 2: It appeared to me at the time, and I have

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Speaker 2: since been even more convinced with a pure fishing expedition.

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Speaker 2: They were just in there trying to find anything they

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Speaker 2: could of a negative nature, and hopefully on Larry O'Brien,

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Speaker 2: the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

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Speaker 1: So during the period where you're called in now and

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Speaker 1: you become pulled into this circle to help solve this problem,

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Speaker 1: when does that commence?

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Speaker 2: On the nineteenth, I'm the person who's in charge of

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Speaker 2: finding out what's happening and keeping abreast of what's happening,

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Speaker 2: talking to people in the Justice Department, talking to the FBI,

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Speaker 2: talking to the re election committee that has its own

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Speaker 2: group of lawyers, and then bringing that information in. And

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Speaker 2: what happened is the re election Committee started calling on

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Speaker 2: the White House for help. One of the interesting things

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Speaker 2: is I've always been convinced that John Mitchell, who we know,

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Speaker 2: did authorize the Watergate break in. He authorized the money,

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Speaker 2: he authorized the plan. He did it in Florida with

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Speaker 2: Jeb macgruder, who was his deputy, and Magruder then gave

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Speaker 2: the orders. I'm convinced that Mitchell, from my initial conversations

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Speaker 2: with him on the nineteenth, was prepared to step forward

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Speaker 2: and say, hey, this happened on my watch. He also

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Speaker 2: sent word to the White House over the weekend, stay away.

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Speaker 1: From it, deflect all the responsibility from the president.

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Speaker 2: Take it all that happened. That was the original plan.

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Speaker 2: But then what happened is he too got a briefing

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Speaker 2: as to what Liddy had done and learned of the

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Speaker 2: Ellsburg break, in which he thought was as bad, if

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Speaker 2: not worse, than what had happened at the Watergate. And

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Speaker 2: he and he and Erlickman, who had always had a

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Speaker 2: strained relationship, they often in a room would talk to

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Speaker 2: each other through me. They would turn to me and say,

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Speaker 2: like the other person wasn't in the room. And that's

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Speaker 2: how I slowly became the lynchpin.

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Speaker 1: Like a marriage counsel.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, because that's that's how I became the lynchpin

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Speaker 2: of this conspiracy.

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Speaker 1: When you're in a room with these guys, I only

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Speaker 1: have a sense of them from archival footage from the news,

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Speaker 1: and so when they do seem like a pretty uh,

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Speaker 1: not a very lighthearted crowd, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: And Haldeman and Erlckman and missions, they seemed like some

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Speaker 1: pretty dark crowd in terms of because I'm going to

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Speaker 1: read a quote for you from because you were on

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Speaker 1: the Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws right as

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Speaker 1: the War on drugs was beginning. And then the next thing,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're intimately working with in a room with Erlickman,

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Speaker 1: who said the following right before he died. He said

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Speaker 1: the Nicks about Nixon Republicans. He said that Nixon Republicans

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Speaker 1: had two enemies, the anti war left and black people.

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Speaker 1: We knew it couldn't make it illegal to be either

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Speaker 1: against the war or black, but by getting the public

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Speaker 1: to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin,

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Speaker 1: and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.

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Speaker 1: And he said, do we know we were lying about drugs?

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Speaker 1: Of course we did when you were in the room

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Speaker 1: with these guys.

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Speaker 2: And do you get a sense that you never heard

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Speaker 2: that kind of talk. It wasn't until I years later,

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Speaker 2: my last book, I cataloged all of the Nixon Watergate conversations.

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Speaker 2: I heard on those tapes things I'd never heard those

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Speaker 2: men say in front of me. They were their own

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Speaker 2: small unit that would talk about these things at a

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Speaker 2: level that I wasn't privy. There were some chilling stuff

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Speaker 2: that and racist stuff that I'd never seen in Erlichman before.

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Speaker 2: In those tapes. It's a remarkable record. No president's ever

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Speaker 2: going to leave that behind again.

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Speaker 1: When well, because I'd be too hasty. Now you're hopeful,

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Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing, now,

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Speaker 1: more of my conversation with John Dean. Both houses of

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Speaker 1: the Congress were in Democratic hands at the time.

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Speaker 2: Correct, But it was a different Democratic party.

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Speaker 1: Of course.

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Speaker 2: It was a party with Southern Democrats who are today Republicans,

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Speaker 2: so it divided. He believed and held out the belief

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Speaker 2: for a long time. I think that he could with

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Speaker 2: a combination of Republicans and Southern Democrats keep a keep

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Speaker 2: his office through an impeachment bill of impeachment in the House,

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Speaker 2: if not defeating that, certainly not getting two thirds of

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Speaker 2: the Senate to vote against him for removal. So it's

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Speaker 2: a different Democratic party. It's true, it was not controlled

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Speaker 2: by the South either. It was more more moderate to progressive.

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Speaker 2: It did, and if you recall, it's very slow that

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Speaker 2: the impeachment process starts with Watergate. It isn't until he

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Speaker 2: removes the special prosecutor Archibald Cox, that they take this seriously.

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Speaker 2: That while that itself may not be an obstruction of

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Speaker 2: justice or an impeachment or a criminal offense, he had

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Speaker 2: the power to do it a lot of parallels with today.

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Speaker 2: He certainly politically had made a terrible mistake.

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Speaker 1: There were Republicans, obviously on the Judiciary Committee and in

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Speaker 1: the Congress who were willing to vote for it.

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Speaker 2: Slowly but surely they did. They were with the moderates

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Speaker 2: first and then finally by the end when they heard

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Speaker 2: the so called smoking gun tape, which showed Nixons had

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Speaker 2: based his defense up until the end on the fact

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Speaker 2: he knew nothing of the Watergate cover up until I

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Speaker 2: had told him on March twenty first, in a conversation

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Speaker 2: that was labeled to Cancer on the Presidency conversation, he

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Speaker 2: said that was the first he'd learned. Well, that was

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Speaker 2: a pretty outrageous lie, and he got caught in it

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Speaker 2: just by really the special prosecutor fishing for a tape

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Speaker 2: and one of that, and that tape showed him telling

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Speaker 2: or agreeing with Holloman's plan to have this CIA block

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Speaker 2: the FBI's investigation in the Watergate, and.

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Speaker 1: That conversation with Haliman takes place.

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Speaker 2: When June twenty third, right after the year of breaking right,

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Speaker 2: six days after after right.

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Speaker 1: And these are the tapes that he was was to surrender,

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Speaker 1: which he would. I don't understand that he did surrender

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Speaker 1: the tapes other than the gap, the famous gap.

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Speaker 2: There would have been an interesting constitutional crisis if he

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Speaker 2: had said to the Supreme Court, Okay, I've got your willing,

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Speaker 2: I think it's wrong, and I'm president. I've got the troops.

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Speaker 2: You come get the tapes. This is my property, this

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Speaker 2: is my pa. You're not entitled to have this property.

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Speaker 2: And history would have been very different.

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Speaker 1: As everybody knows, it's a famous gap. Is eighteen minutes.

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Speaker 2: Eighteen and a half minute eighteen. It's a media it's

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Speaker 2: a media invented event.

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Speaker 1: So there was no erasure at all.

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Speaker 2: No a strong man could press the record button and

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Speaker 2: cause the eraser, and the experts saw seven to nine

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Speaker 2: efforts to erase that material.

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Speaker 1: Well, what do you think was erased on those tapes?

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Speaker 1: Is there everybody in the satisfied you?

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Speaker 2: Because I've listened to the conversations that precede and follow

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Speaker 2: Nixon had a pattern of repeating things that were important

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Speaker 2: or sort of sensitive they would come up in subsequent conversations.

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Speaker 2: This is a very early conversation. This is on June twentieth,

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Speaker 2: his first conversation back. That's why it was subpoenaed. And

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Speaker 2: I think it was just a gaff that resulted in

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Speaker 2: that probably being erased, and it could have The person

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Speaker 2: that occurred to me that could have done it was

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Speaker 2: somebody who had a terrible time opening those medicine bottles

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Speaker 2: you press in turn. I'd see it in his mouth

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Speaker 2: occasionally trying to get the cap off. He had trouble

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Speaker 2: opening its drawers. He hadn't driven a car in years.

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Speaker 2: This was a very foreign kind of machine.

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Speaker 1: Did Nixon order the breaking himself?

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Speaker 2: No, No, there's no evidence of that. There's no evidence

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Speaker 2: that anybody in the White House knew. What's ironic, Alec

359
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Speaker 2: is that had the mission of the evening actually been accomplished,

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Speaker 2: rather than Lyddy and his men being arrested or Lydy's

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Speaker 2: men being arrested, it was traceable to the White House.

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Speaker 2: Their mission that night was really to go plant a

363
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Speaker 2: bug in McGovern's headquarters on Capitol Hill. The reason they

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Speaker 2: didn't do that is they got arrested fixing a defective

365
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Speaker 2: machinery that they'd put in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

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Speaker 2: You can trace back through tapes and Holleman memos that

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Speaker 2: Nixon gives an order to put a plant a secretary

368
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Speaker 2: or a volunteer or something like that, move it from

369
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Speaker 2: Muskie to McGovern, not particularly a wiretap.

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Speaker 1: So as we come rolling into seventy three, right as

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Speaker 1: he's or things changed dramatically for him, what kind of

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Speaker 1: things is he asking you to do? And what was

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Speaker 1: he like to work with her in that time?

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Speaker 2: Jumping back to August twenty ninth of seventy two, pre election,

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Speaker 2: he had a press conference and one of the early

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Speaker 2: questions he's asked, is mister President, giving the factor your

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Speaker 2: Attorney General is now the head of the reelection committee

378
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Speaker 2: and somebody from the re election committee was arrested in

379
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Speaker 2: the DNC, why don't you appoint a special prosecutor? And

380
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Speaker 2: he has his response all prepared and he says, well,

381
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Speaker 2: first of all, the Congress is investigating this, the General

382
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Speaker 2: Accounting Office is investigating it, the FBI is investigating it,

383
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Speaker 2: but most importantly, my White House Counsel, John Dean, has

384
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Speaker 2: investigated this matter and found nobody presently employed in this

385
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Speaker 2: administration had anything to do with this bizarre incident. This

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Speaker 2: was the first I heard of my investigation. And so

387
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Speaker 2: after that, his press secretary, Ron Ziegler, called and said, John,

388
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Speaker 2: do you have a copy of your report? I said, Ron,

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Speaker 2: there is no report. He said, well, maybe there should be,

390
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Speaker 2: and I said, well, I don't think so anyways, think

391
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Speaker 2: so why? Because I didn't want to lie. I didn't

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Speaker 2: want to You knew that they wanted you to doctor something.

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Speaker 2: It was quite clear they won't. Yes. Yes. What happens

394
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Speaker 2: is when we're going back to when I first start

395
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Speaker 2: dealing with with Nixon, he starts on the report again

396
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Speaker 2: that he wants a Dean report. He is convinced somehow

397
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Speaker 2: this will make things go away. Erlichman makes it pretty

398
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Speaker 2: clear that what he can do is have this report

399
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Speaker 2: in his desk drawer and say this is all I knew.

400
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Speaker 2: It didn't take me long, you know, I figured that

401
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:40,360
Speaker 2: out immediately, that that this would be a setup. And

402
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Speaker 2: I had no interest in Lyne, had no interest in

403
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Speaker 2: giving the false information to the president. Uh and didn't.

404
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 2: But he presses me on that there were actually three

405
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Speaker 2: phases of the cover up. For me, I initially thought

406
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Speaker 2: I was just helping out my colleagues and didn't see

407
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 2: anything criminally amiss. H Defense funds were not unusual at

408
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:07,119
Speaker 2: that time. Not announcing them didn't sound horrible to me.

409
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Speaker 2: I didn't see any quid pro quo in anything. Nothing

410
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Speaker 2: struck me amiss at this point, as I say, I'm

411
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Speaker 2: not trained as a criminal lawyer either.

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Speaker 1: Defense funds.

413
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Speaker 2: What do you mean defense funds? The Barrigan brothers for

414
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Speaker 2: the had a defense fund the Chicago Were you talking

415
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Speaker 2: about criminal for criminal defense yet? And that's what actually Nick,

416
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Speaker 2: there's a tape of Nixon suggesting that there'd be a

417
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Speaker 2: defense fund set up for the Cubans who had been

418
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Speaker 2: hired by Hunt and Lyddy to pay their lawyer's fees

419
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Speaker 2: and what have you. If he had done that openly,

420
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Speaker 2: he might have avoided obstructing justice. It's very curious, and

421
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Speaker 2: Halleman and Erlikman dropped that I never heard about that.

422
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Speaker 2: In fact, when I first hear about it, I don't

423
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Speaker 2: know what he's talk really, what he's talking about anyway,

424
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:02,320
Speaker 2: phases the cover up for me. I initially don't think

425
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Speaker 2: I'm engaging in criminal conduct. When I realize I am

426
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Speaker 2: is after the election Howard Hunt calls Chuck Coulson, and

427
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Speaker 2: Coulson records the call on a dictaphone. He had his

428
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Speaker 2: phone hooked up to a dictaphone, as many did in

429
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Speaker 2: the White House, and he brought this tape down to

430
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Speaker 2: me to play of his conversation with Hunt. And he's

431
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Speaker 2: proud of punch of this conversation because Coulson is because

432
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Speaker 2: it exonerates him in the Watergate, that he had nothing

433
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Speaker 2: to do with the Watergate break in I hear something

434
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Speaker 2: very different. I hear Hunt demanding that he get paid

435
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Speaker 2: sooner rather than later, that promises have been made to

436
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 2: him to take care of him, they haven't been delivered,

437
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 2: and the ready isn't there. I immediately say to Chuck,

438
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 2: this is very bad. Chuck. He said, well, what are

439
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 2: you going to do about it? I said, I don't know.

440
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:00,119
Speaker 2: What I did do is take the tape up to

441
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 2: Halleman and Erlickman and played it for them. They said,

442
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:07,680
Speaker 2: take it to John Mitchell and get him to solve

443
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 2: the problem, which I next did that same day and

444
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:12,919
Speaker 2: took it up to New York and played it for Mitchell,

445
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:17,200
Speaker 2: whose first reaction is don't you ever have anything good

446
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 2: news to report, and I said, no, John, I don't anyway.

447
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 2: It's after listening to that conversation, I let my fingers

448
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 2: do the walking in the criminal code to figure out

449
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,719
Speaker 2: what in the world are we doing. And I discovered

450
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 2: eighteen Usc. Fifteen oh three, which is the obstruction statute,

451
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 2: and I discover eighteen Usc. Three seventy one, the conspiracy statute,

452
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 2: and I realized we're in a whole lot of trouble. Now.

453
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 2: You might have thought that the first reaction would be

454
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 2: to run for the hills. I mean I had exactly

455
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 2: the opposite reaction. That's when I double down. That's when

456
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 2: I try to make the cover up work. I know

457
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 2: today psychologically what was going on. I was in what

458
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 2: they call the loss frame, where you have no attractive

459
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 2: options and you do stupid things. It's unfortunate part of

460
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 2: human nature happens a lot to a lot of people.

461
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 2: I don't did you.

462
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: Feel a loyalty personally to any of these people. Had

463
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: you developed any kind of closeness with them as a person.

464
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 2: As a co conspirator, Yes, I did. I wanted to

465
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 2: cover up to work at that point, and that's when

466
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 2: I do dumb things like destroyed documents, knowing, yes, you know,

467
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:37,959
Speaker 2: and I never understood, and for years you know what

468
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 2: had happened. Then the last phase of my involvement in

469
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 2: the cover up is when Haunt sends a message to

470
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 2: me that he's going to have seemi things to say

471
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 2: about John Erlickman and by implication, Bud Krogue, one of

472
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 2: his assistants regarding his break in at the Elsberg psychiatrist

473
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 2: office fas go. That's when I sort of say, my god,

474
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 2: this is never going to end. We're being extorted. There

475
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:11,719
Speaker 2: will be no end in it. It's this cover up

476
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 2: is not going to work, and we've got to figure

477
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 2: out how to stop it and get the president out

478
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 2: in front of it. And that's March nineteenth when that

479
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 2: word comes in. I have by then started to have

480
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 2: enough dealings with the President that I think he's got

481
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 2: trust in me. And so on March the morning of

482
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 2: March twenty first, I go in after setting it breaking

483
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 2: precedent because you weren't supposed to go to the president

484
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 2: other than through Haldeman. When he called me that night,

485
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 2: I said, mister President, I really need to talk to you,

486
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 2: and he said, how about ten o'clock. I said, fine,

487
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 2: I'll be there. I called Haleman that morning and said,

488
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 2: I need to go in and lay it out to

489
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 2: the president. He really doesn't get it. I don't know

490
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 2: if Hallaman understood what I was talking about or not,

491
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 2: but he said, fine, you do what you think is necessary.

492
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 2: I went in and tried to give him enough back,

493
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 2: given the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know anything.

494
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 2: I know today he knew almost virtually everything. But I

495
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 2: took him through each step, and every time I would

496
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 2: raise one of the problems, he'd have an answer. I'd raise,

497
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 2: for example, Bud Krog is worried he's committed perjury. Nixon's response, Well, John,

498
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 2: perjury is a tough rap to prove. I raised the

499
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 2: fact that Hunt was demanding one hundred and twenty thousand

500
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 2: dollars yesterday, he wonted fifty thousand for his attorney's fees

501
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 2: and seventy for his living expenses and what have you,

502
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 2: because he had by then been convicted.

503
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: What's the linix in the famousite, we could get the money.

504
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 2: If we had to. That's exactly the line. That's your

505
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 2: coming to it. And and I said, miss President, I

506
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 2: have no idea how much this might cost and he said, well,

507
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 2: what do you think. What give me an estimate. I

508
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 2: pulled out a thin air what I thought was a

509
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 2: hefty number. I said, a million dollars. That would be

510
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 2: what about five and a half today, never having tried

511
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 2: to even kind of, you know, calculate what it might be.

512
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 2: And that's when he said, that's no problem. I know

513
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 2: where we can get that. I know. And what I

514
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 2: didn't know is, well until I actually did this book

515
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 2: with all the tapes is after that conversation, he goes

516
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 2: over to rose Woods door, which is adjoining his off

517
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 2: the Oval office, and asked Rose in a voice you

518
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 2: can hear on the tapes, how much is in the

519
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 2: slush fund. There's six hundred thousand. He will within a

520
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 2: week or so be selling an ambassadorship to raise money.

521
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 2: He's on the job. He's going to solve this. He's

522
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 2: going to get the million bucks and say take care

523
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 2: of it.

524
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: If John Deane was the ultimate Nixon insider, essay and

525
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: satirist Lewis Lapham was the ultimate outsider. Despite their shared

526
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: patrician roots, Lapham skewered the administration and its Wartergate troubles

527
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: from behind the covers of Harper's Magazine, where he was

528
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 1: the managing editor throughout the scandal.

529
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 3: I never liked or trusted Nixon. I came out of

530
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 3: the the affluent, privileged.

531
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: San Francisco society.

532
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 3: San Francisco society. My father had been very strongly in

533
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 3: favor of Roosevelt. In nineteen thirty two.

534
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 1: Hear my conversation with Lewis Lapham at Here's the Thing

535
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: dot Org coming up more from Richard Nixon's White House

536
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: Council on lessons from Watergate for Trump and the rest

537
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: of us. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's

538
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 1: the Thing now more of my conversation with John Dean.

539
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 2: When you talk.

540
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: About this period, you say that I'm going to stop

541
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 1: this or I'm having my doubts because the cover up

542
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: you don't think is going to work. Would you have

543
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: kept going if you thought the cover up would work?

544
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 2: You know? The President at the end of my March

545
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 2: twenty first cancer on the Presidency where I used that

546
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 2: phrase to get his attention, and I had it after that,

547
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 2: I was I think that's the day I met Richard Nixon,

548
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 2: the real Nixon, because I took him through one problem

549
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:36,719
Speaker 2: after another, problem after another problem, waiting for his fist

550
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 2: or hand to come down on the desk and say

551
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 2: this has got to stop. That isn't the man I

552
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 2: met that morning. He had answers for everything, and that

553
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 2: it had to continue, that somebody should take care of

554
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 2: this problem with Hunt, and that there was no short

555
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 2: term answer. He wanted the cover up to go on.

556
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 2: I had nothing to do with Hunt getting he did

557
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 2: get paid. Mitchell took care of it, and Hunt would

558
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 2: remain a bought man until the Watergate prosecutor is trying

559
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:12,720
Speaker 2: Halleman and Erlikman and Mitchell in the cover up trial

560
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 2: in October of nineteen seventy four, which is quite remarkable.

561
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:22,319
Speaker 2: And then he would decide that he would tell the truth.

562
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:25,399
Speaker 2: And he was the Perry Mason witness that came into

563
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:28,440
Speaker 2: the trial and nobody knew was going to arrive and

564
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,800
Speaker 2: explain what the Watergate break in was, how things had operated,

565
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 2: and was very candid and very honest.

566
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:36,799
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned the three phases of the cover up.

567
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: Did you cover all three of.

568
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 2: Those or was there another way I did? The last

569
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 2: phase was ending trying to end the cover up and

570
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 2: realizing the only way I could end it, and telling

571
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 2: my colleagues, I'm going to the prosecutors. This has got

572
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,320
Speaker 2: you know, we've got to deal with this. We need

573
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 2: criminal lawyers in here. I'm going to hire a criminal lawyer.

574
00:34:56,719 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 2: And who'd you hire? I hired a college law school

575
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 2: classmate initially to talk about a man who later became

576
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 2: the chief judge of the Federal District Court in DC,

577
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 2: Tom Hogan, and we talked about it, and he suggested

578
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 2: Charlie Shaffer, who had worked here in the Southern District,

579
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 2: was a very accomplished prosecutor and had become a very

580
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:30,360
Speaker 2: successful criminal defense lawyer, and he was terrific. I for

581
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 2: a while had one foot in the White House and

582
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 2: one foot out of the White House, but didn't hide

583
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:37,959
Speaker 2: it from my colleagues what I was doing either.

584
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: You're a very young man when this is happening, and

585
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: you're married. I mean, we talked backstage about how your

586
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:47,319
Speaker 1: wife becomes kind of a bit player of the whole thing.

587
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: Is the case, as you said, the camera found her.

588
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: You're a beautiful wife, Maureen Dean, and she was there.

589
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 2: She had a huge influence on me. I want you

590
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 2: to explain it about you every day, you know, I

591
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:05,799
Speaker 2: did not want to get married, but I did not

592
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 2: want to lose her. I had been married and divorced

593
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 2: and had a child from that first marriage, and I

594
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 2: had fallen in love with her and we'd had a

595
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 2: wonderful relationship. She wanted to get married, and I just

596
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:25,799
Speaker 2: knew this was a bad time. I didn't know how

597
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 2: bad it was. I got married, how much? When did you?

598
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:36,359
Speaker 2: I get married in October of nineteen seventy two, very

599
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 2: bad time. We have now been married forty five years,

600
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 2: so you know the you know, the first time that

601
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,800
Speaker 2: happened to me was not long ago when I said

602
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 2: that to somebody. I happened to be in Nashville giving

603
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 2: a talk because of Jim Neil, who was one of

604
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 2: the Water Special prosecutors. They became like fime friends, many

605
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:07,399
Speaker 2: of these guys and one woman and his former law firm.

606
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 2: He's deceased now, but his former law firm had a

607
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 2: program and I came down to speak, and there was

608
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 2: a boys' school there. It's a very fine academy, and

609
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 2: they asked me to come out and do their assembly,

610
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:23,320
Speaker 2: and seven hundred kids filed in and I somehow, in passing,

611
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,479
Speaker 2: mentioned that I had been married to Maureen forty five

612
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:30,439
Speaker 2: years and the kids broke out in applause, and I thought,

613
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 2: isn't that nice? I mean, I was very please. I

614
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:38,240
Speaker 2: can't imagine what that's like to be married for forty

615
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 2: five years? Like, what really now?

616
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: When you go home? I mean, I'm trying to get

617
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 1: you to talk about something just in terms of your

618
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 1: personal feelings and your emotional life. Were you going home

619
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: and you know, and having dinner with your wife and

620
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:57,359
Speaker 1: sitting having a drink and saying, what the hell am

621
00:37:57,400 --> 00:37:58,880
Speaker 1: I going to do? Or did you try to protect

622
00:37:58,920 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 1: her or not.

623
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 2: Confide protected her? I you know, I tried to warn her,

624
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:05,360
Speaker 2: you know, until you give me your wife what's going on.

625
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:06,720
Speaker 1: I tried to.

626
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:09,400
Speaker 2: Explain to her there were going to be problems, but

627
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 2: I wasn't terribly.

628
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: I just got married.

629
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 2: Depth about it, I must. Somebody recently asked me how

630
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:22,800
Speaker 2: did I get through it all? And my answer was vodka.

631
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 1: So you did not confide a great deal in.

632
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 2: Her, No, I didn't you. None of you know, Essentially

633
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 2: none of the men talked to their wives about what

634
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:34,839
Speaker 2: was going on. I'm sure more lamps would have been

635
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 2: overheads if some of the women had learned about what

636
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:40,879
Speaker 2: was going on. When it was going on. I think

637
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 2: all the wives were shocked at some of this. But anyway,

638
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 2: as I said, she had a tremendous influence on me.

639
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 2: When I decided to break rank, one of the reasons

640
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 2: was I didn't want to disappoint her. I wanted to

641
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 2: live up to the standard. She thought.

642
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:57,840
Speaker 1: March sixteenth is when you said the meeting was with

643
00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: him cancer on the president of March twenty first, twenty first,

644
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:02,720
Speaker 1: and so how soon after that do you get canned?

645
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 2: End of April.

646
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 1: There's very tight.

647
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 2: It's tight, but the tapes are fascinating. The tapes. My

648
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 2: editor happens to be here tonight and he helped me tremendously.

649
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 2: That there were four I ended up with four million

650
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 2: words in twenty thick notebooks of transcripts that we had

651
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 2: to bring down to narrative and dialogue. And when I

652
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 2: got to those tapes and in that period at the end,

653
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:35,319
Speaker 2: after I'd given him the cancer and the presidency, the

654
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:39,839
Speaker 2: conversations are so repetitive. I mean, they just go over

655
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 2: and over trying to figure out how to deal with me.

656
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:45,959
Speaker 2: What are they going to do? And generally the only

657
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 2: answer is to make me the scapegoat. He's afraid of me.

658
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:52,839
Speaker 2: When he lets Halleman and Erlikman go, he just, in

659
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 2: a one sentence, says, and so is White House Counsul

660
00:39:56,640 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 2: John Dene No shots at me at all, because when

661
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 2: I get in there, I start telling him things he

662
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 2: doesn't even know. He didn't know until I tell him

663
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:09,239
Speaker 2: on March seventeenth that there had been the break in

664
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 2: at Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office and Erlikman had been behind it.

665
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:18,399
Speaker 2: Erlkman had never shared this with him. The reason I'm

666
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 2: convinced those men never got pardons by Nixon when he

667
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 2: was on his way out the door is he figured

668
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 2: out that they really hadn't kept him informed, and they

669
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 2: had their own agenda, and they were protecting themselves. I

670
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:36,319
Speaker 2: actually tried to get everybody to flip inside. I thought

671
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 2: that was I thought that would be so sobering for

672
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 2: Nixon and everybody else could just stand up and take

673
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 2: responsibility that his presidence. I tried.

674
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:48,440
Speaker 1: Did you get close to anyone?

675
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 2: I think some people did. You know? Based on the tapes,

676
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,720
Speaker 2: there is some indication that people did give it some thought.

677
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 2: They realized that it was the end of their careers.

678
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 1: So in nineteen seventy If you begin working in the

679
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 1: White House in nineteen seventy an hour in the spring

680
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 1: of seventy three, which is an eternity to be in

681
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 1: the White House for a couple of years for some people,

682
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: do you notice, and I want to preface this with someone,

683
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 1: do you notice the old Nixon returning? Because as Nixon,

684
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,239
Speaker 1: as everybody knows, who's the vice president for two terms

685
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 1: under Eisenhower, not somebody who was adored by the staff

686
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: of the White House in the Eisenhower miss he was.

687
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 2: He was Eisenhower's heavy I mean, he had the job

688
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 2: of going out and being the hatchet man and being

689
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:37,799
Speaker 2: the attack dog.

690
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:42,399
Speaker 1: And then he obviously loses a couple of elections, most

691
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: notably the presidential election in nineteen sixty. I mean, the

692
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:51,839
Speaker 1: Nixon has always been somebody who's a bitter, bitter, you

693
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 1: know type, who is this what you begin to see?

694
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: I mean, Nixon wins election in sixty eighty, wins re

695
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: election in seventy two by a landslide, and you're in

696
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:02,439
Speaker 1: that room with him in the spring of seventy three,

697
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: and is the old Nixon?

698
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,719
Speaker 2: What I realize is that the old Nixon has never

699
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 2: gone away. He's always been there. What they've done very

700
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:16,360
Speaker 2: effectively is portray a new Nixon. You know, in doing

701
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,799
Speaker 2: the book where I listened to all these conversations. As

702
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 2: I was telling my editor tonight, I didn't wear hearing

703
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:28,360
Speaker 2: aids before that experience. I made the mistake of having

704
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 2: earphones on which destroyed my hearing. And I told Moe

705
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:34,879
Speaker 2: at one point, God forbid the last voice I hear

706
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 2: as Richard Nixon in this project. But when I was

707
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 2: listening to these tapes, occasionally I would, in queuing them up,

708
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:45,840
Speaker 2: would find things that I thought that the archives had removed.

709
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:50,759
Speaker 2: They theoretically have taken out all the personal material and

710
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:52,919
Speaker 2: returned it to the Nixons. But there are some very

711
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:59,440
Speaker 2: personal conversations. For example, in January of seventy three, he

712
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 2: learns that he from a lower aid that he indeed

713
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 2: they may have peace in Vietnam. The first person he

714
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 2: calls is not Henry Kissinger. He calls Pat Nixon. They

715
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 2: have a lovely conversation. It really struck me that their

716
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 2: marriage was much different than I had perceived it. And she,

717
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 2: you know, is pleased with him, proud of him. It's

718
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 2: a lovely husband. Wife conversation. Same thing happened to occasionally

719
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 2: when I found conversations with the President and his daughters,

720
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 2: Tricia and Julie. They're some really nice conversations. I'm sure

721
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 2: that family was stunned when these tapes came out, and

722
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 2: that's probably one of the reasons he spent so much

723
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 2: of his life after even leaving to try to prevent

724
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 2: the tapes from ever all surfacing. One of the reasons

725
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 2: Nixon covers up is he's worried about John Mitchell. Becomes

726
00:43:57,080 --> 00:43:59,839
Speaker 2: very clear from the tapes. It's not that he's worried

727
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 2: about his own guilt. He's not worried about the Elsberg

728
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:06,239
Speaker 2: break in. He's worried about the impact it's going to

729
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:09,479
Speaker 2: have on his Attorney General, John Mitchell, who he thinks

730
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 2: will never survive it and can't handle it. So he's

731
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 2: trying to protect Mitchell. Different people have different motives at

732
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 2: different times along the way.

733
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: So you finally get canned by Nixon himself.

734
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 2: When well, I'm out of town on April thirtieth when

735
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:26,799
Speaker 2: he gives a.

736
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:28,720
Speaker 1: Speech, so he didn't fire your face to face.

737
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 2: No. On April sixteenth, he called me in and said,

738
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 2: I think we need to talk about resignation, and I've

739
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 2: drafted a couple of letters. Well, I knew he hadn't

740
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 2: written the letters, and I immediately read them, and they

741
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 2: were confessions. I said, this is obviously John Erlickman's handiwork.

742
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 2: So I took them back. I took the letters and

743
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 2: I said, mister President, I'll write my own letter and

744
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:53,280
Speaker 2: send it to you, and which I did.

745
00:44:53,920 --> 00:45:00,080
Speaker 1: So this event in American history obviously is chronicled the

746
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 1: famous books and famous movies made of those books. And

747
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: I was wondering, when you first see All the President's Men,

748
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:08,400
Speaker 1: which comes out pretty quickly after the movie it does

749
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 1: well in the film, or will come out within a

750
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: couple of years, eighteen months, what did you think of

751
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 1: the film when you first saw it.

752
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 2: I first saw a directors showing of it. Alan Pakula

753
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 2: had a showing and invited me, and after, you know,

754
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:28,720
Speaker 2: there were fifty people in a little theater. After the movie,

755
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 2: I went up to him and said thank you. He said,

756
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:34,360
Speaker 2: why are you thank you me? I said, I'm thanking

757
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 2: you for not mentioning my name anywhere in the movie,

758
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:41,799
Speaker 2: and he said that's not possible. I said, you might check.

759
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 2: It is possible. I said, even when that ticker goes

760
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 2: across at the end and gets all the names that

761
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:50,760
Speaker 2: it has not otherwise involved, my name is not mentioned.

762
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is?

763
00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:56,719
Speaker 2: I don't know. Okay, but he didn't change it. He

764
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 2: didn't go back and add my name.

765
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:00,880
Speaker 1: But you appreciated the film. You thought it was accurate.

766
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:03,239
Speaker 2: I think it's a I think it's a slice of

767
00:46:03,280 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 2: the story. From the media point of view. You don't

768
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:10,279
Speaker 2: drive by the Jefferson or Lincoln memorial every time you

769
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:13,879
Speaker 2: cross Washington, though, as you know, what.

770
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 1: About Nixon, about Oliver Stones from what you were a consultant.

771
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 2: I was a consultant on Nixon, and.

772
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 1: That's a far more turgid movie than all the presidents.

773
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:24,720
Speaker 2: You know, it's much more than Watergate. And what happened

774
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 2: is originally Oliver had in that movie a conspiracy theory

775
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 2: that claimed that Watergate was about a break in at

776
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:40,279
Speaker 2: the Democratic National Committee to expose a call go ring

777
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:46,320
Speaker 2: that my wife worked at. And I had already sued

778
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:50,359
Speaker 2: the publishers of that story and was in litigation which

779
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 2: would go on for nine years.

780
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: You're saying your wife did not work at the call girls.

781
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 2: She did not work at the GARM.

782
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: Be clear, she did not work at the I won't

783
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 1: be walking to anyone with any misconceptions.

784
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 2: People might dream that. But uh, Anyway, the I told Oliver,

785
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 2: I said that this is a fraud and and you'll

786
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 2: end up being named in the lawsuit. Anyway, we got

787
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 2: off to that start, and he said, I don't want

788
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:19,399
Speaker 2: to do that sort of thing in this movie. He said,

789
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:23,880
Speaker 2: I am trying to get as much VERI similitude as possible.

790
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:26,320
Speaker 1: What do you think he captured that was accurate about Nixon?

791
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 1: Same a scene, because I mean I.

792
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 2: Went to one of the scenes. The last scene I

793
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 2: objected to was a scene where he has me meeting

794
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 2: with Howard Hunt on the Memorial Bridge. And I said, Oliver,

795
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 2: that never occurred. Harris ed, Harris, right, it's a great scene,

796
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 2: and you're played by David Hyers. Uh. And I said, Oliver,

797
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:52,879
Speaker 2: that scene never happened. He said, I've paid for it.

798
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 2: It's going to happen.

799
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:01,320
Speaker 1: That many people applaud if you've ever seen Oliver Stone Nixon. I,

800
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: oh my god.

801
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:09,919
Speaker 2: I thought I thought that I can actually suspend disbelief

802
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 2: with Anthony Hopkins. I think I know you admire him greatly,

803
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:18,360
Speaker 2: and I've met him when he came back from a

804
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 2: tour of the Nixon Library with Oliver and they had

805
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:24,440
Speaker 2: kind of slipped through with nobody seeing them, but one

806
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:26,759
Speaker 2: of the docents spotted them at the end of the

807
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 2: tour and she said to Hopkins, who's reporting this to me?

808
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 2: At lunch right after they had come back, he said,

809
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 2: the dosn't stopped me and said, I understand you're playing

810
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 2: mister Nixon. And he said, yes, I am, and he

811
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 2: said and she said to him, he said, well, I

812
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 2: hope you're not doing a job on him. And he

813
00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 2: turned to me and said, I'm not doing a job

814
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 2: on him. Am I. I said, I don't think so

815
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:52,920
Speaker 2: in this script and he said, well, he said, I

816
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:54,920
Speaker 2: want to tell you I kind of sympathize with Nixon,

817
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 2: he said. Tony said that. He said, I grew up

818
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:03,279
Speaker 2: in very humble beginnings and like Nixon, I could hear

819
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:06,840
Speaker 2: the train whistles and have dreams. And he said, I,

820
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:09,399
Speaker 2: you know, I want to play this guy straight, and

821
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 2: and that's what I think he tried to do. He had.

822
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 2: I noticed I was visited the set a number of times,

823
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 2: and they had a voice coach for him. There and

824
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 2: they tried to take that clip out of his accent. Uh,

825
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 2: and they don't always. But that's the only thing that

826
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 2: sort of distracts me with him. I can believe this

827
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:34,279
Speaker 2: is Richard Nixon. He's he's really tries to capture the man.

828
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 1: With the time we have left, I want to ask you,

829
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:41,839
Speaker 1: obviously about the comparisons and contrast to how we.

830
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:42,760
Speaker 2: Live our lives now.

831
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 1: And Uh, it's unlikely that every public can control Judiciary

832
00:49:46,719 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: committee in this particular Congress is going to return an

833
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 1: article to impeach.

834
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 2: I think that's very true.

835
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:54,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they have they as you'll have a president,

836
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:56,800
Speaker 1: a sitting president who's indicted for a crime.

837
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:00,840
Speaker 2: Well, it's not possible right now to indict a sitting president.

838
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:05,319
Speaker 2: What happened is in nineteen seventy three, Sparrow Agnew was

839
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 2: being pursued by the by a grand jury out of Maryland,

840
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 2: and they went to the Department for Tax evasion and

841
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 2: he claimed he couldn't be indicted, he could only be impeached.

842
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:19,520
Speaker 2: They took the question to the Office of Legal Counsel,

843
00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 2: which issues those sort of opinions by the Department of Justice,

844
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:26,680
Speaker 2: and said no, mister Vice President you're wrong. You can

845
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:30,319
Speaker 2: be indicted. It's the president who can't be indicted, can

846
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:33,200
Speaker 2: only be impeached, and issued an opinion in seventy three.

847
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:38,799
Speaker 2: That opinion was upgraded or revised and readopted in two

848
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 2: thousand when Robert Ray, Independent last one and one of

849
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 2: the last independent Councils, raised that issue regarding Clinton and said, no,

850
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 2: he cannot be indicted as a sitting president. So that's

851
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 2: the policy right now of the departments. No, no corpse

852
00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 2: ever ruled on it, and many scholars disagree with it

853
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,720
Speaker 2: that they think that no president's above the law. And indeed,

854
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:05,239
Speaker 2: the twenty fifth Amendment makes it possible to have the

855
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:09,520
Speaker 2: president's step aside who would be impaired in his ability

856
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:13,320
Speaker 2: to govern and function if he was in a criminal trial,

857
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 2: and to sort that out it could be done. The

858
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:21,799
Speaker 2: issue has not been resolved. There are some who think

859
00:51:22,280 --> 00:51:27,120
Speaker 2: that Special Counsel Muller might test it.

860
00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 1: What do you think Mullett would do?

861
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:38,360
Speaker 2: You're a lawyer, have a fascinating case. It's a tough issue.

862
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:43,239
Speaker 2: There are arguments on both sides, but I think that

863
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:46,279
Speaker 2: the bottom line argument is that no person in this

864
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:47,479
Speaker 2: country is above the law.

865
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:51,960
Speaker 1: I mean the country right now. It seems like it's

866
00:51:52,120 --> 00:51:55,880
Speaker 1: so much trouble. Yeah, the country is in so much trouble.

867
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:00,160
Speaker 2: And you I have never had a knot in my

868
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:04,719
Speaker 2: stomach before before an election. I did before this election. Right,

869
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:07,800
Speaker 2: that not has really never gone away.

870
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:11,839
Speaker 1: Just the damage that proved it and Devace alone will

871
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:14,160
Speaker 1: do and their departments is going to take a decade

872
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:15,040
Speaker 1: or more to undo.

873
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:17,359
Speaker 2: You know, just that things are really bad and too

874
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 2: little attention is being paid to what's happening out in

875
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:25,960
Speaker 2: those departments and agencies. And most striking to me Alec

876
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 2: is the fact he has no competence for the job.

877
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:32,799
Speaker 2: He has no training, he did no he has no

878
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:37,520
Speaker 2: knowledge of the office. He's winging it from day to day.

879
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 2: He's got a constituency that is unshakable for lots of reasons.

880
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:50,080
Speaker 2: I think he was he was shocked to win, unprepared

881
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:53,839
Speaker 2: to govern, and but is growing into the job as

882
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 2: he learns it. He's learning it on the spot. What

883
00:52:57,480 --> 00:52:59,759
Speaker 2: worries me is he is going He's not dumb, He's

884
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:03,160
Speaker 2: going to learn how the machinery works, and then I

885
00:53:03,280 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 2: think it's ripe for even greater abuse.

886
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:08,279
Speaker 1: Well, that's sort of my ultimate question is is that

887
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:11,080
Speaker 1: is it? Do you think, because I've said this to

888
00:53:11,120 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 1: people before, that that to remove the President of the

889
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:17,160
Speaker 1: United States from office is a tremendously different, painful and

890
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:19,200
Speaker 1: difficult thing. It's also painful for the country.

891
00:53:19,280 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 2: Yes.

892
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: Do you believe that what's best for the country is

893
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 1: to not impeach Trump and to wait until the next

894
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 1: election cycle and vote him out of office? Or do

895
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:31,400
Speaker 1: you think impeachment is a healthy path for the country.

896
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's an appropriate path because

897
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 2: it's it's a constitutional path. The system is designed to

898
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:43,239
Speaker 2: deal with a president who is not playing the game

899
00:53:43,280 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 2: as it's supposed to be played, and that's a determination

900
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 2: made by the House of Representatives, which is the closest

901
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:52,160
Speaker 2: to the people, is the House. While we might have

902
00:53:52,200 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 2: a highly gerrymandered House House today, write that I'm not

903
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:04,080
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that. I'm not sure. I think the

904
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 2: next election, the off year election, is going to be

905
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:09,040
Speaker 2: very telling in twenty eighteen.

906
00:54:09,160 --> 00:54:11,279
Speaker 1: So I wonder if if they get swamped in the

907
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:13,799
Speaker 1: midterm and you come out the other side of that.

908
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 1: Unto January of twenty nineteen, and if Pence were to

909
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:23,279
Speaker 1: succeed a Trump that designs Pence would want to come

910
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 1: in right after January of twenty nineteen, so he was

911
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:29,280
Speaker 1: eligible for ten years in office because if he steps

912
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:32,600
Speaker 1: if they impeached Trump, now Pence is only eligible for

913
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 1: that piece of Trump's term and only one full term

914
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 1: of his own.

915
00:54:36,680 --> 00:54:39,279
Speaker 2: Well, you're assuming he could get re elected. I think

916
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 2: this is going to splash over on Pence.

917
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:44,560
Speaker 1: I don't refute that. I'm just saying that, but that

918
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 1: right now in their hope is that they're going to

919
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 1: wait and see what the damage is in the midterm,

920
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:52,200
Speaker 1: if Trump can be rehabilitated. I thought Trump would be

921
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 1: gone by the summer. I thought they'd say to themselves,

922
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 1: we got to get the smell of the cordite out

923
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 1: of the room here and bring Pence in here and

924
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:01,279
Speaker 1: let everything clear, if not for twenty eighteen, then for

925
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:04,480
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and prop up Pence as the nominee. But

926
00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:05,440
Speaker 1: they've hung in with him.

927
00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:08,560
Speaker 2: But I don't think Trump has that idea of leaving either.

928
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 2: He likes the attention, he likes the fact he can

929
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:15,880
Speaker 2: demand the kind of twenty four to seven coverage he gets.

930
00:55:16,600 --> 00:55:20,239
Speaker 2: His narcissism is large enough to handle that. Are you

931
00:55:20,239 --> 00:55:23,280
Speaker 2: a Republican now I haven't been since then, you haven't

932
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:27,720
Speaker 2: really I'm an independent California. We don't have to declare,

933
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:33,439
Speaker 2: and I have not declared, and I have voted both

934
00:55:33,480 --> 00:55:34,640
Speaker 2: Republican and Democrat.

935
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 1: What do you think is going to What do you

936
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:37,800
Speaker 1: think is the future of the Republican Party?

937
00:55:38,239 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 2: Bad?

938
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:44,280
Speaker 1: Bad, bad bad. We were going to do a sketch

939
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 1: on SNL the other day where Trump was going Christmas

940
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:54,800
Speaker 1: shopping with Roy Moore the mall.

941
00:55:55,120 --> 00:56:00,200
Speaker 2: We didn't, you know, they killed that idea. The great

942
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:04,040
Speaker 2: mistake I have made since Watergate was when Louren sent

943
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:07,799
Speaker 2: out a feeler if I would host Saturday Night and

944
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 2: not too late and Saturday Night or Simon and Schuster

945
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 2: said no, we don't want you doing that.

946
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:20,560
Speaker 1: It's a very tough, tough, painful time for this country

947
00:56:20,640 --> 00:56:22,960
Speaker 1: right now because I think that I think we need

948
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 1: both parties to be healthy and not have an effective opposition.

949
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:27,880
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that's sad to me

950
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:30,920
Speaker 1: about this Republican Party. Either're going down the drain with.

951
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:36,479
Speaker 2: This, the difference between opposition and polarization, and we don't

952
00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 2: seem to have distinguished that. When when majority doesn't rule,

953
00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 2: we're in trouble in a democracy, and right now a

954
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:48,600
Speaker 2: minority is controlling the country.

955
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:56,279
Speaker 1: Well, I want to say, please go ahead. Well, I

956
00:56:56,280 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 1: want to say I'm grateful. I'm sure you've heard this

957
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:01,000
Speaker 1: before too, that I'm grateful that you found your conscience

958
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:05,839
Speaker 1: back then in March of nineteen seventy three and did

959
00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:09,719
Speaker 1: the right thing coming out of Camp David and exposed

960
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 1: what you did, told the truth about what you did.

961
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:14,080
Speaker 1: And I want to say thank you very much for

962
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 1: coming and sitting with us tonight.

963
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:15,880
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you.

964
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: John Dean, whose life was forever changed by the bungled

965
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:33,720
Speaker 1: break into the Watergate Hotel in nineteen seventy two. By

966
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:35,920
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you

967
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 1: by iHeart Radio.