information to it at that point i am sitting in the attorney general's office with jeff and i turn to both liddy and say gordon, you've got to be kidding. this isn't real and liddy who became annoyed and snapped his heels and turned to mitchell and said john or general, i can assure you these are the finest roles from baltimore. so he was quite confident he had the talent to handle it and it went on like that. quite an amazing meeting. i knew that mitchell when he got to the bottom line was going to reject and this will cost $2 million mitchell said this isn't quite what i have in mind. we are more interested in the antiwar problem protecting the re-election committee this derogates renault plant send out some would want to go back to the drawing board. they were going to throw them out the window. i can get a second meeting and arrived late and note today from

looking at calendars and the archives that i visited with bob haldeman after the first and second meeting to tell him the craziness i was learning about. i went to the second meeting late and heard them talking about electronic surveillance and said listen, i apologize for being late. i don't know if you talked about but i do know this conversation isn't something that should be occurring in the office of the attorney general, so i threw goldwater on it. i never thought i would go further than that. i remember liddy and i talk about something afterwards and she said i understand what you're saying, the president, the attorney general needs to liability, you need deniability. i won't talk to you ever again about it. that is the way i want it. so, i went back and reported that to haldeman and he said john, you should have nothing to do with this and i didn't and it isn't until after many months

later the men are arrested in watergate that i learned i put together the pieces very quickly and i learned mitchell has approved the plan down in miami. it down to a quarter of a million dollars. but it's very clear, and in writing the addendum i added blinding vision after many years in some unique situations and litigation. dalia obtained a lot more information and it's quite clear while of nixon never ordered the watergate break-in that don't believe anybody in the white house knew about the watergate break-in and it's clear nixon was asking for information. but the only place you can get it is inside watergate. they learned of a kickback scheme democrats were planning at the miami convention, where by advertisers would come into the various lobbies and locations and pay for the space and that would come back into the democratic party.

and that his campaign money from contributions or corporations which were not called on the vehicle to funnel money in the democratic party. that is what they were looking for in the dnc. they were looking for financial information that you find it both documents that i have come across and to find it on the tapes both before the of watergate break-in was discovered and after. and it's pretty revealing. i am sure that that surely there will be more tapes found over time. these just happen to be tapes i've spent over the years a couple of decades and i see my goodness, you know, including some conversations of my own where i didn't really understand what the president was asking. >> host: just as an aside, the story you outlined from the baltimore and situation by miami beach characterized by martin sheen in the movie blind

ambition. did he captured this? >> guest: i think pretty well. i worked with the screenwriter. he based on the book, and i think they had a pretty good sense of what was going on. >> host: >> guest: do you have a clip for it? >> host: just the photograph of martin sheen on site. >> guest: we went out to visit during the filming. was to he says he's 60-years-old and rim hours being glued to the tv during the watergate hearings. he said you and mr. butterfield stole the show but he is to questions. please comment with the watergate fiasco should teach anything about where the line between transparency and secrecy should be drawn in governing the country. >> guest: well, i think it also lot. and it's a lesson we seem to have forgotten. we remembered for a long time. but one of the reasons i wrote a number of books about the bush administration is because it became so close because we were

not only tried to reverse the impact watergate have had on the presidency and transparency and the way they should operate. there is no question that accountability is indispensable in democracy and you can't do it behind closed doors. and that is one of -- if there is anything -- to things that help foster the campaign system and secondly secrecy. i'd be the first to tell you know president can govern without privacy and secrecy. secrecy is the intent to hide. privacy is the need to make decisions in a bid that would interfere with the decision making process. so i think it was one of the lessons, and it was in place for a long time.

cheney came in with a very clear mission to try to reverse all of what he thought happened to the presidency as a result of watergate. i never felt the presidency was weakened a second and if anything it was strengthened because of watergate and he didn't like the fact that congress gained power of its own from oversight and things like this and he's done his best, did his best to obliterate. >> host: and that of course worse than watergate. >> guest: that gave me the title, "worse than watergate." >> host: fantasy i know but in what major ways with the world look different today if nixon hadn't been caught or the av to dishonorably. >> guest: fascinating historical counterfactual. i'm not sure i could spend it all the way out. first of all i don't think that anybody in the nixon white house with maybe one exception was

particularly evil. i think they were all good man with good intentions trying to do the best to run the country. >> host: who is the exception? >> guest: gordon liddy. i just think borden has the screws all confused in his brain and never seemed -- she's totally misguided in a trying to sell the half-baked approaches he believe should be permissible and they are always on the wall. of a wall is irrelevant and i just don't think that you can be -- or the fact you should remain silent after you make a mistake. don't think the code of the mafia should be the norm for the white house aides. so i should go three litany of activities where i think liddy as evidence of some signs of a very distorted if not evil

personality. >> host: and you filed a lawsuit against him? >> guest: gispert that is another story. where were we on the other one? >> host: had nixon served two full terms how different would have been. >> guest: there's no question the biggest thing set aside that nixon was working on for the second term was a rather major reorganization of the branch. he realized he could never get the legislation through the congress because when you recognize the bridge to affect the committees that have oversight over those particular at ministry of agencies or departments and what have you so he had devised a system that my office worked on and i had people from department of justice working on it, ehrlichman work donner and many months and what have radically redesigned and modernized if you

will into a functional area the have grown up over the years and there was a national security all over the lot, national security community which is one of the largest in the branch that ranges from the intelligence agencies predella to the department of defense and the department of state. now some of it is in homeland security that didn't even exist before and was a mess so you would put a counselor to the president in charge of the policy in all of this and have a series of counselors being created as the white house aides who would then be able to control in a way that was never controlled, the executive branch. this terrified the congress. i have long fought put one of the reasons the congress was in watergate is it needed to block

the rather dramatic policy the new was in the wings that nixon was developing and that's probably the most dramatic change. i don't think we would have been in -- we would have seen some to dub the abusive use of government. nixon, that was not in his disposition. i think that he was trying to make the government work better and in a way that is a little bit frightening. for example things like developing during the reagan years, not so sure that is healthy. haven't gone that far in the reorganization. was to make the principal fusion sees not only independent regulatory subject to the president's control and policies.

>> host: we will go to victor jarman from ellen tom pennsylvania with john team. go ahead, please. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. you spoke at a university in 2007 on the subject of worse than watergate and broken government. i was asking a question about a four to be innocent. several years later you were recorded as saying the country was about 25% fascist -- >> guest: not fascist. i just said authoritarian. >> caller: why had it on tape you did answer a question in which that word was used. >> guest: yes i will explain that. >> caller: and when you answered the question you explain your talking about authoritarianism. by the way i gave you a silver dollar was of the constitution on it so maybe you will remember me but i thought your book was just excellent on that subject of authoritarianism so could you

distinguish between fascism, authoritarianism, nazism and militarism may be in the context of alexander haig lieutenant colonel to the chief of staff at the nixon white house, the head of secretary of state. that's my question. >> guest: let me see if i can handle that for you. first of all, my whole study of authoritarianism is based on social science. in the aftermath of world war ii, a group of social scientists tried to get together to find out if what happened in italy and germany would never happen in the united states could we followed mussolini or hitler would we tolerate things like holocaust in this country and the sad answer was yes there is some segment of the population

that has an offer tyrian personality. the book and the study was probably rightly criticized when it first came out because it was based largely on freudian psychology that has its own the problems. another record of social scientists particularly one who landed in the canada, robert altmire, decided to look up the question again, and doing get by rather solid and empirical studies by that i mean he would question people went out of the nature of the personality dispositions and what have you and what overtime collect one of the largest databases we would ever assembled and found that clearly there is an authoritarian personality type. they break down into several categories. there are authoritarian followers, of authoritarian

leaders, they call them nominators and then people who have unique traits of both because the score so high on the tests they call them double highest. these became a son of the nominators became my conservatives without conscience and when you understand this type of personality you understand why this is true they have no conscience whatsoever. and i ask altmire over the years to study this how many people fall in this category, not just the double high as for the pollinators for the fall worse but the whole collective and he said as best he could figure 25% of the united states would follow the category. this isn't a good or bad or pathology. this is just the nature of a certain element of the american

population and it's a very real element. i think we are seeing it today in the tea party movement which is the next step beyond the material in my book. i've got to tell you in writing that book which it planned to write with senator goldwater but his health became bad as we could not do it together it was one of the most informative books i have ever written. i learned more from it and i returned to understand things on any book more than all of those i have done because it was so on a opening to understand. i looked at flashes on to see if these were fascists and they were not. this isn't even incipient flashes some of the stuff from which fascism can arise. we have never in this country had authoritarian state charge.

they are not large enough in their numbers and even some of them who test high or would testify as soon as they realize their personality nature they back away from it, they are not even comfortable themselves because it isn't our normal for our political activity. there is a charge in one of these books or a table that sets forth i think page 68 and 69 of the book that gives you a catalog of the personality traits and it's not very pleasant but it's a very real and i think just understanding these people helps us deal with them. >> host: alexander haig recently passed away and gerald ford's press psychiatry one of the viewers from illinois says what did his resignation mean in terms of the protest of the nixon pardon? >> guest: i think a lot of

people were stunned when a ford did this. there was no surprise he hinted he was going to do it in donner was one who was about to the wall to be incarcerated. i never did go to prison but i was in a witness protection program a long time and i was allowed to go off and make a safe house. my regular residence where i would be brought to the city almost every day which i was so i wasn't real happy about it. my wife was quite upset with it and most of those who were involved in watergate were quite shocked that it wasn't even broader. but something i never asked for or wanted. but i think that in the long run it was the right decision and i think while ford suffered his ability to win the presidency on his own as a result of the pardon was just enough people who felt strongly about it and

would have made a difference in that election had that not have been the key issue. but it's pretty ugly to contemplate any former president of the united states on trial for what happened during nixon's presidency. there is a real question as to whether nixon could have ever received a fair trial if the well hadn't been so plays and from which mutual taurus you'd never find a juror that could give them anonymous reading. he had some defenses. i saw a lot of this material, a lot of this activity was in his mind national security activity. the motive in fact went to visit after he had been pardoned and said mr. president, do you feel you are guilty of a crime and nixon said know why don't. i really don't.

and that kind of attitude made it difficult for him to even understand why he needed a pardon and his lawyers advised him. >> host: you never met with richard nixon after you left the white house? >> guest: never did. my last conversation with him was on easter in 1973, easter of 1973, and he said john, i'm telling to you you are still my counsel. i still know what you told me and i will not forget of course it is a call to try to keep me from doing what ultimately had to do which is testify about what happened. >> host: eight woodring question from pennsylvania saying as a young person should i be looking up to gwen ve cord

barry goldwater to learn what it means to be a conservative? >> guest: i don't understand glenn back's conservatism. it has nothing to do with conservatism that has been in such a long tradition in this country and if you look at conservatives without conscience you immediately understand why i didn't even include glenna beckham in the book. >> host: a call from lee in new orleans. welcome to the program. >> caller: high. i wonder if mr. dena could say little about why racism is such an important component in american conservatism and you mentioned barry goldwater's 1954 campaign and his trip to the south with white supremacists and his interaction. so i wonder why this is why the

american conservative movement is about white supremacy to be such an important component in their development and a rise. >> guest: is a rather new phenomenon. as a matter of fact if there is anybody who was not is premises or racist it's barry goldwater. he is the man who integrated the arizona national guard long before truman had even gone so with the armed services. he's somebody who for example were black and white theaters in phoenix and as a member of the city council he eliminated. he's somebody that voted against the '64 civil rights bill much to his leadership grin on the advice of two lawyers he was impressed with. i ask him this question one day while in the world of -- i happened to be in the gallery for that vote by prison law school at the time it went to see the phone, such a historic

vote and i was curious as to how he was going to vote on it. i of another friend in law school whose father was in the senate and got us nice prime seats in the galleries and waited for that historic vote and when goldwater years later had the advice of this young lawyer from phoenix i greatly respect by the name of bill rehnquist and another professor from yale, dynamite by the name of pork. he said do you know robert bork in bicycle shorts do. so on toast to constitutional analysis of the 64 bill it was sincerely in on constitutional action and would be thrown out by the courts as such and the was the basis of his vote. >> host: let me go back to something you wrote about don

warren harding. u-boats grew up and marry in ohio and you write about a speech that harding gave october 26, 1921 birmingham alabama. >> guest: at the part of it >> host: in the speech i would say to a black man if he's fit to vote he should be but a vote. i would say to a white man if he is unfit to vote he should be prohibited from voting. unless you like it or not a democracy is a lawyer and you must stand for equality. this is 1921. >> guest: i had fun doing the harding look because it has been so maligned. i had a grown-up and ohio at the time in my next-door neighbor was the editor who followed harding years later and was the editor of the marion star and the creation and had been the first editor of the paper and he

introduced me in my first harding book. my library has ever think ever written about harding and i realized a long time ago particularly picking up this information as a kid harding hadn't been given a fair shake as a president. so when arthur schlesinger jr., i wrote all 42 test presidents i called arthur, i'd known him for years, arthur had written some ugly things about warren harding himself and i said i bet you don't know what to do with harding. he said john, i don't have a clue what to do with harding. i said i'm very interested. when i turned in the manuscript arthur called and said the academy in entirely different perspective on the warden

harding. he said i didn't realize some of the information triet you are one of the few people know who actually looked at the papers that did survive the presidency. it is a mystique what we've done with harding. he asked me to cut -- i was little hard on some of his friends who were historians on some of the false material they put on harding. so i turned arthur 180 degrees but was a wonderful undertaking because he had fixed views of harding. the speech you're referring to was a brave act at the time harding did it. he went into the south. the audience was segregated. there was a lawyer fence between the whites and blacks and harding spent most of the speech looking at the whites and telling them you just can't go forward in a job mobocracy and call with a democracy and treat people on the other side of that

fence the way that you were doing so. it was a speech he to by the south but he still felt that there were and rhodes even then for the republicans in the south and the blacks were by and large thrilled with it. he hadn't done as much as they wanted but he did a lot as president. woodrow wilson, his predecessor had been set lee a serious racist, had removed blacks from positions they get long been in the district of columbia in the federal government, then as soon as they got them out of those positions and put a civil service and so they couldn't get back in. harding did what he could but was a true progressive in fact so much of parting's material, while he is still in many

regards a classic conservative president he's also a highly progressive president on social issues. >> host: you describe september of 1920 the transition in place, florence harding needs with edith wilson and describes her as a party and condescending and in the tour of the white house conducted not by the first lady -- >> guest: that was a rather nice description of her writing. [laughter] >> host: in the tours not conducted by mrs. balsam the housekeeper florence harding views the white house as the home of a very sick man. can you elaborate? >> guest: of course wilson had a stroke many months earlier when he had come back from europe negotiating of the league of nations and had gone on a tour to try to sell it to the american people while on tour it had a very severe stroke and had come back and pretended he was all right when he was bedfast for all practical purposes. they had pulled the shades and

the place had become a rather grim semi hospital for a very ill incapacitated president surviving unbeknownst to what he was capable of and was capable of very little. harding made an interesting call during the campaign when his aides tried to get him to attack wilson and his help and he said there is no way i will win the presidency over the sick man's problem. now you attack the willson policies, not wilson himself and his condition. so you're late win for vince came in and looked around and everything from the odor to the atmosphere decided she would have the place painted and open the windows and invite people back into the white house where they hadn't had a function since the last time anybody could remember and they did so and it changed the atmosphere of the

white house of people coming and going. >> host: next call from florida, david is on the phone. welcome to "in depth" with a john dean. >> caller: thank you. as always, steve, thank you for you and your whole step that c-span. if you did a great job for america and i want to pick up on what mr. dean said before i ask my question about what role will send. if it were not for guinn beck, most of many americans who did not know before would not know what a miserable man but for wilson was, how he brought segregation into the federal government both in washington, d.c. specifically and throughout the civil service and the armed forces. he was a horrible man. now what i originally called to ask and find a