1
00:00:05,960 --> 00:00:09,799
Speaker 1: Hey, it's Alec Baldwin here. Before we launch our next

2
00:00:09,880 --> 00:00:14,040
Speaker 1: season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I

3
00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:17,599
Speaker 1: thought I'd play some of my favorite shows from the archives.

4
00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:23,000
Speaker 1: Few people were deeper into the Watergate cover up than

5
00:00:23,040 --> 00:00:28,040
Speaker 1: President Nixon's White House Council John Dene then he flipped.

6
00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:32,519
Speaker 1: He was a star witness for the Congressional investigation, and

7
00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:37,200
Speaker 1: while some Watergate conspirators had religious conversions in prison, Dean

8
00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:40,919
Speaker 1: left prison with a commitment to teaching in classrooms and

9
00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:45,320
Speaker 1: beyond the lessons of the scandal and advocating for better government.

10
00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:49,080
Speaker 1: I recently had the opportunity to talk with him in

11
00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:56,560
Speaker 1: front of a live audience at NYU's Skirball Center. Tell

12
00:00:56,640 --> 00:00:59,320
Speaker 1: us the jobs you had in government prior to your

13
00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:00,800
Speaker 1: becoming count to the President.

14
00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:04,679
Speaker 2: I was at the House Judiciary Committee. It was my

15
00:01:04,760 --> 00:01:09,560
Speaker 2: first job in government, and from there I went to

16
00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:14,679
Speaker 2: a commission that was revising the federal Criminal Code. I

17
00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:18,440
Speaker 2: didn't study enough while they were working on I have

18
00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:25,000
Speaker 2: a question about it. I then went from there to

19
00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:29,600
Speaker 2: become the Associate Deputy Attorney General in the Nixon administration

20
00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:33,880
Speaker 2: at the outset of the administration, and while there, working

21
00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:38,080
Speaker 2: in Justice. I was invited to become counsel of the president.

22
00:01:38,080 --> 00:01:39,080
Speaker 1: Who invited you?

23
00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:39,960
Speaker 2: Richard Nixon?

24
00:01:40,120 --> 00:01:42,920
Speaker 1: Nixon someone's making a recommendation to him, or he knew

25
00:01:42,920 --> 00:01:43,959
Speaker 1: you personally.

26
00:01:43,600 --> 00:01:45,920
Speaker 2: Well, they sent a feeler out. In fact, I over

27
00:01:45,959 --> 00:01:49,440
Speaker 2: the years, in going through the archives, I haven't collected

28
00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:52,200
Speaker 2: at all, but I have collected bits and pieces. I

29
00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:56,760
Speaker 2: didn't realize they were doing reconnaissance on me for many

30
00:01:56,760 --> 00:01:59,040
Speaker 2: many months before they asked me to come over to

31
00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:02,639
Speaker 2: the White House, Questions like could I really be loyal

32
00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:03,240
Speaker 2: to Nixon?

33
00:02:03,880 --> 00:02:04,360
Speaker 1: Literally?

34
00:02:04,600 --> 00:02:05,000
Speaker 2: Literally?

35
00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:08,360
Speaker 1: What did you think that they saw in you? That

36
00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:09,840
Speaker 1: they thought you were a Nixon man?

37
00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:17,560
Speaker 2: You know, That's one of the mysteries to me is

38
00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:22,560
Speaker 2: why someone as young and inexperienced as I was was

39
00:02:22,600 --> 00:02:26,160
Speaker 2: given that job. I was given, actually the title. I

40
00:02:26,280 --> 00:02:30,320
Speaker 2: wasn't given the job. Initially. John Erlickman had been White

41
00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:34,040
Speaker 2: House counsel. He was the initial White House counsel. He

42
00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:36,320
Speaker 2: gave up the title, he didn't give up the job,

43
00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:42,400
Speaker 2: and I think Nixon throughout really relied on Erlickman for

44
00:02:43,040 --> 00:02:44,000
Speaker 2: his legal advice.

45
00:02:44,480 --> 00:02:46,639
Speaker 1: Did you come from a Republican family? Your dad? Was?

46
00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:49,120
Speaker 1: He an executive Firestone? He worked at Firestone.

47
00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:52,680
Speaker 2: My father spent eighteen years at Firestone and then went out.

48
00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:57,639
Speaker 2: He was a turnaround expert. He would go into a plant,

49
00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:01,000
Speaker 2: a manufacturing plant, could see why wasn't working. He was

50
00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:04,360
Speaker 2: the numbers man as well as a mechanical engineer from

51
00:03:04,919 --> 00:03:08,360
Speaker 2: Carnegie Mellon and could straighten these plants out.

52
00:03:08,919 --> 00:03:11,680
Speaker 1: So did you have some kind of Republican credentials throughout your.

53
00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:18,120
Speaker 2: My family was not particularly political for you. I actually

54
00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:22,560
Speaker 2: became interested in politics when I was in prep school

55
00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:26,480
Speaker 2: and my roommate happened to be the son of a

56
00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:30,639
Speaker 2: United States senator, and we would go up to Washington

57
00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:36,120
Speaker 2: and stop and see Senator Goldwater, his son and I

58
00:03:36,920 --> 00:03:48,440
Speaker 2: and and that's when I became interested in that world.

59
00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:53,680
Speaker 2: I can still recall and visualize walking down those marble

60
00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:57,160
Speaker 2: halls with the Senator leading the way, taking us on

61
00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:00,640
Speaker 2: a tour here or there, and saying, this is pretty impressive.

62
00:04:01,280 --> 00:04:05,040
Speaker 2: He was also, I thought, an impressive guy. He had

63
00:04:05,040 --> 00:04:10,320
Speaker 2: one of the first thunderbird for thunderbirds, I was at

64
00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:13,760
Speaker 2: that age just thinking about getting a driver's license, and

65
00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:16,719
Speaker 2: we'd ride around in his car that was more like

66
00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:19,680
Speaker 2: the cockpit of an airplane. He was a Ham radio operator,

67
00:04:19,720 --> 00:04:22,680
Speaker 2: and could also talk to any air base he wanted

68
00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:25,240
Speaker 2: to talk to from his thunderbird.

69
00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:28,760
Speaker 1: Now, when you finally go to the White House as

70
00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:31,760
Speaker 1: a counsel to the President, what was your sense of

71
00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:33,960
Speaker 1: what the job was and what did you discover the

72
00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:35,000
Speaker 1: job actually was.

73
00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:38,960
Speaker 2: One of the things that was really strange is I

74
00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:42,640
Speaker 2: was never given much guidance as to what the White

75
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:47,120
Speaker 2: House counsel did when Erlickman was there. He never really

76
00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:52,200
Speaker 2: told me anything about it. When Hallaman interviewed me before

77
00:04:52,240 --> 00:04:54,760
Speaker 2: I went in to have the President, say would you

78
00:04:54,800 --> 00:04:59,120
Speaker 2: take the job? He said, I suppose you will just

79
00:04:59,200 --> 00:05:03,560
Speaker 2: do whatever you lawyers do. He wasn't a lawyer, And

80
00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:06,479
Speaker 2: that was about the guidance I got.

81
00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:09,560
Speaker 1: What were some of the things you did, What were

82
00:05:09,560 --> 00:05:11,280
Speaker 1: some of the things you worked on you started the

83
00:05:11,360 --> 00:05:12,000
Speaker 1: job one year.

84
00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:15,840
Speaker 2: When I started the job, it was a lot of

85
00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:20,680
Speaker 2: I realized that Erlickman was sending my office all the minutia,

86
00:05:21,120 --> 00:05:25,680
Speaker 2: things like clearing people for conflict of interest, preparing us

87
00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:28,280
Speaker 2: for example, there was no staff manual when I got there,

88
00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:32,400
Speaker 2: so my office prepared a staff manual to tell people,

89
00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:36,240
Speaker 2: you know, what forms letters had to be in, as

90
00:05:36,279 --> 00:05:41,240
Speaker 2: well as the fact they couldn't contact independent regulatory agencies.

91
00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:44,840
Speaker 2: They had to go through our office or not at all,

92
00:05:45,839 --> 00:05:50,800
Speaker 2: sort of just basic mechanics. And I told initially I

93
00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:52,800
Speaker 2: was a solo, and I think they were sort of

94
00:05:52,839 --> 00:05:56,000
Speaker 2: testing to see who I was and what would go on,

95
00:05:56,839 --> 00:06:00,320
Speaker 2: and it wasn't. It was about six months before they

96
00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:03,800
Speaker 2: let me hire an assistant, and I needed the help

97
00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:06,680
Speaker 2: because there's a lot of work. In fact, today in

98
00:06:06,720 --> 00:06:10,239
Speaker 2: the archives, the White House Council's office for the Nixon

99
00:06:10,279 --> 00:06:14,160
Speaker 2: presidency is one of the largest collections of papers.

100
00:06:14,880 --> 00:06:17,839
Speaker 1: Well, thank god you weren't doing the conflict of interest

101
00:06:17,839 --> 00:06:20,280
Speaker 1: work in the White House now you'd be dead from exhaustion.

102
00:06:22,279 --> 00:06:24,000
Speaker 1: But and you need about five.

103
00:06:23,880 --> 00:06:26,520
Speaker 2: Hundred Either that or there is no clearance at all

104
00:06:26,560 --> 00:06:27,480
Speaker 2: and no work at all.

105
00:06:27,640 --> 00:06:30,520
Speaker 1: They probably just closed that office this term. You know,

106
00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:33,120
Speaker 1: we're not going to bother with that conflict of just

107
00:06:33,240 --> 00:06:38,360
Speaker 1: send them home. But describe for me, because I think

108
00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:39,800
Speaker 1: a lot of people you get into that kind of

109
00:06:39,880 --> 00:06:43,599
Speaker 1: cult of personality with someone like Nixon, and what was

110
00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:45,200
Speaker 1: it like to work with him? What was he like?

111
00:06:45,279 --> 00:06:47,640
Speaker 1: Because it's just nothing like being in the presence of

112
00:06:47,720 --> 00:06:50,040
Speaker 1: the person themselves, rather than through the filter of the media.

113
00:06:50,120 --> 00:06:51,640
Speaker 1: What was he like when you worked with him?

114
00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:54,680
Speaker 2: You know, when I went over there, I was old

115
00:06:54,800 --> 00:06:57,159
Speaker 2: enough and been around enough to know there was a

116
00:06:57,200 --> 00:07:01,400
Speaker 2: tricky Dick. But I believed in sixty eight campaign that

117
00:07:01,480 --> 00:07:05,720
Speaker 2: Tricky Dick had matured. He was now a former vice

118
00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:10,160
Speaker 2: president who really understood how government operated, and he would

119
00:07:10,160 --> 00:07:14,200
Speaker 2: be a great senior statesman type person. That's the image

120
00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:17,400
Speaker 2: that was put out. The White House staff itself was

121
00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:21,680
Speaker 2: operated so tightly that very few on the staff actually

122
00:07:21,760 --> 00:07:24,040
Speaker 2: knew what the president did and how he did it

123
00:07:24,080 --> 00:07:26,720
Speaker 2: and when he did it. It was more they read

124
00:07:26,760 --> 00:07:29,120
Speaker 2: what was in the paper that was being cranked out

125
00:07:29,520 --> 00:07:32,680
Speaker 2: by everybody else. As to the image of the president, I,

126
00:07:33,120 --> 00:07:38,000
Speaker 2: for example, really other than in group meetings and just

127
00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:42,160
Speaker 2: passed through meetings, had no dealings with him until eight

128
00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:45,840
Speaker 2: months after the arrests at the Watergate and then I'll

129
00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:48,560
Speaker 2: have some thirty seven thirty eight meetings with him.

130
00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:52,560
Speaker 1: You become more useful to him once the issue.

131
00:07:52,680 --> 00:07:57,440
Speaker 2: What happens is after his successful reelection, I have been

132
00:07:57,440 --> 00:08:01,080
Speaker 2: reporting to either Halleman or Erlickman everything I'm able to

133
00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:03,880
Speaker 2: pick up about Watergate and the investigation and where it's

134
00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:07,880
Speaker 2: going and what its implications are and nothing looks good.

135
00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:14,160
Speaker 2: At that point, Nixon decides rather than have well, not

136
00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:17,760
Speaker 2: at that point, but several months later in February, he decides,

137
00:08:17,840 --> 00:08:21,640
Speaker 2: rather than have Hallman Erlickman filtering what I have to say,

138
00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:27,080
Speaker 2: he decides to deal directly with me. And thankfully it

139
00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:27,760
Speaker 2: was recorded.

140
00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:35,040
Speaker 1: So when you so the news breaks, the burglary breaks

141
00:08:35,040 --> 00:08:36,240
Speaker 1: in what month of seventy two?

142
00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:37,920
Speaker 2: June seventeenth of seventy two.

143
00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:43,480
Speaker 1: June of seventy two, he's overwhelmingly elected after that, and

144
00:08:44,160 --> 00:08:46,520
Speaker 1: when you found out that these guys who had links

145
00:08:46,559 --> 00:08:48,120
Speaker 1: to the White House or to the committee to be

146
00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:52,440
Speaker 1: elect had broken into the DNC office at the Watergate Hotel,

147
00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:53,319
Speaker 1: what did you make of it?

148
00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:56,760
Speaker 2: Well, I haven't have been in Manila, in the Philippines.

149
00:08:56,760 --> 00:08:57,560
Speaker 1: Ho's convenience?

150
00:09:00,559 --> 00:09:07,120
Speaker 2: Or was it? The first mistake was coming home? That's

151
00:09:07,240 --> 00:09:11,000
Speaker 2: on June nineteenth, three days after the arrest, I'm sent

152
00:09:11,080 --> 00:09:16,560
Speaker 2: to interview Gordon Lyddy, who confesses to me. He says,

153
00:09:16,600 --> 00:09:18,600
Speaker 2: it's our men, my men.

154
00:09:20,800 --> 00:09:22,840
Speaker 1: And when he said my men, what was his no. No,

155
00:09:22,960 --> 00:09:29,120
Speaker 1: Lyddy was x FBI, former FBI was x CIA, x CIA.

156
00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:32,959
Speaker 1: When he said my men, what was there Well.

157
00:09:34,280 --> 00:09:37,320
Speaker 2: What he was explaining is that there was on the

158
00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:40,360
Speaker 2: morning of the nineteenth, the Washington Post knew more than

159
00:09:40,360 --> 00:09:42,920
Speaker 2: we did at the White House as far as Watergate,

160
00:09:42,960 --> 00:09:46,480
Speaker 2: and there was a big story that morning that amongst

161
00:09:46,520 --> 00:09:50,040
Speaker 2: those arrested was the chief of security for the re

162
00:09:50,160 --> 00:09:54,160
Speaker 2: election Committee, James McCord, which was a pretty good clue

163
00:09:54,679 --> 00:10:00,079
Speaker 2: that it somehow involved the re election Committee, John Mitchell.

164
00:10:00,080 --> 00:10:03,080
Speaker 2: Ahead of the re election Committee, the former Attorney General

165
00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:07,000
Speaker 2: now director of the Election Committee, put out a statement saying, oh,

166
00:10:07,040 --> 00:10:09,439
Speaker 2: we don't know anything about what these guys were doing.

167
00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:13,120
Speaker 2: They were freelancing on their own. Well, it didn't take

168
00:10:13,160 --> 00:10:17,560
Speaker 2: me very long to realize that that was beloney. Today

169
00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:21,600
Speaker 2: I know that really the conspiracy was hatched over that

170
00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:25,160
Speaker 2: weekend and the decision to cover it up, and there

171
00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:26,800
Speaker 2: was a real reason to cover it up for the

172
00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:31,600
Speaker 2: White House, which I learned when talking to Liddy on

173
00:10:31,679 --> 00:10:34,400
Speaker 2: the morning of the nineteenth. In fact, I intercepted him

174
00:10:34,520 --> 00:10:36,640
Speaker 2: rather than come to my office. I didn't want him

175
00:10:36,679 --> 00:10:40,439
Speaker 2: in my office, but rather walk down seventeenth Street. That's

176
00:10:40,480 --> 00:10:42,960
Speaker 2: when he said, these are my men who did this.

177
00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:47,720
Speaker 2: He said, I was foolish to use McCord, who was

178
00:10:48,320 --> 00:10:51,679
Speaker 2: part of the re Election Committee. Liddy himself was the

179
00:10:51,800 --> 00:10:55,600
Speaker 2: general counsel of the Finance Committee of the re Election Committee,

180
00:10:55,640 --> 00:11:00,720
Speaker 2: where that was his supposed principal responsibility. He was running

181
00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:05,240
Speaker 2: this on the side, and on the way back up

182
00:11:05,280 --> 00:11:08,240
Speaker 2: he said two things that were back up seventeen trees

183
00:11:08,320 --> 00:11:11,400
Speaker 2: were really quite startling. He said, you should know, John,

184
00:11:11,600 --> 00:11:14,840
Speaker 2: while I worked at the White House, that Howard Hunt

185
00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:17,760
Speaker 2: who helped me get the men for this operation. And

186
00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:21,760
Speaker 2: I did what he called a national security operation by

187
00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:26,600
Speaker 2: breaking in Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist office. What I didn't know

188
00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:29,800
Speaker 2: at that time is that had been really authorized in

189
00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:35,560
Speaker 2: writing by John Erlickman, my predecessor, who wrote on a

190
00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:40,560
Speaker 2: sheet asking his approval so long is not traceable to

191
00:11:40,679 --> 00:11:51,920
Speaker 2: the White House. I didn't know that at that time. Anyway,

192
00:11:51,920 --> 00:11:54,240
Speaker 2: I did go back and report to Erlickman what I

193
00:11:54,280 --> 00:11:56,520
Speaker 2: had learned. The other thing that Liddy said on the

194
00:11:56,559 --> 00:11:59,199
Speaker 2: way back up seventeenth Street, he said, I realized I've

195
00:11:59,240 --> 00:12:02,240
Speaker 2: made a terrible error, and if anybody wants to take

196
00:12:02,280 --> 00:12:05,160
Speaker 2: me out, just tell me what street corner. Yeah, he

197
00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:08,120
Speaker 2: literally said, he said, anybody wants to take me out,

198
00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:10,439
Speaker 2: just don't do it at my house. I've got children there.

199
00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:12,000
Speaker 1: What do you think was behind that? Why would he,

200
00:12:12,040 --> 00:12:14,440
Speaker 1: I mean, other than his own having maybe a screw

201
00:12:14,480 --> 00:12:18,640
Speaker 1: loose or something. Why did he believe that the operation

202
00:12:18,760 --> 00:12:21,760
Speaker 1: of the White House, the executive branch of the government,

203
00:12:21,960 --> 00:12:24,280
Speaker 1: would want to whack him on a street in Washington.

204
00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:26,400
Speaker 2: Why? I have no idea.

205
00:12:26,440 --> 00:12:28,200
Speaker 1: He's a little dramatic.

206
00:12:28,400 --> 00:12:29,439
Speaker 2: Probably a mistake not to.

207
00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:35,640
Speaker 1: Just to clarify. And of course the day he was shot,

208
00:12:35,679 --> 00:12:41,440
Speaker 1: you were in Manila, right right, so, but no explain

209
00:12:41,520 --> 00:12:43,400
Speaker 1: to people what were they after.

210
00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:47,079
Speaker 2: It's taken a long time to assemble what they were

211
00:12:47,120 --> 00:12:51,160
Speaker 2: really after because no one really talked about it, and

212
00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:53,200
Speaker 2: it was kind of embarrassing. One of the reasons I'm

213
00:12:53,240 --> 00:12:58,320
Speaker 2: convinced that Lyddy was silent is because of the stupidity

214
00:12:58,679 --> 00:13:05,640
Speaker 2: of all the activities that have been carried on. For example,

215
00:13:05,720 --> 00:13:09,960
Speaker 2: he post Watergate acted like he was some James Bond

216
00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:13,120
Speaker 2: type character who had been hired by the White House

217
00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:15,960
Speaker 2: to come in and do these things. As the historical

218
00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:19,600
Speaker 2: record shows, he's not quite at the Maxwell's smart level

219
00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:21,959
Speaker 2: in most of his undertakings.

220
00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:26,400
Speaker 1: Another reference from our childhood sad you know Maxwell's spot.

221
00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:31,520
Speaker 2: Anyway, what they were looking for it appears to me.

222
00:13:31,920 --> 00:13:34,360
Speaker 2: It appeared to me at the time, and I have

223
00:13:34,520 --> 00:13:38,040
Speaker 2: since been even more convinced with a pure fishing expedition,

224
00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:40,199
Speaker 2: they were just in there trying to find anything they

225
00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:43,760
Speaker 2: could of a negative nature, and hopefully on Larry O'Brien,

226
00:13:43,800 --> 00:13:48,839
Speaker 2: the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

227
00:13:49,160 --> 00:13:52,960
Speaker 1: So during the period where you're called in now and

228
00:13:53,040 --> 00:13:56,040
Speaker 1: you become pulled into this circle to help solve this problem,

229
00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:57,200
Speaker 1: when does that commence?

230
00:13:57,440 --> 00:14:00,760
Speaker 2: On the nineteenth I'm the person who who's in charge

231
00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:03,840
Speaker 2: of finding out what's happening and keeping abreast of what's happening,

232
00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:07,520
Speaker 2: talking to people in the Justice Department, talking to the FBI,

233
00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:10,640
Speaker 2: talking to the re election committee that has its own

234
00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:15,199
Speaker 2: group of lawyers, and then bringing that information in. And

235
00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:18,680
Speaker 2: what happened is the re election Committee started calling on

236
00:14:18,720 --> 00:14:21,440
Speaker 2: the White House for help. One of the interesting things

237
00:14:21,560 --> 00:14:25,560
Speaker 2: is I've always been convinced that John Mitchell, who we know,

238
00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:29,520
Speaker 2: did authorize the Watergate break in. He authorized the money,

239
00:14:29,840 --> 00:14:34,360
Speaker 2: he authorized the plan. He did it in Florida with

240
00:14:34,520 --> 00:14:38,640
Speaker 2: Jeb Magruder, who was his deputy, and Magruder then gave

241
00:14:38,680 --> 00:14:43,160
Speaker 2: the orders. I'm convinced that Mitchell from my initial conversations

242
00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:47,240
Speaker 2: with him on the nineteenth was prepared to step forward

243
00:14:47,280 --> 00:14:50,960
Speaker 2: and say, hey, this happened on my watch. He also

244
00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:53,840
Speaker 2: sent word to the White House over the weekend, stay

245
00:14:53,880 --> 00:14:56,400
Speaker 2: away from it, deflect all the responsibility from the president,

246
00:14:56,480 --> 00:14:59,560
Speaker 2: take it all that happened. That was the original plan.

247
00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:04,040
Speaker 2: But then what happened is he too got a briefing

248
00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:07,240
Speaker 2: as to what Liddy had done and learned of the

249
00:15:07,320 --> 00:15:11,080
Speaker 2: Ellsberg break, in which he thought was is bad, if

250
00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:13,960
Speaker 2: not worse than what had happened at the Watergate. And

251
00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:17,560
Speaker 2: he and he and Erlickman, who had always had a

252
00:15:17,600 --> 00:15:21,080
Speaker 2: strained relationship, they often in a room would talk to

253
00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:23,960
Speaker 2: each other through me. They would turn to me and say,

254
00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:27,160
Speaker 2: like the other person wasn't in the room. And that's

255
00:15:27,200 --> 00:15:29,920
Speaker 2: how I slowly became the lynchpin, like.

256
00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:30,840
Speaker 1: A marriage counseter.

257
00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:36,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, because that's that's how I became the lynchpin

258
00:15:36,280 --> 00:15:37,680
Speaker 2: of this conspiracy.

259
00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:51,760
Speaker 1: We're taking a break, stay with us. When you're in

260
00:15:51,760 --> 00:15:53,960
Speaker 1: a room with these guys, I only have a sense

261
00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:57,560
Speaker 1: of them from archival footage from the news, and so

262
00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:01,000
Speaker 1: when they do seem like a pretty not a very

263
00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:05,320
Speaker 1: lighthearted crowd, you know what I mean. And Haldeman and

264
00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:09,280
Speaker 1: Erlickman and Mitchell. They seemed like some pretty dark crowd

265
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:10,880
Speaker 1: in terms of because I'm going to read a quote

266
00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:14,840
Speaker 1: for you from because you were on the Commission on

267
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:18,320
Speaker 1: Reform of Federal Criminal Laws right as the War on

268
00:16:18,440 --> 00:16:20,720
Speaker 1: drugs was beginning. And then the next thing you know,

269
00:16:20,840 --> 00:16:26,200
Speaker 1: you're intimately working in a room with Erlickman, who said

270
00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:28,960
Speaker 1: the following right before he died. He said that Nicks

271
00:16:28,960 --> 00:16:32,360
Speaker 1: about Nixon Republicans. He said that Nixon Republicans had two enemies,

272
00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:36,320
Speaker 1: the anti war left and black people. We knew it

273
00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:38,960
Speaker 1: couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war

274
00:16:39,160 --> 00:16:41,840
Speaker 1: or black, but by getting the public to associate the

275
00:16:41,880 --> 00:16:45,600
Speaker 1: hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing

276
00:16:45,680 --> 00:16:49,920
Speaker 1: both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. And he said,

277
00:16:49,920 --> 00:16:52,040
Speaker 1: do we know we were lying about drugs? Of course

278
00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:54,240
Speaker 1: we did. When you're in the room with these guys

279
00:16:54,240 --> 00:16:55,360
Speaker 1: and you get a sense that you have.

280
00:16:55,440 --> 00:16:58,160
Speaker 2: Never heard that kind of talk, it wasn't until I

281
00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:03,520
Speaker 2: years later my last book, I cataloged all of the

282
00:17:03,640 --> 00:17:08,480
Speaker 2: Nixon Watergate conversations. I heard on those tapes. Things I'd

283
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:10,680
Speaker 2: never heard those men say in front of me. They

284
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:14,240
Speaker 2: were their own small unit that would talk about these

285
00:17:14,280 --> 00:17:17,600
Speaker 2: things at a level that I wasn't privy. There were

286
00:17:17,640 --> 00:17:21,720
Speaker 2: some chilling stuff that and racist stuff that I'd never

287
00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:27,200
Speaker 2: seen in Erlichman before. In those tapes. It's a remarkable record.

288
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:29,639
Speaker 2: No president's ever going to leave that behind again.

289
00:17:30,119 --> 00:17:37,359
Speaker 1: When well, I'd be too hasty.

290
00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:42,120
Speaker 2: Now you're hopeful.

291
00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:46,120
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to get to the comparisons of contrast

292
00:17:46,119 --> 00:17:48,159
Speaker 1: at a minute. Both houses of the Congress were in

293
00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:49,760
Speaker 1: Democratic hands at the time.

294
00:17:49,560 --> 00:17:51,880
Speaker 2: Correct, But it was a different Democratic party. Of course,

295
00:17:52,040 --> 00:17:55,800
Speaker 2: it was a party with Southern Democrats who were today Republicans.

296
00:17:56,320 --> 00:18:00,760
Speaker 2: So it divided. He believed and hell out the belief

297
00:18:00,760 --> 00:18:02,960
Speaker 2: for a long time. I think that he could with

298
00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:09,560
Speaker 2: a combination of Republicans and Southern Democrats, keep his office

299
00:18:10,119 --> 00:18:14,080
Speaker 2: through an impeachment bill of impeachment in the House, if

300
00:18:14,119 --> 00:18:17,000
Speaker 2: not defeating that, certainly not getting two thirds of the

301
00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:21,560
Speaker 2: Senate to vote against him for removal. So it's a

302
00:18:21,560 --> 00:18:25,359
Speaker 2: different Democratic party. It's true, it was not controlled by

303
00:18:25,920 --> 00:18:28,840
Speaker 2: the South either. It was more more moderate to progressives.

304
00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:32,720
Speaker 2: It did, and if you recall, it's very slow that

305
00:18:32,760 --> 00:18:37,000
Speaker 2: the impeachment process starts with Watergate, it isn't until he

306
00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:43,840
Speaker 2: removes the Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, that they take this seriously.

307
00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:48,439
Speaker 2: That while that itself may not be an obstruction of justice,

308
00:18:49,160 --> 00:18:52,760
Speaker 2: an impeachment, or a criminal offense, he had the power

309
00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:56,359
Speaker 2: to do it a lot of parallels with today. He

310
00:18:56,760 --> 00:18:59,880
Speaker 2: certainly politically had made a terrible mistake.

311
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:03,480
Speaker 1: There were Republicans, obviously on the Judiciary Committee and in

312
00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:05,359
Speaker 1: the Congress who were willing to vote for it.

313
00:19:05,480 --> 00:19:08,679
Speaker 2: Slowly but surely they did. They were with the moderates first,

314
00:19:08,840 --> 00:19:12,840
Speaker 2: and then finally by the end when they heard the

315
00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:17,600
Speaker 2: so called smoking gun tape, which showed Nixons had based

316
00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:21,399
Speaker 2: his defense up until the end on the fact that

317
00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:24,320
Speaker 2: he knew nothing of the Watergate cover up until I

318
00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:28,119
Speaker 2: had told him on March twenty first, in a conversation

319
00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:33,359
Speaker 2: that was labeled to Cancer on the Presidency Conversation, he

320
00:19:33,440 --> 00:19:35,399
Speaker 2: said that was the first he'd learned. Well, that was

321
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:38,480
Speaker 2: a pretty outrageous lie, and he got caught in it

322
00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:45,080
Speaker 2: just by really the Special prosecutor fishing for a tape,

323
00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:50,520
Speaker 2: and one of that, and that tape showed him telling

324
00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:56,159
Speaker 2: or agreeing with Holloman's plan to have this CIA block

325
00:19:56,359 --> 00:19:58,760
Speaker 2: the FBI's investigation.

326
00:19:58,240 --> 00:20:00,679
Speaker 1: In the Watergate station with hold them.

327
00:20:00,720 --> 00:20:04,560
Speaker 2: It takes place when June twenty third, right after the breaking,

328
00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:07,399
Speaker 2: right six days after after right, and.

329
00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:10,960
Speaker 1: And these are the tapes that he was forced to surrender,

330
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:14,359
Speaker 1: which he would I don't understand that he did surrender

331
00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:16,320
Speaker 1: the tapes. Other than the gap, the famous.

332
00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:19,480
Speaker 2: Gap, there would have been an interesting constitutional crisis if

333
00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:23,399
Speaker 2: he had said to the Supreme Court, Okay, I've got

334
00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:27,880
Speaker 2: you willing, I think it's wrong, and I'm president. I've

335
00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:31,560
Speaker 2: got the troops. You come get the tapes. This is

336
00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:34,480
Speaker 2: my property, this is my pa. You're not entitled to

337
00:20:34,520 --> 00:20:36,679
Speaker 2: have this property. And history would have been very different.

338
00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,359
Speaker 1: As everybody knows, it's a famous gap. In eighteen minutes,

339
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:41,800
Speaker 1: eighteen and a half minute eighteen, I was going to say,

340
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:43,120
Speaker 1: it's a media.

341
00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:45,800
Speaker 2: It's a media invented event.

342
00:20:46,359 --> 00:20:48,000
Speaker 1: So there was no erasure at all.

343
00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:54,480
Speaker 2: No, a strong man could press the record button and

344
00:20:55,560 --> 00:21:01,680
Speaker 2: cause the eraser, and the experts saw seven nine efforts

345
00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:03,359
Speaker 2: to erase that material.

346
00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:07,040
Speaker 1: What do you think was erased on those types? Is

347
00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:09,920
Speaker 1: there everybody well satisfied you?

348
00:21:09,960 --> 00:21:14,119
Speaker 2: No, Because I've listened to the conversations that precede and

349
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:17,680
Speaker 2: follow Nixon had a pattern of repeating things that were

350
00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:22,119
Speaker 2: important or sort of sensitive. They would come up in

351
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:25,960
Speaker 2: subsequent conversations. This is a very early conversation. This is

352
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:29,600
Speaker 2: on June twentieth, his first conversation back. That's why it

353
00:21:29,640 --> 00:21:34,360
Speaker 2: was subpoenaed. And I think it was just a gaff

354
00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:39,280
Speaker 2: that resulted in that probably being erased, and it could

355
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 2: have The person that occurred to me that could have

356
00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:44,479
Speaker 2: done it was somebody who had a terrible time opening

357
00:21:44,480 --> 00:21:48,520
Speaker 2: those medicine bottles you press in turn. I'd see it

358
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:51,520
Speaker 2: in his mouth occasionally trying to get the cap off.

359
00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:55,840
Speaker 2: He had trouble opening its drawers. He hadn't driven a

360
00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:59,160
Speaker 2: car in years. This was a very foreign kind of machine.

361
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:02,080
Speaker 1: Did Nixon order the breaking himself?

362
00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:04,880
Speaker 2: No, No, there's no evidence of that. There's no evidence

363
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:09,480
Speaker 2: that anybody in the White House knew. What's ironic, Alec

364
00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:15,400
Speaker 2: is that had the mission of the evening actually been accomplished,

365
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:18,600
Speaker 2: rather than Lyddy and his men being arrested or Lydy's

366
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:21,760
Speaker 2: men being arrested, it was traceable to the White House.

367
00:22:22,320 --> 00:22:25,199
Speaker 2: Their mission that night was really to go plant a

368
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 2: bug in McGovern's headquarters on Capitol Hill. The reason they

369
00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:33,679
Speaker 2: didn't do that is, they got arrested fixing a defective

370
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 2: machinery that they'd put in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

371
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:43,399
Speaker 2: You can trace back through tapes and Holleman memos that

372
00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:47,480
Speaker 2: Nixon gives an order to put a plant a secretary

373
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 2: or a volunteer or something like that, move it from

374
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:55,000
Speaker 2: Muskie to McGovern not particularly a wiretap.

375
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:59,000
Speaker 1: So as we come rolling into seventy three, right as

376
00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:02,920
Speaker 1: he's a or things changed dramatically for him. What kind

377
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:04,840
Speaker 1: of things is he asking you to do? And what

378
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 1: was he like to work with her in that time?

379
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:11,439
Speaker 2: Jumping back to August twenty ninth of seventy two, pre election,

380
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 2: he had a press conference and one of the early

381
00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:19,000
Speaker 2: questions he's asked is mister President, giving the factor your

382
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:22,080
Speaker 2: Attorney General is now the head of the re election

383
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,200
Speaker 2: committee and somebody from the re election committee was arrested

384
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 2: in the DNC, why don't you appoint a special prosecutor?

385
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:32,680
Speaker 2: And he has his response all prepared and he says, well,

386
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:36,439
Speaker 2: first of all, the Congress is investigating this, the General

387
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:41,439
Speaker 2: Accounting Office is investigating it, the FBI is investigating it.

388
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:46,160
Speaker 2: But most importantly, my White House Counsel John Dean has

389
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:50,439
Speaker 2: investigated this matter and found nobody presently employed in this

390
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:54,359
Speaker 2: administration had anything to do with this bizarre incident. This

391
00:23:54,480 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 2: was the first I heard of my investigation. After that,

392
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 2: his press secretary, Ron Ziegler, called and said, John, do

393
00:24:04,119 --> 00:24:07,120
Speaker 2: you have a copy of your report? I said, Ron,

394
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 2: there is no report. He said, well, maybe there should be,

395
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 2: and I said, well, I don't think so anyways, think so?

396
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:17,399
Speaker 2: Why because I didn't want to lie. I didn't want

397
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 2: to You knew that they wanted you to doctor something.

398
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 2: It was quite clear they want yes. Yes. What happens

399
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 2: is when we're going back to when I first start

400
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 2: dealing with with Nixon, he starts on the report again

401
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 2: that he wants a Dean report. He is convinced somehow

402
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 2: this will make things go away. Erlichman makes it pretty

403
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 2: clear that what he can do is have this report

404
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:42,960
Speaker 2: in his desk drawer and say this is all I knew.

405
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 2: It didn't take me long, you know, I figured that

406
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:50,440
Speaker 2: out immediately, that that this would be a setup, and

407
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 2: I had no interest in line, I had no interest

408
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 2: in giving the false information to the president and didn't.

409
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 2: But he presses me on that there were actually three

410
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 2: phases of the cover up for me. I initially thought

411
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,920
Speaker 2: I was just helping out my colleagues and didn't see

412
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 2: anything criminally amiss. Defense funds were not unusual at that time.

413
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:19,400
Speaker 2: Not announcing them didn't sound horrible to me. I didn't

414
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:23,399
Speaker 2: see any quid pro quo in anything. Nothing struck me

415
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,919
Speaker 2: amiss at this point, as I say, I'm not trained

416
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 2: as a criminal lawyer either. Defense funds. What do you

417
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:33,359
Speaker 2: mean defense funds? The Barrigin brothers for the had a

418
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 2: defense fund the Chicago What are you talking about criminal

419
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:40,439
Speaker 2: criminal defense yet? And that's what actually Nick, there's a

420
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:44,480
Speaker 2: tape of Nixon suggesting that there'd be a defense fund

421
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 2: set up for the Cubans who had been hired by

422
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 2: Hunt and Lyddy to pay their lawyer's fees and what

423
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,200
Speaker 2: have you. If he had done that openly, he might

424
00:25:56,240 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 2: have avoided obstructing justice. It's very curious, and Halleman and

425
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:03,680
Speaker 2: Erlikman dropped that I never heard about that. In fact,

426
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 2: when I first hear about it, I don't know what

427
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 2: he's really what he's talking about anyway, phases of the

428
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 2: cover up for me, I initially don't think I'm engaging

429
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 2: in criminal conduct when I realize I am is. After

430
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:23,959
Speaker 2: the election, Howard Hunt calls Chuck Coulson, and Coulson records

431
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 2: the call on a dictaphone. He had his phone hooked

432
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 2: up to a dictaphone, as many did in the White House,

433
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 2: and he brought this tape down to me to play

434
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 2: of his conversation with Hunt. And he's proud of punch

435
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 2: of this conversation, because Coulson is because it exonerates him

436
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 2: in the Watergate, that he had nothing to do with

437
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 2: the Watergate break in I hear something very different. I

438
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 2: hear Hunt demanding that he get paid sooner rather than later,

439
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 2: that promises have been made to him to take care

440
00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 2: of him, they haven't been delivered, and the ready is there.

441
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 2: I immediately say to Chuck, this is very bad. Chuck.

442
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 2: He said, well, what are you going to do about it?

443
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 2: I said, I don't know. What I did do is

444
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 2: take the tape up to Halleman and Erlickman and played

445
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 2: it for them. They said, take it to John Mitchell

446
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 2: and get him to solve the problem, which I next

447
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 2: did that same day and took it up to New

448
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 2: York and played it for Mitchell, whose first reaction is

449
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 2: don't you ever have anything good news to report? And

450
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 2: I said, no, John, I don't anyway. It's after listening

451
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 2: to that conversation, I let my fingers do the walking

452
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:38,359
Speaker 2: in the criminal code to figure out what in the

453
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 2: world are we doing. And I discovered eighteen USC. Fifteen

454
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 2: oh three, which is the obstruction statute, and I discover

455
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 2: eighteen Usc. Three seventy one, the conspiracy statute, and I

456
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 2: realized we're in a whole lot of trouble. Now. You

457
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,440
Speaker 2: might have thought that the first reaction would be to

458
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 2: run for the hills. I had exactly the opposite reaction.

459
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:05,679
Speaker 2: That's when I double down. That's when I try to

460
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 2: make the cover up work. I know today psychologically what

461
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 2: was going on. I was in what they call the

462
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 2: loss frame, where you have no attractive options and you

463
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:21,199
Speaker 2: do stupid things. It's unfortunately part of human nature. Happens

464
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 2: a lot to a lot of people. I don't did you.

465
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: Feel a loyalty personally to any of these people. Had

466
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:30,680
Speaker 1: you developed any kind of closeness with them as a person.

467
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:35,639
Speaker 2: As a co conspirator, Yes, I did. I wanted the

468
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 2: cover up to work at that point, and that's when

469
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:43,719
Speaker 2: I do dumb things like destroyed documents knowing, yes, you know,

470
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 2: and I never understood, and for years you know what

471
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 2: had happened. Then the last phase of my involvement in

472
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 2: the cover up is when Haunt sends a message to

473
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 2: me that he's going to have seemy things to say

474
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 2: about John Erlickman and by implication, Bud Krogue, one of

475
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 2: his assistants regarding his break in at the Elsberg psychiatrist's

476
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 2: office fiasco. That's when I sort of say, my god,

477
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 2: this is never going to end. We're being extorted. There

478
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 2: will be no end in it. It's this cover up

479
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 2: is not going to work, and we've got to figure

480
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 2: out how to stop it and get the president out

481
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 2: in front of it. And that's March nineteenth when that

482
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 2: word comes in. I have by then started to have

483
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 2: enough dealings with the President that I think he's got

484
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 2: trust in me. And so on March the morning of

485
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 2: March twenty first, I go in after setting it breaking

486
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 2: precedent because you weren't supposed to go to the president

487
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 2: other than through Haldeman. When he called me that night,

488
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 2: I said, mister President, I really need to talk to you,

489
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 2: and he said, how about ten o'clock I said, fine,

490
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 2: I'll be there. I called Haleman that morning and said,

491
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 2: I need to go in and lay it ou to

492
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 2: the president. He really doesn't get it. I don't know

493
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 2: if Hallaman understood what I was talking about or not,

494
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 2: but he said, fine, you do what you think is necessary.

495
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 2: I went in and tried to give him enough back,

496
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 2: given the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know anything.

497
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 2: I know today he knew almost virtually everything. But I

498
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 2: took him through each step, and every time I would

499
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 2: raise one of the problems, he'd have an answer. I'd raise,

500
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 2: for example, Bud Krog is worried he's committed perjury. Nixon's response, well,

501
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 2: John Pergree is a tough rap to prove. I raised

502
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 2: the fact that Hunt was demanding one hundred and twenty

503
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 2: thousand dollars yesterday he wonted fifty thousand for his attorney's

504
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 2: fees and seventy for his living expenses and what have you,

505
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 2: because he had by then been convicted.

506
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: What's the linix in the famousite we could get the

507
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 1: money if we had to.

508
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 2: That's exactly the line. That's your coming to it. And

509
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 2: and and I said, miss President, I have no idea

510
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 2: how much this might cost? And he said, well, what

511
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 2: do you think? What you give me an estimate? I

512
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 2: pulled out a thin air what I thought was a

513
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 2: hefty number. I said, a million dollars. That would be

514
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 2: what about five and a half today, never having tried

515
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:22,959
Speaker 2: to even kind of, you know, calculate what it might be.

516
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 2: And that's when he said, that's no problem. I know

517
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 2: where we can get that. And what I didn't know is,

518
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 2: well until I actually did did this book with all

519
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 2: the tapes, is after that conversation, he goes over to

520
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 2: rose Woods door, which is adjoining his off the Oval office,

521
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 2: and asked Rose in a voice you can hear on

522
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 2: the tapes, how much is in the slush fund? There's

523
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 2: six hundred thousand. He will within a week or so

524
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 2: be selling an ambassadorship to raise money. He's on the job.

525
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 2: He's gonna solve this. He's going to get the million

526
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 2: bucks and say take.

527
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 1: Care of it. If John Dean was the ultimate Nixon insider,

528
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: essayist and satirist Lewis Lapham was the ultimate outsider. Despite

529
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 1: their shared patrician roots, Lapham skewered the administration and its

530
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: Wartergate troubles from behind the covers of Harper's Magazine, where

531
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: he was the managing editor throughout the scandal.

532
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 3: I never liked or trusted Nixon. I came out of

533
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 3: the you know, the affluent, privileged San Francisco society, San

534
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 3: Francisco society. My father had been very strongly in favor

535
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 3: of Roosevelt. In nineteen thirty two.

536
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 1: Hear my conversation with Lewis Lapham at Here's the Thing

537
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: dot org coming up more from Richard Nixon's White House

538
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: Council on lessons from Watergate for Trump and the rest

539
00:32:53,760 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: of us. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's

540
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: the Thing now more of my conversation with John Dean.

541
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: When you talk about this period, you say that I'm

542
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: going to stop this or I'm having my doubts because

543
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: the cover up you don't think is going to work.

544
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 1: Would you have kept going if you thought the cover

545
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 1: up would work?

546
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 2: You know the President at the end of my March

547
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 2: twenty first cancer on the Presidency where I used that

548
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 2: phrase to get his attention, and I had it after that,

549
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 2: I was I think that's the day I met Richard Nixon,

550
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 2: the real Nixon, because I took him through one problem

551
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 2: after another problem after another problem, waiting for his fist

552
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 2: or hand to come down on the desk and say

553
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 2: this has got to stop. That isn't the man I

554
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 2: met that morning. He had answers for everything, and that

555
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 2: it had to continue, that somebody should take care of

556
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 2: this problem with Hunt, and that there was no short

557
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 2: term answer. He wanted the cover up to go on.

558
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 2: I had nothing to do with Hunt getting paid. He

559
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 2: did get paid. Mitchell took care of it, and Hunt

560
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 2: would remain a bought man until the Watergate prosecutor is

561
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 2: trying Halleman and Erlikman and Mitchell in the cover up

562
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 2: trial in October of nineteen seventy four, which is quite remarkable.

563
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:32,399
Speaker 2: And then he would decide that he would tell the truth.

564
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,479
Speaker 2: And he was the Perry Mason witness that came into

565
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 2: the trial and nobody knew was going to arrive and

566
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:42,880
Speaker 2: explain what the Watergate break in was, how things had operated,

567
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 2: and was very candid and very honest.

568
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned the three phases of the cover up.

569
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: Did you cover all three of those or was there

570
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: another one?

571
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 2: I did. The last phase was ending trying to end

572
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 2: the cover up and realizing the only way I could

573
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 2: end it and telling my colleagues, I'm going to the prosecutors.

574
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 2: This has got you know, we've got a deal with this.

575
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:05,319
Speaker 2: We need criminal lawyers in here. I'm going to hire

576
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 2: a criminal lawyer. And who'd you hire? I hired a

577
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:15,440
Speaker 2: college law school classmate initially to talk about a man

578
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:20,320
Speaker 2: who later became the chief Judge of the Federal District

579
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 2: Court in DC, Tom Hogan, and we talked about it,

580
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:28,120
Speaker 2: and he suggested Charlie Shaffer, who had worked here in

581
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 2: the Southern District, was a very accomplished prosecutor and had

582
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 2: become a very successful criminal defense lawyer, and he was

583
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 2: terrific for a while. Had one foot in the White

584
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 2: House and one foot out of the White House. But

585
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 2: didn't hide it from my colleagues what I was doing either.

586
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 1: You're a very young man when this is happening, and

587
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: you're married. I mean, we talked backstage about how your

588
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:57,399
Speaker 1: wife becomes kind of a bit player of the whole thing.

589
00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: Is the case, as you said, the camera found her,

590
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: your beautiful wife, Maureen Dean, and she was there.

591
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 2: She had a huge influence on me. I'll want you

592
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 2: to explain that My huge was the anxiety though every day.

593
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 2: You know, I did not want to get married, but

594
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 2: I did not want to lose her. I had been

595
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 2: married and divorced and had a child from that first marriage,

596
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 2: and I had fallen in love with her and we'd

597
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 2: had a wonderful relationship. She wanted to get married, and

598
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:35,439
Speaker 2: I just knew this was a bad time. I didn't

599
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 2: know how bad it was.

600
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 1: I got married how much? When did you know?

601
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:46,439
Speaker 2: I get married in October of nineteen seventy two, very

602
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 2: bad time. We have now been married forty five years,

603
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:57,720
Speaker 2: so you know, you know, the first time that happened

604
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 2: to me was not long ago when I when I

605
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:03,319
Speaker 2: said that to somebody, I happened to be in Nashville

606
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 2: giving a talk because of Jim Neil, who was one

607
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 2: of the Watergate Special prosecutors. They became like fang friends,

608
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 2: many of these guys and one woman and his former

609
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 2: law firm. He's deceased now, but his former law firm

610
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:22,440
Speaker 2: had a program and I came down to speak, and

611
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:27,400
Speaker 2: there was a boys' school there. It's a very fine academy,

612
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 2: and they asked me to come out and do their assembly,

613
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 2: and seven hundred kids filed in and I somehow in

614
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,320
Speaker 2: passing mentioned that I had been married to Maureen forty

615
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 2: five years and the kids broke out in applause, and

616
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,280
Speaker 2: I thought, isn't that nice? I mean, I was very pleasing.

617
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: Can imagine what that's like.

618
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 2: To be married for forty five years? Like?

619
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 1: What really now? When you go home? I mean, I'm

620
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 1: trying to get you to talk about something just in

621
00:37:57,520 --> 00:38:00,399
Speaker 1: terms of your personal feelings and your emotional life. Were

622
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 1: you going home and you know, and having dinner with

623
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: your wife and sitting having a drink and saying, what

624
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:08,319
Speaker 1: the hell am I going to do? Or did you

625
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 1: try to protect her and not?

626
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 2: I protected her? I you know, I tried to warn.

627
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: Her, you know, until you give me your wife what's

628
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 1: going on. I tried to.

629
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 2: Explain to her there were going to be problems, but

630
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 2: I wasn't terribly.

631
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 1: I just got married.

632
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 2: And depth about it. I must. Somebody recently asked me

633
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 2: how did I get through it all? And my answer

634
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 2: was vodka.

635
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: So you did not confide a great deal.

636
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 2: In her, No I didn't. You did none of you know, essentially,

637
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 2: none of the men talked to their wives about what

638
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 2: was going on. I'm sure more lamps would have been

639
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 2: overheads if some of the women had learned about what

640
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 2: was going on when it was going on. I think

641
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:54,920
Speaker 2: all the wives were shocked at some of this. But anyway,

642
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 2: as I said, she had a tremendous influence on me.

643
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:00,560
Speaker 2: When I decided to break rank, one of the reasons

644
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:04,239
Speaker 2: was I didn't want to disappoint her. I wanted to

645
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:05,720
Speaker 2: live up to the standard. She thought.

646
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: March sixteenth is when you said the meeting was with

647
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: him cancer on the president March twenty first, twenty first,

648
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 1: and how soon after that do you get canned?

649
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:15,320
Speaker 2: End of April.

650
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:16,799
Speaker 1: There's very tight.

651
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 2: It's tight, but the tapes are fascinating. The tapes. My

652
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 2: editor happens to be here tonight and he helped me tremendously.

653
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 2: That there were four I ended up with four million

654
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 2: words in twenty thick notebooks of transcripts that we had

655
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 2: to bring down to narrative and dialogue. And when I

656
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 2: got to those tapes in that period at the end,

657
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:45,400
Speaker 2: after I'd given him the cancer and the presidency, the

658
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 2: conversations are so repetitive. I mean, they just go over

659
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 2: and over trying to figure out how to deal with me.

660
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 2: What are they going to do? And generally the only

661
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 2: answer is to make me the scapegoat. He's afraid of me.

662
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 2: When he he lets Halleman and Erlkman go, he just,

663
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 2: in a one sentence says, and so is White House

664
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 2: counsel John Dene no shots at me at all, because

665
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:12,880
Speaker 2: when I get in there, I start telling him things

666
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 2: he doesn't even know. He didn't know until I tell

667
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 2: him on March seventeenth that there had been the break

668
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 2: in at Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office and Erlikman had been behind it.

669
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 2: Erlkman had never shared this with him. The reason I'm

670
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:31,759
Speaker 2: convinced those men never got pardons by Nixon when he

671
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 2: was on his way out the door is he figured

672
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 2: out that they really hadn't kept him informed, and they

673
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 2: had their own agenda, and they were protecting themselves. I

674
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:46,399
Speaker 2: actually tried to get everybody to flip inside. I thought

675
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 2: that was I thought that would be so sobering for

676
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 2: Nixon and everybody else could just stand up and take

677
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 2: responsibility that his presidence tried.

678
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: I tried. Did you get close to anyone?

679
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 2: I think some people did? You know? Based on the tapes,

680
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 2: there is some indication that people did give it some

681
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 2: thought but they realized that it was the end of

682
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 2: their careers.

683
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: So in nineteen seventy if you begin working in the

684
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,400
Speaker 1: White House in nineteen seventy an hour in the spring

685
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:22,480
Speaker 1: of seventy three, which is an eternity to be in

686
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:24,720
Speaker 1: the White House for a couple of years for some people,

687
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 1: do you notice, and I want to preface this with someone,

688
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: do you notice the old Nixon returning? Because as Nixon,

689
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:35,319
Speaker 1: as everybody knows, who's the vice president for two terms

690
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 1: under Eisenhower, not somebody who was adored by the staff

691
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 1: of the White House in the Eisenhower bus.

692
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 2: He was Eisenhower's heavy I mean, he had the job

693
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 2: of going out and being the hatchet man and being

694
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:47,919
Speaker 2: the attack dog.

695
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: And then he obviously loses a couple of elections, most

696
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,960
Speaker 1: notably the presidential election of nineteen sixty. I mean, the

697
00:41:56,320 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 1: Nixon has always been somebody who's a bitter, bitter, you

698
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 1: know type, who is this what you begin to see?

699
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: I mean, Nixon wins election in sixty eighty, wins re

700
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,759
Speaker 1: election in seventy two by a landslide, and you're in

701
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 1: that room with him in the spring of seventy three,

702
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: and is this the old Nixon.

703
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:18,799
Speaker 2: What I realize is that the old Nixon has never

704
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 2: gone away. He's always been there. What they've done very

705
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 2: effectively is portray a new Nixon. You know, in doing

706
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:29,879
Speaker 2: the book where I listened to all these conversations. As

707
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 2: I was telling my editor tonight, I didn't wear hearing

708
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 2: aids before that experience. I made the mistake of having

709
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 2: earphones on which destroyed my hearing. And I told Moe

710
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 2: at one point, God forbid. The last voice I hear

711
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 2: is Richard Nixon in this project. But I when I

712
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:52,280
Speaker 2: was listening to these tapes occasionally I would, in queuing

713
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 2: them up, would find things that I thought that the

714
00:42:54,840 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 2: archives had removed. They theoretically have taken out all the

715
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:02,359
Speaker 2: personal material and returned it to the Nixons. But there

716
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 2: are some very personal conversations. For example, in January of

717
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 2: seventy three, he learns that he from a lower aid

718
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 2: that he indeed they may have peace in Vietnam. The

719
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 2: first person he calls is not Henry Kissinger. He calls

720
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:25,760
Speaker 2: Pat Nixon. They have a lovely conversation. It really struck

721
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 2: me that their marriage was much different than I had

722
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 2: perceived it. And she, you know, is pleased with him,

723
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:38,239
Speaker 2: proud of him. It's a lovely husband wife conversation. Same

724
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 2: thing happened to occasionally when I found conversations with the

725
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 2: President and his daughters, Tricia and Julie. They're some really

726
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:52,399
Speaker 2: nice conversations. I'm sure that family was stunned when these

727
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 2: tapes came out, and that's probably one of the reasons

728
00:43:55,040 --> 00:43:57,720
Speaker 2: he spent so much of his life after even leaving

729
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 2: to try to prevent the tapes ever all surfacing. One

730
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:05,319
Speaker 2: of the reasons Nixon covers up is he's worried about

731
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 2: John Mitchell. Becomes very clear from the tapes. It's not

732
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:11,840
Speaker 2: that he's worried about his own guilt. He's not worried

733
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 2: about the Ellsberg break in. He's worried about the impact

734
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 2: it's going to have on his Attorney General, John Mitchell,

735
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 2: who he thinks will never survive it and can't handle it.

736
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:25,400
Speaker 2: So he's trying to protect Mitchell. Different people have different

737
00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 2: motives at different times along the way.

738
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 1: So you finally get canned by Nixon himself.

739
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 2: When well, I'm out of town on April thirtieth when

740
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 2: he gives a speech.

741
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 1: So he didn't fire your face to face.

742
00:44:39,160 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 2: No on April sixteenth, he called me in and said,

743
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 2: I think we need to talk about resignation, and I've

744
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:48,720
Speaker 2: drafted a couple of letters. Well, I knew he hadn't

745
00:44:48,719 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 2: written the letters, and I immediately read them, and they

746
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 2: were confessions. I said, this is obviously John Erlickman's handiwork.

747
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 2: So I took them back. I took the letters. I said,

748
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:01,840
Speaker 2: mister President, I'll write my own letter and send it

749
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:03,160
Speaker 2: to you, and which I did.

750
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: So this event in American history, obviously is chronicled in

751
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: famous books and famous movies made of those books. And

752
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 1: I was wondering, when you first see All the President's Men,

753
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 1: which comes out pretty quickly after the movie it does

754
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 1: it does well in the film, or will come out

755
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 1: within a couple of years or eighteen months, what'd you

756
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: think of the film when you first saw it.

757
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:29,759
Speaker 2: I first saw a director showing of it. Alan Pakula

758
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 2: had a showing and invited me. And after, you know,

759
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:38,800
Speaker 2: there were fifty people in a little theater. After the movie,

760
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 2: I went up to him and said thank you. He said,

761
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 2: why are you thank you me? I said, I'm thanking

762
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 2: you for not mentioning my name anywhere in the movie,

763
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:51,879
Speaker 2: and He said, that's not possible. I said, you might check.

764
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:54,759
Speaker 2: It is possible. I said, even when that ticker goes

765
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 2: across at the end and gets all the names that

766
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:00,840
Speaker 2: it has not otherwise involved, my name is not mentioned.

767
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is?

768
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 2: I don't know. Okay, but he didn't change it. He

769
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 2: didn't go back and add my name.

770
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: But you appreciated the film. You thought it was accurate.

771
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:13,320
Speaker 2: I think it's a I think it's a slice of

772
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 2: the story. From the media point of view. You don't

773
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 2: drive by the Jefferson or Lincoln memorial every time you

774
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,959
Speaker 2: cross Washington. Though, as you know, what.

775
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,880
Speaker 1: About Nixon about Oliver? Still from what you were a consultant.

776
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 2: I was a consultant on Nixon, and that's.

777
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:31,280
Speaker 1: A far more turgid movie than all the presidents.

778
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,840
Speaker 2: You know, it's much more than Watergate. And what happened

779
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 2: is originally Oliver had in that movie a conspiracy theory

780
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 2: that claimed that Watergate was about a break in at

781
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:50,359
Speaker 2: the Democratic National Committee to expose a call go ring

782
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:56,400
Speaker 2: that my wife worked at. And I had already sued

783
00:46:56,760 --> 00:47:00,439
Speaker 2: the publishers of that story and was in litigation which

784
00:47:00,480 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 2: would go on for nine years.

785
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 1: You're saying, your wife did not work at the col girl,

786
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:05,399
Speaker 1: she did not work at the car. Want to be clear,

787
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 1: she did not work at I won't be walking anyone

788
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 1: with any misconceptions.

789
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 2: People might dream that. But anyway, the I told Oliver,

790
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 2: I said that this is a fraud and you'll end

791
00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 2: up being named in the lawsuit. Anyway, we got off

792
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 2: to that start, and he said, I don't want to

793
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:29,479
Speaker 2: do that sort of thing in this movie. He said,

794
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 2: I am trying to get as much VERI similitude as possible.

795
00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 1: What do you think he captured that was accurate about Nixon?

796
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 1: Uhame a scene because I mean I want that.

797
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 2: One of the scenes. The last scene I objected to

798
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 2: was a scene where he has me meeting with Howard

799
00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 2: Hunt on the Memorial Bridge. And I said, Oliver, that

800
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 2: never occurred. Harris ed, Harris right, it's a great scene

801
00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:57,760
Speaker 2: and you're played by uh David hype person, David Huh.

802
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 2: And I said, Oliver, that's never happened. He said, I've

803
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:03,880
Speaker 2: paid for it. It's going to happen.

804
00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:10,240
Speaker 1: That many people applaud if you've ever seen Oliver Stones.

805
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:14,919
Speaker 1: Nixon said, oh my god, I see.

806
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 2: I thought I thought that I can actually suspend disbelief

807
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 2: with Anthony Hopkins, I think I know you admire him greatly,

808
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,440
Speaker 2: and I've met him when he came back from a

809
00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 2: tour of the Nixon Library with Oliver and they had

810
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 2: kind of slipped through with nobody seeing them, but one

811
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 2: of the docents spotted them at the end of the

812
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:41,080
Speaker 2: tour and she said to Hopkins, who's reporting this to me?

813
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,040
Speaker 2: At lunch right after they had come back, he said,

814
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:46,879
Speaker 2: the dosent stopped me and said, I understand you're playing

815
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:50,520
Speaker 2: mister Nixon. And he said, yes, I am, and he

816
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:53,840
Speaker 2: said and she said to him, he said, well, I

817
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 2: hope you're not doing a job on him. And he

818
00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 2: turned to me and said, I'm not doing a job

819
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 2: on him, am I. I said, I don't think so

820
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 2: in this script? And he said, well, he said, I

821
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 2: want to tell you I kind of sympathize with Nixon.

822
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:09,239
Speaker 2: He said, Tony said that. He said, I grew up

823
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:13,359
Speaker 2: in very humble beginnings, and like Nixon, I could hear

824
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 2: the train whistles and have dreams. And he said, I,

825
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 2: you know, I want to play this guy straight, and

826
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,960
Speaker 2: and that's what I think he tried to do. He

827
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 2: had I noticed I was visited the set a number

828
00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:27,799
Speaker 2: of times, and they had a voice coach for him

829
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 2: there and they tried to take that clip out of

830
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 2: his accent, and they don't always, but that's the only

831
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:38,239
Speaker 2: thing that sort of distracts me with him. I can

832
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 2: believe this is Richard Nixon. He's he's really tries to

833
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:44,399
Speaker 2: capture the man.

834
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:46,799
Speaker 1: With the time we have left, I want to ask you,

835
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 1: obviously about the comparisons and contrast to how we live

836
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 1: our lives now. And it's unlikely that every public can

837
00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:58,719
Speaker 1: control Judiciary committee in this particular, Congress is going to

838
00:49:58,719 --> 00:49:59,839
Speaker 1: return an article to him.

839
00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 2: I think that's very true.

840
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they have as you'll have a president, a

841
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 1: sitting president who's indicted for a crime.

842
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 2: Well, it's not possible right now to indict a sitting president.

843
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:15,400
Speaker 2: What happened is in nineteen seventy three, Sparrow Agnew was

844
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 2: being pursued by the by a grand jury out of Maryland,

845
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 2: and they went to the Department for Tax evasion and

846
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 2: he claimed he couldn't be indicted, he could only be impeached.

847
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 2: They took the question to the Office of Legal Counsel,

848
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 2: which issues those sort of opinions by the Department of

849
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 2: Justice and said, no, mister Vice President, you're wrong. You

850
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 2: can be indicted. It's the president who can't be indicted,

851
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,279
Speaker 2: can only be impeached, and issued an opinion in seventy three.

852
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:48,879
Speaker 2: That opinion was upgraded or revised and readopted in two

853
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:53,920
Speaker 2: thousand when Robert Ray, Independent last week and one of

854
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 2: the last Independent councils, raised that issue regarding Clinton and said, no,

855
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 2: he cannot be indicted as a sitting president. So that's

856
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 2: the policy right now of the Department that no, no

857
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:09,440
Speaker 2: core has ever ruled on it, and many scholars disagree

858
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:11,919
Speaker 2: with it. That they think that no president's above the law.

859
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 2: And indeed, the twenty fifth Amendment makes it possible to

860
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 2: have the president step aside who would be impaired in

861
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:22,520
Speaker 2: his ability to govern and function if he was in

862
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:26,480
Speaker 2: a criminal trial, and to sort that out it could

863
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 2: be done. The issue has not been resolved. There are

864
00:51:31,160 --> 00:51:37,200
Speaker 2: some who think that Special Counsel Mueller might test it.

865
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:39,400
Speaker 1: What do you think Mullett would do?

866
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:47,480
Speaker 2: You're a lawyer, have a fascinating case. It's a tough issue.

867
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:52,879
Speaker 2: You know, there are arguments on both sides, but I

868
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 2: think that the bottom line argument is that no person

869
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 2: in this country is above the law.

870
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 1: I mean the country right now, it seems like it's

871
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:05,200
Speaker 1: so much trouble. You know, the country is in so

872
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:08,160
Speaker 1: much trouble. And you've got.

873
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:11,080
Speaker 2: I have never had a knot in my stomach before

874
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:15,800
Speaker 2: before an election. I did before this election. Right, that

875
00:52:15,960 --> 00:52:17,880
Speaker 2: knot has really never gone away.

876
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:21,919
Speaker 1: Just the damage that proved it and Devace alone will

877
00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:24,240
Speaker 1: do and their departments is going to take a decade

878
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:26,840
Speaker 1: or more to undo, you know, just that things are really.

879
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:29,879
Speaker 2: Bad and too little attention is being paid to what's

880
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:34,719
Speaker 2: happening out in those departments and agencies. And most striking

881
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 2: to me Alec is the fact he has no competence

882
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:41,840
Speaker 2: for the job. He had no training, he did no

883
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:46,399
Speaker 2: he has no knowledge of the office. He's winging it

884
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:53,440
Speaker 2: from day to day. He's got a constituency that is

885
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 2: unshakable for lots of reasons. I think he was he

886
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:02,319
Speaker 2: was shocked to win, unprepared to govern, and but is

887
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 2: growing into the job as he learns it. He's learning

888
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 2: it on the spot. What worries me is he is

889
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 2: going He's not dumb, He's going to learn how the

890
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 2: machinery works. And then I think it's ripe for even

891
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 2: greater abuse.

892
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 1: Well, that's my ultimate question is that is it? Do

893
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:22,240
Speaker 1: you think, because I've said this to people before, that

894
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 1: to remove the President of the United States from office

895
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:28,279
Speaker 1: is a tremendously different, painful and difficult thing. It's also

896
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 1: painful for the country. Yes, do you believe that what's

897
00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:34,319
Speaker 1: best for the country is to not impeach Trump and

898
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 1: to wait until the next election cycle and vote him

899
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:40,279
Speaker 1: out of office? Or do you think impeachment is a healthy

900
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:41,480
Speaker 1: path for the country.

901
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's an appropriate path because

902
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 2: it's it's a constitutional path. The system is designed to

903
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:53,319
Speaker 2: deal with a president who is not playing the game

904
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:56,080
Speaker 2: as it's supposed to be played, and that's a determination

905
00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 2: made by the House of Representatives, which is the closest

906
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:02,239
Speaker 2: to the people, is the House, while we might have

907
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:09,359
Speaker 2: a highly gerrymandered House Paul Ryant House to write, I'm

908
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:14,880
Speaker 2: not sure that. I'm not sure. I think the next election,

909
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:18,160
Speaker 2: the off year election is going to be very telling

910
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen.

911
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:21,360
Speaker 1: So I wonder if if they get swamped in the

912
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 1: midterm and you come out the other side of that

913
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 1: into January of twenty nineteen, and if Pence were to

914
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:33,359
Speaker 1: succeed a Trump that designs Pence would want to come

915
00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:36,279
Speaker 1: in right after January of twenty nineteen, so he was

916
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:39,360
Speaker 1: eligible for ten years in office because if he steps

917
00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 1: if they impeached Trump, now Pence is only eligible for

918
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 1: that piece of Trump's term and only one full term

919
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:46,719
Speaker 1: of his own.

920
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:49,359
Speaker 2: Well, you're assuming he could get re elected. I think

921
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 2: this is going to splash over on Pence.

922
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:54,640
Speaker 1: I don't refute that. I'm just saying that, but that

923
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:57,800
Speaker 1: right now in their hope is that they're going to

924
00:54:57,840 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 1: wait and see what the damage is. In the midterm,

925
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 1: Trump can be rehabilitated. I thought Trump would be gone

926
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:04,640
Speaker 1: by the summer. I thought they'd say to themselves, we

927
00:55:04,719 --> 00:55:06,360
Speaker 1: got to get the smell of the Cordite out of

928
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:08,839
Speaker 1: the room here and bring Pence in here and let

929
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:11,720
Speaker 1: everything clear, if not for twenty eighteen, then for twenty

930
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:14,759
Speaker 1: twenty and prop up Pence as the nominee. But they've

931
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: hung in with him.

932
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:18,640
Speaker 2: But I don't think Trump has that idea of leaving either.

933
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:21,800
Speaker 2: He likes the attention, he likes the fact he can

934
00:55:22,080 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 2: demand the kind of twenty four to seven coverage he

935
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:29,480
Speaker 2: gets his narcissism is large enough to handle it.

936
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 1: Are you a Republican now?

937
00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:34,440
Speaker 2: I haven't been since then? You haven't really I'm an

938
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:39,920
Speaker 2: independent California. We don't have to declare, and I have

939
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:44,720
Speaker 2: not declared, and I have voted both Republican and Democrat.

940
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:46,160
Speaker 1: What do you think is going to What do you

941
00:55:46,160 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 1: think is the future of the Republican Party?

942
00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 2: Bad?

943
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:54,360
Speaker 1: Bad, bad bad. We were going to do a sketch

944
00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 1: on SNL the other day where Trump was going Christmas

945
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 1: shopping with Roy Moore the mall.

946
00:56:05,200 --> 00:56:10,280
Speaker 2: We didn't you know, they killed that idea. The greatest

947
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:14,319
Speaker 2: mistake I've made since Watergate was when Lorn sent out

948
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 2: a feeler if I would host Saturday Night and not

949
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:22,799
Speaker 2: too late and Saturday Night or Simon and Schuster said no,

950
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:24,440
Speaker 2: we don't want you doing that.

951
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 1: It's a very tough, tough, painful time for this country

952
00:56:30,719 --> 00:56:33,040
Speaker 1: right now because I think that I think we need

953
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 1: both parties to be healthy and not have an effective opposition.

954
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:37,960
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that's sad to me

955
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:40,719
Speaker 1: about this Republican Party is they're going down the drain

956
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: with this.

957
00:56:41,560 --> 00:56:46,839
Speaker 2: The difference between opposition and polarization, and we don't seem

958
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 2: to have distinguished that when when when majority doesn't rule,

959
00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:56,200
Speaker 2: we're in trouble in a democracy, and right now a

960
00:56:56,239 --> 00:56:58,680
Speaker 2: minority is controlling the country.

961
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:06,320
Speaker 1: Well, I want to say, please go ahead. Well, I

962
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:08,560
Speaker 1: want to say I'm grateful. I'm sure you've heard this

963
00:57:08,600 --> 00:57:11,080
Speaker 1: before too, that I'm grateful that you found your conscience

964
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:15,919
Speaker 1: back then in March of nineteen seventy three and did

965
00:57:15,920 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 1: the right thing coming out of Camp David and exposed

966
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:21,720
Speaker 1: what you did, told the truth about what you did.

967
00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 1: And I want to say thank you very much for

968
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:25,280
Speaker 1: coming and sitting with us tonight.

969
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:26,120
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you. M.

970
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:38,800
Speaker 1: John Dean, whose life was forever changed by the bungled

971
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:43,120
Speaker 1: break into the Watergate Hotel in nineteen seventy two. I'm

972
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:43,840
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin.

973
00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:54,240
Speaker 4: Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio

974
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 2: Two.