two more. please. >> hi. >> hey. >> a few words about maria. of course there is a lengthy book of love letters to maria as well so my question is, dietrich had formally requested that maria become one flesh with him for life and it's clear from his letters that he knew that she took him very literally in that request and she answered in the affirmative to that request. ..

put on hold by the request of maria's mother because of her age, and the two honored that. it was -- if you read theq@ letters, you'll know that the tone of the letters has the kind of effect of a tutor and a student.

maria had actually been in bohnhoffer's confirm make class when she was 12 or 13 and ufailed the confirmation class, and eventually was passed by someone else. and they had very different termerments, very different tastes. he found quite bizarre some of the rather provincial practices of the rural aristocracy that her family maintained, and it's impossible to say what would have come of that engagement had he survived the war. i just don't know. this will be the final question. you guys are wonderful. >> i have one question. what did you think of adolph

hitler? what did you think of him? >> what did -- >> what did you -- >> what did i thick of -- thick of him? >> right. >> well, -- what did i thick -- i think of him? >> yes. >> bohnhoffer called him the antichrist without a hint of irony. and bohnhoffer, as you may know, after this road trip across the united states in 1931 -- which is a fabulous movie waiting to be made with greg -- anybody in here -- bohnhoffer and his french pacifist in this beat-up oldsmobile, drive from new york to chicago in may of 1931, theirs two others and they drop everyone off. drive to new orleans and then

drive out to laredo texas. another thing i found in the files was post cart from waco, texas, from bohnhoffer. 4,000 miles driving in six weeks, 1200 miles on mexican trains so coming back to new york. when they get to new orleans, instead of retracing their route or, as we say, route back to new york, for chicago, they make a decision to turn the car due east and to drive right into the heart of the jim crow south in 1931. and so i -- with a geographyer -- i reconstructed with old maps and so forth -- this trip from new orleans, they would have gone -- that's may not mean anything to you -- through swaddle, picayune, hattiesburg, laurel, meridian, tuscaloosa, roll tide,

birmingham. they drove within 20 miles of scottboro, alabama, the same month, in the spring of 1931, that seven young men were being tried in a lynch mob environment for allegations of rape and a crime. they drove up through new york. and it would make a wonderful story. bohnhoffer became -- during that road trip, he became-if not then,ster deeply inclined towards pacifism. the frenchman was pass gist in mexico city they were going to a global seminar, conference, on christianity and pacifism. bohnhoffer had not been a

pacifist. he had german protestant marshall war theology throughout his system, and by 1932, 1933, he was a committed pacifist. one of his reasons for having an interest in gandhi. he -- bohnhoffer made speeches in he can cue many cal conferences on christ and peace that amounted to saying that if you want to know who jesus is, you read the sermon on the mount and do exactly what the sermon on the mount teaches. that the sermon on the mount is not metaphorically true. it's not an al gory. it's not key. it's not inspiration, it's a literal application of the gospel of christ for the social and political order. but, by 1939, his principles

pacifism had given way to the realization that an ethic of responsibility -- it was very similar. didn't describe it this way in his writings but very similar to the whole notion of christian realism. made it -- obligated him to do anything necessary to kill the antichrist, the madman, hitler. and this might be a -- there was no doubt about it, that bohnhoffer blessed, conferred blessings, and was deeply a part of the conspiracy to kill hitler hitler was the antichrist. this was bohnhoffer's systems. sounds fine to me, too. thank you. so very much.

[applause] >> we have lots of copies of the books by the register. he professor will sign books. thank you for coming out. we really appreciate you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> booktv is on twitter. follow us to get publishing news, scheduling updates, author information, and to talk directly with authors during our live programs. twitter.com/booktv. >> up next on booktv, afterwards with guest host, bob

woodward of the winds winds. this week, john dean in his latest book, the nixon defense, what he knew and when he knew it in the book, the man who is congressional testimony led to president nixn0s resignation presents a more in-depth look at the watergate scandal based on newly released odd tapes. -- audio tapes. >> hello, it's great to be here with john dean. i was recalling, coming in here today, the studios, which are on capitol hill, that it was 39 summers ago when you held the country and the world mesmerized with four days of sworn testimony before the senate watergate committee, and there's really been no new story like that since, and one of the things that happened when the secret taping system was disclosed in the nixon offices

and phones, which you didn't know about, and then -- >> suspected. >> you suspected but did not know at all. you had no confidence, and then those tapes came out and vein rick indicated almost 100% exactly what you said. >> i ran into a tv an cor who reminded me he was six years old when you testified. so i think for those who weren't around, first thing i would ask is, what was watergate? >> guest: well, i suspect that this table there's probably more collective knowledge between you and i on that subject than any table could ever be set to address the matter. you and i know that subject well. you know it from your reporting. i know it from living it, and then taking a second look, a third look, and a fourth look, and study. watergate is defined in most

dictionaries as abuse of high power occurring during the nixon presidency for political purposes. now, you and i know that's a pretty weak definition of rather sad chapter in american history. it was a period that america did not shine it brightest. the presidency showed its underbelly, and to this day, the legacy of those events affect the way we govern. >> host: gather itself -- samer win who headed the senate watergate committee, said it was an assault on the integrity of the process of nominating presidents and electing them. in other words, that nixon and his people were tampering with everyone's vote in a way. do you agree? >> guest: i agree with that, bob. but what happened is over the years the definition of watergate has so expanded from the break-in, the coverup, the interference and influencing of

election process, to just general nixonan because of tower, and today watergate has a very broad meaning. you and i and today we're going to be talking about a very narrow area of that, but it's indicative of the entire -- >> host: why 39, 40 years late center because it's 40 years ago that nixon resigned. why have you jumped back into a total immersion in that period of the tapes, for that year, from the time that the watergate burglary until their existence was disclosed by alexander burtfield. why have you done that? >> if i had known what i was getting into i don't think i would have gotten into it. i started out -- my publisher

suggested i might revisit that subject in light of the 40th 40th anniversary of watergate. that is a lowly anniversary that goes from june 17th of 2012 till august 9 of 2014, which is the period between the break-in and the arrests, and thickson's resignation. so, i originally started out -- what i want to answer is a question of how could somebody as savvy as richard nixon, politically, very, very astute, and intelligent, mess up his presidency on the bungled burglary that provoked it all the way he did? that's what i set out to answer. i assumed in doing so that much of the answer would be found in existing tapes. i had no knowledge, until i started cataloguing, who had taped what and what was available, that only -- >> host: there are hundreds of hours of tapes that no one has

listened to or transcribed. >> guest: i found over 600 conversations that, as best i can tell, nobody outside the archives and processing the tapes ever looked at. >> host: what did you learn? somebody reads this book, what will lay learn they didn't know. >> guest: probably every page has something i didn't know. i don't know how many pages had things you didn't know, but wore pretty sophisticated rathers and knowledgeable. i didn't know, for example, that richard nixon was -- at the outset was only getting his knowledge and information from hall des moines initial -- ehrlichman and your reporting in the "washington post." as well as others. because the post is the only paper covering it. >> host: struck me as time and time again he says he read those articles, and he is angry about them, he wonders how information

is getting out. >> guest: did you always wonder how he felt about that before? >> host: well, of course, and. >> guest: now you know. >> host: and he keeps -- he says, that's a story in the post. where is that going? is that coming from here? is that coming from the committee to re-elect -- is it coming from the fbi? and soing for. just to step back for somebody, what do we learn about nixon that we didn't know? because we knew about the criminality, we knew about the abuse of power. we knew about the kind of the small-mindedness that everything seemed to be about nixon. what is added here? >> guest: what i did, as you know, i follow it day-by-day to try to understand how this thing fell apart, and if you put -- i pull away to a wide angle, i see a combination of two things. character, a man's, which -- >> host: which is? >> guest: he had no hesitation to break the law.

he had no hesitation to pretty much do anything he thought might be a solution to a problem. very expedient. but the most striking thing is, his decisionmaking is so sloppy, so unprocessed, so seat of the pants, i was stunned, and i -- doesn't reflect other areas of hi presidency. he knows when he is making these decisions that are important, particularly as it progresses. now, how much of this pattern we see here, which i've dug out in some detail, is true of vietnam, china. >> host: going on about watergate with his top aides, haldeman, ehrlichman, you. they're rambling and not focused and no kind of, let's march through this and make a decision, and he will just say

something, almost at random, and then hall -- haulds man will say something. >> and then 30 minutes later have the same conversation with somebody else, if not the same person. >> host: and say contradictory things. >> guest: exactly. >> host: at one opinion you called debt -- i love the metaphor -- as as a participant, you as his counsel at that time, not in the inner circle, but you say this was the devil's merry-go-round should that was a met afor i picked up as i was writing. i thought about the circular nature of the watergate conversations, and how the same tune and the same circles repeated. sometimes a slight difference but basically over and over. but the man with the lever is right in the middle is richard nixon and never pulls it. that's why i said this is the devil's merry-go-round because

these conversations were not at a very high level of conversation. this isn't deep thought. this is pretty expedient thinking. >> host: as i went through it -- and there were a good number of things i learned, and one was about chuck colson, someone always hanging in the shadow, and -- >> guest: i tried not to be pejorative and call him special projects. >> host: but he had his reputation and he eventually pled guilty to related crimes and i think did seven months in jail. and the fascinating moment, carl bernstein and i wrote a story on october 10th in "the post p.o.w. saying that watergate what part of larger operation, sabotage and espionage, bringing forth the details about donald

segretti, the lawyer, who was hired to run all kinds of agents against nixon, and then colson comes in -- it's fascinating. he said i did a hell of a lot of things on the outside, and you never read about it. the things you read about were the things i didn't do, but you see, i did things out of boston -- which was his home town -- we did some blackmail, and then nixon goes, my god, even he is surprised. and then colson says, i'll go to my grave before i ever disclose it. but we did a hell of a lot of things and never get caught. things that -- and then he just abruptly -- >> guest: catches himself. >> host: -- stopped, and nixon never inquiries. >> guest: no. >> host: there's no curiosity.

your guy comes in and you're president, said we blackmailed and a hell of a lot of things, you either know about them or suspect or you would think he would want to know. >> guest: in the book, as you'll recall, i actually note that chuck made a similar boast to me. >> host: yes in a footnote you say that. >> guest: he also takes this to his grave, as he said. we don't know what these things are, and it's interesting the way he just caught himself before he shared it with nixon, and nixon does not have the inclination to inquire. >> host: tell them about your conversation with colson at the time, because in the footnote you say he told you he did things that would send him to jail, and that they're never going to come out. >> guest: he said because only i know about them. >> host: did you ask? >> guest: i did and he would not tell me. he said i'm not going to tell you what i did. that's the reason that he -- he said there's one way to keep a secret in this town and only you know it.

pretty good analysis. >> host: colson is deceased, nixon is deceased, and so there may be a whole other aspect -- >> guest: chuck did something very effective. he took all of his presidential papers with him that were at all controversial. he would give what he wanted to, to wheaton college. i sent somebody out years ago to take a look, and they said there's nothing in there. so he clearly pruned out anything is in earned that were troublesome and they're gone -- i assume they're gone. >> host: do you think he was a hidden force in all of this, the dirty tricks, illegalities. >> guest: listening to the tapes there's an interesting pattern. nixon is a different person with different people. he responds at a different level of conversation. with me he is always on a fairly high level. colson brings out his absolute

darkest side. haldeman next. the two of them seem to draw something out of -- >> host: haldeman was nixon's chief of staff, alter ego. that do we learn about haldeman in these tapes? >> guest: we learn he is extremely intelligent. he is the one that seems most conscience of the fact they're taping from time to time, when it gets really kind of dicey, he backs off. in fact -- >> host: and shuts up. >> guest: or makes great to all to us statements that are favorable. nixon occasionally remembers he is recording, but unlike haldeman, who seems to be very cautious. in fact there's a situation that happens at the end after they left and he knows they have not pulled the machinery out -- >> host: the taping machine. >> guest: the taping machine. haldeman starts calling for meetings in the lincoln sitting room. there's only one reason he wanted to meet in the lincoln

sitting room. that's when they're cracking the deals as to how they're going to deal with things and he doesn't want it on tape. >> guest: of course, had mom is looking for a pardon at that point. >> guest: not at that point. >> host: the other thing is, as you say, who -- >> guest: excuse me. on the pardon point i think the quid pro quo with nixon -- this is hinted in conversations. if i survive this i will pardon people. >> host: he said, promise that, that no one would go to jail. >> guest: the problem is he didn't survive it. so he didn't honor his commitment because, as you know, haldeman and ehrlichman, from your final days research, they tried desperately to get a pardon. >> host: and of course nixon, physical the moment he resigned could have issued -- unreviewable -- >> guest: probably 2009 strongest presidential powers. no one can really contest it.

it just an unchecked power. >> host: in april 1973 there's a tape -- one of the many that fascinated me -- and this is a couple of weeks before haldeman and ehrlichman are resigned and you leave -- >> guest: wasn't that fascinating, how he has to manipulate them off the staff? had you known that? >> host: a little bit of it. >> guest: i had no idea that he had to go through the -- he really has to steve them, if you -- deceive them to get them to -- >> host: oh, yes, and then they deceived each other, and then there's -- but this one really struck me because ehrlichman, the second closest aide who had been the counsel, comes in and talks about the watergate coverup, and he says there were eight or ten people around the white house who knew about this. and then nixon says, well,

first, haldeman, who is there, says, oh, i knew, all kinds of people knew about the coverup, and then nixon says, well, i knew it. i knew it. and then you write, which i think is quite accurate, realizing he just confessed and possibly realizing he had been recorded, the president immediately tried, rather awkwardly, to backtrack, and then he is heard on the tape saying, i knew, i must say, though, i didn't know. and there's this kind of gobbledygook and if you dig it out you realize they all know what is going on. >> guest: of course they know. and they confess it. it's clear. >> host: why were they covering up? what were they covering up? >> guest: i think initially it's clear that nixon is covering up for mitchell. he is concerned about his friend.

haldeman once told me that richard nixon believed he was president because of john mitchell. right or wrong. >> host: his campaign manager. >> guest: his friend, nudged him to do it, and encouraged him to do it and made it possible, giving him a good base in new york. then -- just felt really great at -- great affection for mitchell, and did not want this to splash on mitchell. so that's where it starts. but he is also worried, something very interesting, bob, and i don't do at love commentary. i just let the facts roll out -- >> host: this is a fashion of presentation in a very interesting way, that you were able to rein -- you must have had a good editor. >> guest: i did, and i tried to edit myself along the way to stay out of it, if you will. but one of the things that is very apparent, very early, is he is concerned if he has said something to colson that has triggered the watergate break-in.

i didn't elaborate on that. but this is a subtext in these conversations. you can tell from the tone of voices, you can tell from the way somebody probes something, i think he thinks that he might have told colson to tell hunt to break in, because he had earlier done that. i cite -- i put a footnote on one of those conversations in '71 during the pentagon papers episode, where he literally is pounding on his desk, demanding they break into brookings institute use where they suspect thread was a secret report on the vietnam bombing halt. >> guest: exactly. >> host: if you listen to that tape, nixon is just enraged at what the -- i want you to get in there, safe blown, and won't let it go, and subsequent tapes -- this is in 1971, now, a year before watergate -- he is ordering the break-in, and voices great disappointment they didn't do what he asked. >> guest: you know who turn that

off? >> host: you did. you went out there. >> guest: heat how i got myself on the outs, if you will. so i knew nothing about the plumber's operations because i had the -- >> host: remind people what the plumbers operation was. >> guest: the special investigations unit that was a self-starting little minifbi within -- >> host: well, set up under nixn0s order to crack don unlikes. >> guest: for elseberg. >> host: the pentagon papers. >> guest: they were unhappy with the fbi. i turned it off and that's the ron i know none -- literally bud crowing is told, don't talk to dean about it. you asked me, what are they're covering up? they're definitely covering up the activities of the plumber. here's the way this happened. because ehrlichman -- this is the thing that amazes me, neither ehrlichman nor haldeman

tell nixon what their vulnerability is. hall dr. had deman hints there were some strings that might be a problem. i'm not sure how much ehrlichman has told him. what happened is john mitchell, within 48 hours of the arrest, -- bob marreddan and fred larue, two of his aides, debrief liddy, and liddy confesses that he had used two men in the watergate that he used in a break-in in daniel elseberg's psychiatrists office and they're now in the d.c. jail and says the cia provided paraphernalia. so mitchell is genuinely concerned at this point. i think my hunch was that mitchell had that not been the case, might have stepped forward and said, listen, i made a terrible mistake here and done

the right thing. he is then so worried about the fact that the white house has got its -- both feet are in this as well. >> host: later mitchell called the -- >> guest: that's what drives the coverup. >> host: that's part of the 1970 houston plan, which nixon authorized, wire tapping, additional break-ins. ...

p. also i think would not have gone as far as he did go with the jeopardy that mitchell had because of the watergate break-in. >> host: a couple of things here. first of all, there are conversations which were not taped and carl bernstein and i a number of years ago talked to mcgregor who is a former congressman who replaced mitchell as the campaign manager for nixon in 72. clark mcgregor told us that nixon and mitchell had a meeting a few days after watergate in the residence of the white house and all mcgregor was able to say from what he learned from mitchell was that kind of all played their cards on the table and ate each learned about things they didn't know about.

and if you really look at it, if that's true mcgregor is deceased now and mitchell is gone, nixon is gone but if you look at that point, there is a time in your tapes it shows where they just kind of go full blast with the cover-up. they are going to cover up. now you say the 1970s used in plant didn't concern nixon. i think it did. >> guest: well he approved it. >> host: he approved it but there's this may 23, 73 tape in this book and i really thought this was interesting because this houston plan is clearly illegal. everyone knows it's illegal and nixon approved it and on this tape nixon says i ordered they use any means necessary including illegal. nixon is telling this to his chief of staff the time al hag

hague. >> guest: he quickly says says the president of the united states can never admit that. of course he just had. >> host: clearly that was one of in my whole view of this is this is a matrix. you have a whole series of activities that really go back to 1969. in a legal activities that kind of come together and the watergate burglary when five people are arrested in the democratic headquarters, then you have got an investigation and you've got the red on the side that's going to pull it down. and all of this is connected. >> guest: well, what was interesting is chuck colson reported his reaction, nixon's reaction that first weekend which i think is true that nixon was wise enough to walk it back and colson who only colson could

quote himself as hearsay said he couldn't remember what nixon had told him that weekend when they talked, the weekend of the 18th and 19th of june of 1972. but he did know what his staff had told him. he had told them so that immediately made it in admissible hearsay he told his staff that nixon would have been so angry to learn that the committee was involved in this he would have thrown an ashtray across the room. that isn't a surprising reaction. >> host: did nixon know about the watergate burglary on june 171972? >> guest: i don't think so. >> host: did he know about the aberrations when they went in a month earlier to plant that. >> guest: i don't think so but i do think, here's what you

should think bob. had they not been our west -- arrested at the watergate they were headed for mcgovern's headquarters on capitol hill and if they had been arrested there you can trace it right back to the oval office because nixon is -- gives an instruction to haldeman to put a plant in mcgovern's headquarters. what does it plans mean? it can mean a lot of things. haldeman takes that and tells gordon strong to tell libby to change his intelligence operation from mosquito mcgovern so if they had been arrested that night in mcgovern's headquarters he would have the order coming right from the oval office, but i don't think the plant and many look in the context of some of the other conversations necessarily meant electronic surveillance. >> host: so what is nixon's legacy now?

>> guest: you know one of the things that i think people might look at as a result of the way i was able to get in and dig out some of this stuff is the fact his decision-making is pretty shoddy stuff and how broad and how wide was this really careless and information week. >> host: but it didn't change the view people had of him or that history might have. >> guest: well it could explain maybe somebody like kissinger or ehrlichman or watch more important to his decisions everything from epa to china than nixon was. they drove the decisions. you can see the man suffers making decisions. >> host: yeah but what he is doing is he's trying to tease out from people what they know. >> guest: well, there is some

of that but he's also trying to clarify. >> host: so what's his legacy going to be? this is an going to be -- history is not going to judge him as a management consulting team would judge him. history is going to judge him about whether he was good, whether he accomplished some things, whether he cared about the people he represented. >> guest: well they will judge him in the context of other presidents is what they will do. as you know i am a harding biographer. a president who has gotten a really bad rap and no one has ever understood it because they have never done -- dug into the facts. i think as long as the facts about nixon's presidency and things like watergate, he's not going to be well respected as a president. he's not going to be an admired figure. he can't be. >> host: well not only that but these new tapes and the old

tapes show he almost had this view of the presidency as an instrument that he had which he could use for personal revenge and to settle political scores. i'm aiming in these new tapes you have people say go after the mcgovern contributors. go after the dnc contributors. get the irs to run their tax returns and so forth. >> guest: the more successful he is the more revengeful he becomes. he reaches the pinnacle of his re-election with real serious numbers. i mean it's a record in the top three of all presidential races the electoral and the popular vote. >> host: in 1972. >> guest: in 1972 and what happens? >> becomes more bitter and what's he talking about the most? how he's going to go after his

enemies. this is not a gracious winner but is also troubled. >> host: you knew him and worked for him and had all these meetings with him. did he seem happy? one of the things working for people you discover and some of the editors at the "washington post" like ben bradlee who is tough and really knew how to say look we are going to put this in the paper. we are going to keep this out of the paper but he was happy. he would make jokes. there is a spirit. whether any of that? >> guest: nixon has very little sense of humor. >> host: no joy? >> guest: i don't know. there are some conversations that i did not include because they weren't relevant betting cueing things up i would occasionally stop and listen to some. he had a lovely relationship with his daughters. i'm sure they were stunned when this stuff came out to see this other side of him. i think there was joy in his family and the same with his

wife. he has a lovely relationship and a few conversations i listen to there, most of that stuff was retracted or taken out as personal. >> host: so we haven't seen what, have we only see the third or half of what's available? because there are hundreds of hours from national security and for privacy reasons. >> guest: there's a treasure trove they are. just like these that there'll these years with nobody bothering to flush all this out to understand watergate and now we have the full picture of watergate for the first time. >> host: one of the other things i found fascinating was ehrlichman goes to nixon, and this is in march of 73 before you come in and give your cancer on the presidency speech and they talk about the actual watergate tap into the democratic headquarters which functions at least for a number of weeks and did get some stuff

and ehrlichman reports to nixon, they're some pretty juicy stuff in there and then a lot of this is being held back. and then they are talking about the tapes themselves. this is what's so interesting. nixon says, i think we have to destroy the tapes. >> guest: his tapes, not the dnc tapes. >> host: yes, we have to get rid of the tapes and the actually order's haldeman to do it twice and death and haldeman said sure but nothing happen. why? >> guest: i think he gets consumed in watergate after that himself for not being a lawyer he thought nixon might be able to use these selectively to his advantage and made the decision that he wasn't going to do anything about it. what again is interesting is after that point when the leaves and they continue having meetings he continues to meet in the lincoln sitting room with the scheme meetings they have about future testimony. >> host: so there's a big

portion that was taped that we don't know about. >> guest: not a large portion. i would say it's like 90/10. i would say 90% of nixon on watergate asante. >> host: no, i mean nixon on being president. there's all this stuff and there are other issues. >> guest: there's a massive supply. to trace, and you can do this now. >> host: kissinger said when he heard about the tapings because he didn't know about them, he said this is pure madness to tape years and years of conversations through a voice activated system so if somebody just went in there and made some noise this system went on. he said it would take years to even do a once through listen. >> guest: exactly. it's a remarkable. you once said, it's the gift that keeps on giving and that's

very true for any student of this president. we will never have a record like this again because you can literally trace this man's behavior in watergate and the beginning virtually to the end because you know there could not have been a very different pattern to follow after the plug was pulled in mid-july when butterfield revealed it. it was just a repetition of what we had already learned so his defense then becomes just really trying to protect the tapes. >> host: no president is going to tape again. i remember interviewing president obama for one of my books books and went into the oval office with two tape recorders so they would not be a malfunction. his press secretary said oh he knew a lot about tapes and everyone laughed and then obama said, you believe they taped everything? >> looked at his press secretary like, we will never do that.

that's never going to happen again. so in a sense, we get to look into not just the actions and words of this president but a little bit into his soul, don't we? we get into the interior courtyard where real decisions are made. >> guest: we do, no question and you know that something i don't have a sound bite to explain and i think you have to watch him and see how he handles this as it progresses and it's not a pretty picture. >> host: is there anything on the tapes that sheds light on him and a positive way or anything that is favorable? >> guest: absolutely. you know, there is no question that his aides did not serve him well. he has not given the facts he needs no early on. how he would have dealt with

them is another issue. >> host: does that include you? >> guest: no. as soon as i get in there in late february i am hinting initially about the problems and i'm trying to figure out how much this man knows and doesn't know. >> host: how come you are not banging the door down? >> guest: there's a tape where he recognizes that, where he says you know dean will be able to say because it's true he had no access to me. >> host: why didn't you insist on that access? why were you not out there early saying wait a minute we are going down the road of a criminal cover-up and for months and months you were running that to a certain extent. >> guest: i assumed, i couldn't believe when i went to these tapes that he wasn't being told more than he was being told. i just assume haldeman was -.

>> host: was the lesson for a lawyer, never assume. >> guest: never assume and now under the rules of ethics when a lawyer sees these he has a duty to report up and report to the very top if necessary. >> host: do you wish you had? would watergate have been different? >> guest: i think he early on had a chance to get out in front of it and stop it. whether he would have or not i don't know but he never had a a chance the way it unfolded. >> host: and he's got all those earlier actions, the burglary and the houston plant. wasn't this kind of a mindset, that nixon was the driver and if you have gone in there and if you had said to haldeman in june of 72 at few days after the watergate burglaries and said you know this has got a bad aroma about it, i need to talk

to the president. if you had gone in there and slammed her fist down and said this is illegal. this is against the law. you are the present of the united states. you can do this. >> guest: in your early 30s, you don't go in and push around the leader of the western world. neither you nor i would deal with that situation much differently at this point in our lives. what i did do on march 21 is try to confront him with these problems one after another after another and he had a response response for everyone every one of them. for example i tell him that bud crowe has committed perjury and his responses while job perjury is a tough rap to prove. i tell him, who knows how much is going to cost. he says how much could it cost? i cost? i pulled a figure out of thin air. i had never thought about this. this could cost a million dollars over the next couple of years. that would be 5.5 million today.

i had no idea. i try to stun him with the money. he said how he said hell we can't raise that kind of money. >> host: i know where we can get it in cash. >> guest: he checked with rosewicz as to how much money they had in their slush fund and they had 400,000. he was already looking for it. so i'm not sure if i would have gone in if it would have been different because at that point i'm really trying to warn him because i realized no one has warned him that what we are doing is deadly. >> host: as i mentioned to yo you, the one thing i disagree with is you say in the book on page 209 that you don't believe there was an organized effort to conduct espionage and sabotage and uke are quite firm about it. you said you never found the existence and if so, if it

existed it's kind of a fantasy scenario said the number two in the fbi who's one of the sources whose name deep throat by one of imagining editors. >> guest: before i respond to that were you surprised how much we know about felt at the time we knew at? >> host: i mean, i was astounded and they said felt is the one who is leaking and then haldeman says to the president, look we can't do anything. we can't fire him. we can't throw him out. because he knows everything. >> guest: right, but anyway the answer to this, in your series where i give you full credit for merging the issues and beginning the process of bringing abuse of power and misuse of campaign operations

and connecting and putting watergate as a part of a larger picture which is today's definition of watergate which is abuse of power and it's not just limited to campaign, the post smelled of that information and changed forever watergate into something more than just a bungled burglary. i never found bob was a central organization that was running a 50 state campaign of sabotage and what have you. i had never heard of it. i hadn't found any evidence of it. was there ad hoc and freelance stuff going on? probably, i don't know. >> host: but it existed. the senate watergate committee found donald segretti ran 22 people that were all spies in the muskie campaign. they were sending out funny literature. >> guest: but let me tell you something, that was coming back to the white house. >> host: but that was an

operation that was set up by in part the president -- >> guest: we can probably debate this for a full hour and more and you and i have agreed to disagree on this point because you know i get your point. >> host: i get your point but what i think and i think this is important and i think it's validated by your book is there's a mindset. if we can achieve our means, our political means and have a public relations victory go to it. there is no barrier and if you look in detail as the senate watergate committee did, what the nixon operatives did to muskie, they really drove him from the race were certainly helped and got the nominee they wanted, george mcgovern who is much more to the left and it was

a big political victory that worked. if you look -- if you think of watergate as a burglary or just a cover-up of it masks the dimensions because the dimensions were to do these things to candidates that were really pretty. you take one candidates stationary and put it out accusing another candidate of mild sexual improprieties and so forth. you create chaos. >> guest: again i don't think it was directed from the white house to do that. let's not debate that back-and-forth. look at my opening statement and my senate testimony where i said exactly this. this was a mindset. this was a predisposition of a do-it-yourself white house to gather intelligence, political

intelligence by whatever means they thought they might be able to do it in. this was the mindset that came right from the top of the white house. you know the president wear ha hats. all their staff wear hats. when presidents have fires in the fireplace all the staff has a fire in their fireplace. the president doesn't do that thing, they don't do that they don't do that thing so it really comes from the top. >> host: the concentration of power in the presidency is astounding. >> guest: it is and this is largely been because congress doesn't want to take these things on. things that have to be done and take the area of intelligence which is in your national security that you dealt with for a long time. you know the congress for years didn't want oversight because they didn't want the responsibility of oversight. they said just do it and don't tell us how you do it. this is why we have this

concentration of power in the executive branch. the legislative branch is not one to grapple with these things and there are some things they don't grapple well with. >> host: yes, that's true and there's a vacuum in interesting way on the dark side like nixon exercised his power in an astonishing way. i think when all of the tapes and everything are out, even what we know now, what's added in your book. the idea that if presidential aide like chuck colson comes in and says you know i blackmailed and i did all these things. >> guest: let me ask you this. i thought you might in particular find the story of ron ziegler whose tail has never been told. ron never wrote the book he hoped to write. he never wrote history from the nixon library. he died relatively young and the

only record we have of ron now is in these tapes. he plays a very significant role. he actually becomes and fulfills the role that haldeman had as a sounding board as his presidency progresses when haldeman leaves. >> host: that's true in the final days. the new chief of staff in ziegler who really kind of were the ones who went to nixon and listen to him and try to manage all of this. you know i think there is no doubt it's true but no one ever establish the ziegler had primary knowledge, first-hand knowledge of a crime himself other than what he heard from nixon and ehrlichman. >> guest: could you name him as a co-conspirator? yes, you could in a technical sense.

he never was and i'm pleased he wasn't because he was in this odd role. >> host: it was very odd and when we wrote stories he denounced us regularly. >> guest: he saw that conversation where he goes to nixon and he says i want to apologize to the post. >> host: and he did, he did publicly. that was grace in my mind and i think my colleagues carl that was important and kind of okay, you did your job now let's move to the next phase. the problem with the next phase is your tape show a continuing cover-up. >> guest: continuing cover to cover. >> host: i agree. frank gannon who is a nixon defender in a review of "the wall street journal" in your books as a couple of things which i want to ask you about. he says you left out some thin

things. >> guest: i have not read the review yet but someone told me that i admitted part of a march 21 conversation where nixon says it would be wrong. he seems to forget that bob haldeman went to jail for claiming he said that. that is not in that conversation. that conversation has been publicly available for decades. it's on the nixon library web site. i suggest frank go to the web site, read the transcript, listen to it and you will find that he is dead wrong. >> host: okay in the second thing he says at the end, he said there are many mysteries and i don't think there are any hit mysteries at all and we know too much. we don't know who ordered the break-in and we don't know what they were looking for. >> guest: not true. in fact i think there's no question they are looking for

financial information of some sort. i i put in appendix together where he drew out everything from every conversation put it into summary form so people could see it and there's no question it's what the white house understood and what i didn't add and what i have done elsewhere to show everybody involved in the break-in thought they were looking for financial information. parker, martinez, hunt. hunt hunt says that the instructions he gave him. they have done this under oath so no question what they were looking for. >> host: they were looking more broadly for dirt. >> guest: now who ordered it? there's little doubt in my mind how it actually happened that i don't go into this in great depth in the book at all. but what happens is when mitchell approves the plan water gate is a of it and it democratic national committee. macgruder sends libby on this

mission. one of results, the fruits come back mcgruder told me at the time contemporaneously and he told me and he is testified to this fact also, any way he has testified to this very clearly that what happened is the results were such junk that mitchell called him and after he looks of this material and says listen, this stuff is worthless. it's not worth what we paid for it. macgruder loves this. in fact. >> host: he's the number two in the election. >> guest: number two and mcgruder's opinion was lydia self-starter had to clean this up on his own and didn't tell anybody who's going to break into watergate a second time that their original plan in their briefings were to break into mcgovern's headquarters.

so it's clear that libby takes his group back in the second time. he claims that he told hans and the others that mitchell insisted on it. well i don't think mitchell insisted on it at all. i think he told on the stuff he had gotten was junk. and libby is a highly manipulative person. when he put together his book will i think he tried to do an honest account. but he does it bother eight years after-the-fact and he tries to look at other people and remember what he remembers. i'm the first to tell you that memory is not the best source. i think something like these tapes, i remember so many thin things. this is a contemporaneous record that we make these mistakes. ..