that they need to take to regain customer confidence, trust, and start rebuilding and transparency conversation around privacy. >> slogans are good, but i think most americans would prefer full disclosure and honesty. when you saw around christmas time target shoppers out there credit-card and debit card information being swept up and stolons, it was slow going to get the information on exactly how many had been hacked the reader believe the corporation was alerted to the hackings a couple of weeks before they let it out into the regular public. when you find things like that you lose trust in the store. it seems to me the one that would give the most disclosure to my those would be the stores that people would turn to because they

feel comfortable, as if that store or corporation is actually putting a privacy needs first before the company dollar bottom line. >> that is a tough one, especially if you are dealing with the company's on-line. in the store and then the other when you're dealing with the on line. a lot of times you get the privacy policy. you can't go any further. the same thing with social media services. more often than not they say i know are shared. they almost feel guilty. i really should read the privacy policy but i don't. well, i understand. but it really is so important. her conversation around our

company's need to be more transparent, the privacy policies are a great place to start. making it sound like a legal contract. the transparent. >> simple language. i don't read half of those myself. so long. it seems like it is to protect the legal interest of the company. really, if you are a shopper the only way you're going to dodge this data collection and just kind of state around all of this emerging technology is if you pay in cash. if you really are concerned about it you can kind of keep to an unknown your data transactions and so forth. you can take your money out of the bank in cash. then when you shop the cash. it is things like that. you can take steps on their own. >> there are some simple steps he could take.

we talked about the whole thing. the data you are putting out there, no one is asking for a you know, there are a few steps that americans can take when you don't have to just go be a hermit, but you have to be aware. modern society.

the biggest take away. there really struck me again , you are tied back. somebody listening today, would you want them to take away? you want them to read this book. this is sick crazy to

manhattan foil hat argument. these are things a you can flip on and see happening every during a perching all aspects of human activity. this mission is founded on the notion that our rights come from, not government. he think and look around see how far we have strayed from that and once it is nowhere else can you go and live as free as we are supposed to be? craze agree take away to hostile sleep. you did a fabulous job. highly recommend this for everybody. consumers, business people, elected officials. thank you so much. >> thank you.

>> up next afterwards. former white house counsel and his latest book the nixon defense. in the book the man his congressional testimony presents a more in-depth look based on newly released on the tennis. this program is about an hour. >> it is great to be here. recalling coming in here today. loudobbs@foxbusiness.com

you suspected but you did not know. you had no confidence and then those tapes came out and they vindicated almost 100% exactly what you said. there was an anchor that i ran into, one of the tv anchors that reminded me he was six years old when you testified and for those who weren't around, the first thing i would ask is, what was watergate? >> guest: while i suspect at this table there is probably more collective knowledge

between you and i on that subject than any table that 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 taking a second look, a third look and a fourth look in a 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 a rather sad chapter in american history. it was a period that america did not shine its brightest. the presidency showed its underbelly and to this day the legacy of those events affect the way we govern. >> host: but watergate itself sam ervin who headed this watergate committee said what it was was an assault on the integrity of the process of nominating presidents and

electing them. in other words nixon and his people were tampering with everyone's vote. do you agree? >> guest: i agree with ababa what has happened over the years the definition of watergate has so expanded from the break-in, the cover-up, the interference and influencing of the election process to just general nixonian abuse of power. in fact congress has actually defined it as a result of legislation and regulations that phelbeck legislation that they watergate has a very very broad meaning. you and i am today we are going to be talking about a very narrow area of that, but it's indicative of the entire defense. >> host: y. 39, 40 years later because it's 40 years ago that nixon resigned. why do we jump back into the total immersion in that period

of the tapes for that year at the time of the watergate burglary until their existence was disclosed by alexander butterfield. >> guest: if i have known what i was getting into i don't think i would have gotten into it. i started out and my publisher suggested i might revisit the subject in light of the 40th anniversary of watergate. that's a rolling anniversary as you know the goes from june 17 of 2012 until august 9 of 2014 which is the period between the break-in and the arrests and nixon's resignation. i originally started out and what i wanted to enter was a question, how could somebody as savvy as richard nixon, politically very very astute and

intelligent mess of his presidency on the bungled burglary that provoked it all the way he did and 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 cataloging who would tape wide and what was available. >> host: there are hundreds of hours of tapes that no one really is listening who are transcribed. >> guest: i found over 600 conversations that as best i could tell nobody outside the archives in processing the tapes ever looked at them. >> host: what did you learn? somebody who reads this book what are they going to learn that they did no? >> guest: probably every page is something i didn't know. i don't know how many pages of things you did know but we are pretty sophisticated reach readers and knowledgeable about this. i do know for example the richard nixon to take a sequentially at the outset was only getting his knowledge and

information from haldeman initially and the "washington post" as well as others but because the post is the only paper discovering it. >> host: time and time again he said he read those articles and he's angry about them and he wonders how information is getting out. >> guest: did you always wonder how he felt about that before? >> host: well of course. >> guest: now you know. >> host: he said oh that's a story in the post. where's that going? is that coming from here? is it coming from the committee? is it coming from the fbi and so forth but 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 smallmindedness that everything seemed to be about nixon.

what is added here? >> guest: what i did as you know is i followed day by day to try to understand how this thing fell apart and i pull away to a wide angle. i see a combination of two things. character, a man's character a and. >> 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 decision-making is so sloppy, so unprocessed, so seat-of-the-pants i was stunned. i can't but wonder if this doesn't reflect other areas of his 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 have dug out in some detail is true in vietnam?

>> host: his top aides haldeman and ehrlichman and youth to a certain extent, they are rambling, there are unfocused. there is no kind of lets march through this and let's make a decision. he will just say something almost at random and then haldeman will say something. >> guest: and 30 minutes later had the same conversation with somebody else if not the same person. >> host: and so contradictory at. at one point you call it, i love the metaphor. you say you as his counsel at the time not in the inner circle that you say this was the devil's merry-go-round. >> guest: that was actually a metaphor i picked up as i was writing. i thought about the semi.about the circular nature of the watergate conversations and how

the same tune and the same circle is repeated. sometimes a slight difference that basically over and over. the man with the lover is sitting right in the middle as richard nixon and he never pulls it and this is why i say this is the devil's merry-go-round because these conversations were not at a high level of conversation. this is in deep thought. this is pretty expedient thinking. >> host: as i went through its there were a good number of things i learned and one was about chuck colson who was nixon's kind of hatchet man. his special counsel somebody who is always hanging in the shado shadows. >> guest: i tried out to be pejorative and calling its special projects. >> host: he eventually pled guilty to related crimes and i think that seven months in jail. the fascinating moment carl

bernstein and i wrote the story in october 10 in a the post saying that watergate was part of larger operations of sabotage and espionage bringing forth the details about donald segretti who is this lawyer who was hired to run all kinds of agents against nixon's opponents in the primaries and so forth. and then colson comes in and says it's absolutely fascinating. he says i did a hell of a lot of things on the outside and you never read about it. the things you read about what the things i didn't do but you see i did things out of boston which was his hometown. we did some blackmail and the nixon goes, my god even he surprised. then colson says i will go to my

grave before i ever disclose it. we did a hell of a lot of things and never got caught. things that and then he just abruptly stops. >> guest: catches himself. >> host: nixon never inquires. there's no curiosity. your guy comes in and says we could blackmail and a hell of a lot of things. you either know about them or suspect were you would think you would want to know. >> guest: in the book as you'll recall i noted that chuck made a similar post to me. >> host: in a footnote you say this. >> guest: he also takes us to his grave. we don't know what these things are and it's interesting the way he 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 them to jail and they were never going to come out. >> guest: he said only i know about them. >> host: did you ask? >> guest: i did. he wouldn't tell me. he said i'm not going to tell you what i did. there's one way to keep a secret in this town and only you know it. a pretty good analysis. >> host: kolff in a sense deceased so there may be a full other aspect. >> guest: chuck did something very effective. he took all of his presidential papers that were controversial. he would give what he wanted to wheaton college. i send somebody out-years ago to take a look and they said there's really nothing in there. he clearly print out anything in his papers that were troublesome and they are gone or i assume they are done. >> host: do you think he was capable of the hidden forces and all of us and the 30 tricks and

the illegality? >> guest: there has been this interesting pattern. nixon is a different person with different people. he responds at a different level in a conversation. with me he's always been a fairly high level. colson brings out his absolute darkest side. haldeman, the two of them just seem to draw something. >> host: haldeman was nixon's chief of staff. what do we learn about haldeman on the state's? >> guest: we learn that he's extremely intelligent. he is the one that seems the most conscious of the fact they are taping from time to time. when it gets dicey he backs off. and shuts up for makes gratuitous statements that are favorable. he seems to click and remember. nixon occasionally remembers these recordings but unlike

haldeman in fact there's a situation that happens in the end after they have left. the taping machine. there's only one reason he wanted to meet in the lincoln sitting room. he doesn't want it on tape. >> host: of course haldeman is looking for a pardon at this point. >> guest: while not at that point that at some point. >> host: the other thing is as you say. >> guest: excuse me, i think the quid pro quo with nixon are interesting conversations. if i survive this i will pardon people. >> host: he said i promise that. but no one would go to jail? >> guest: the problem is he did none of his commitment because as you no haldeman and

ehrlichman in the final days they tried desperately. >> host: and of course nixon until the moment he resigned as unreviewable -- >> guest: is probably one of the strongest presidential powers. no one can contest it. it's just an unchecked power. >> host: in april 73 there's a tape of one of the many that fascinated me. this is a couple of weeks before haldeman are ehrlichman resign and you leave. >> guest: was it not fascinating how he has to manipulate the office staff? had you known that? >> host: a little bit of it. >> guest: i had no idea he had to go through these. he really has to deceive them if you will. >> host: oh yes and then they deceive each other.

but this one really struck me because ehrlichman kind of the second closest to the council comes in and talks about the watergate cover-up. he said there were eight or 10 people around the white house who knew about this. then nixon says first haldeman says oh i knew all kinds of people knew about the cover-up. then nixon says, well i knew it. and then you write, which i think is quite accurate, realizing that he just confessed and possibly realized he had been courted the press immediately tried rather awkwardly to backtrack. then he said on the tape i must say though i didn't know. there's this kind of gobbledygook and if you take it out you realize they kind of all

know what's going on. where were they covering up in what were they covering up? >> guest: initially it's true then nixon is covering up for mitchell. he's concerned about his friend. haldeman once told me that richard nixon believed he was president because of john mitchell. right or wrong. his friend nudged him to do it and encouraged him to do it and made it possible gave him a good base in new york. had this great affection for mitchell and did not want this to splash on mitchell. that's where it starts but he's also worried, something very interesting bob and i don't were long content -- commentary. i just let the facts are well. >> host: is an interesting way that you were able to reign yourself.

you must have had a good editor. >> guest: i did have a good editor and i try to edit myself along the way to stay out of it if you will. one of the things that is very apparent very early as he's concerned if he had some -- said something to colson that triggered the watergate break-in. i did not elaborate on that but this is the subtext in these conversations. you could tell from the tones of voices in the way somebody probed something. i think he thinks he might have told colson to tell hans to break-in because he had earlier done that. i put a footnote on one of those conversations from 71 during the pentagon papers episode where he's literally pounding on his desk demanding to break into the brookings institute. >> host: where they suspected there was a secret report on the vietnam bombing. if you listen to that tape nixon is just in a rage.

i want you to get in there and they won't let it go. subsequent tapes this is a 1971, a year before watergate, he is ordering to break-in and voices great disappointment that they didn't do what he asked. you went out there. >> guest: that's how i got myself on the outs if you also i knew nothing about the plumber's operation because -- >> host: remind people that the plumber operation is? >> guest: beso special investigations investigations unit that was a self starting many fbi. >> host: it was set up under nixon's orders. >> guest: is really for ellsberg. they weren't happy the way it the fbi had done it. i turned it off and that's the reason i know none of that.

he was told don't talk to dean about it so this is why it's all a surprise to me. what are they covering up? they are definitely covering up the activities. here's the way this happens because ehrlichman, this is the thing that amazes me that neither ehrlichman or haldeman tell nixon what their vulnerability is. haldeman hence vaguely in those early conversations well there are some strings that would be a problem. i'm not even sure how much ehrlichman has told him but what happened is john mitchell within 48 hours of the arrest bob marty and ann fred leroux, two of his aides debriefed libby and lady confesses that he had to me that he had used two men in watergate that he used in a break-in and daniel ellsberg's psychiatrist office and now the d.c. jail.

libby tells him the other thing come the cia has provided paraphernalia and what happens so mitchell's genuinely concerned at this point. my hunch was that mitchell had that not have been the case might've stepped forward and said listen i made a terrible mistake here and done the right thing. he has been so worried about the fact that the white house has got both feet in this as well. >> host: this is what mitchell called the white house wars. that's part of the 1970s houston plan which nixon authorized, wiretapping additional break-ins. nixon authorized it and dissented it because jay baker hoovered the fbi director protested, not because it was illegal but because he felt that was the fbi's turf.

we do break-ins and wiretaps. get somebody else to do it. >> guest: nixon and in his own mind thought that stuff was all all right. if you read some of this he knows it's politically troublesome but he 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: there are couple of things here. first of all there are conversations which were not taped and carl bernstein and ion number of years ago talked to mcgregor who is a former congressman who replaced him as the campaign manager for nixon. clark mcgregor told us that nixon and mitchell had a neat meeting a few days after watergate and the residence of the white house. all mcgregor was able to say from what he learned from

mitchell was they all played their cards on the table. they have learned about things they didn't know about. if you really look at it if it's true and mcgregor is deceased now and mitchell is gone in nixon is gone but if you look at that point there is a time and in your tapes shows where they just kind of go full blast with the cover-up. they are going to cover out. you say the 1970s houston plan didn't concern nixon. i think it did. he approved at it but theirs is may 23, in your voluminous 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 that they use any means necessary

including illegal means. nixon is telling this to his chief of staff at the time al hague. a president of the united states can never admit that. of course he just had. so clearly in my whole view of this is this is a matrix. you have a whole series of activities that go back to 1969. in illegal activities that kind of come together and the watergate for burglary 15 people were arrested in the democratic headquarters than you have got an investigation. you have the thread on the sock that's going to pull it down. all of this is connected. >> guest: what was interesting

is chuck colson reported his reaction, nixon's reaction that first weekend which i think is true that nixon nixon was wide -- wise enough to walk it back. only colson could quote himself as hearsay, he said he couldn't remember what nixon told him that we can when they talked. the weekend of the 18th and 19th of june of 1972. he didn't know what his staff had told him. he had told them so that made it immediately hearsay. he told the staff that he would be so angry to learn that the committee was involved in the city with her an ashtray across the room. >> host: did nixon know about the watergate burglary on june 171972? >> guest: don't think so. >> host: did he know about the operations a month earlier to

plant that? >> guest: i don't think so. but here's the interesting thing bob. have they not been arrested by watergate on the night of the 17th they were headed for mcgovern's headquarters up on capitol hill raid if they had been arrested there you can trace it right back to the oval office because nixon gives an instruction to haldeman to put a plant in mcgovern's headquarters. what does a plant mean? well it can mean a lot of things. haldeman takes that and tells gordon strong to tell liddy liddy to change his intelligence operation to mask in mcgovern so if they would have arrested in mcgovern's headquarters the order would have come right from the oval office but the plant when you look at the context of

some of the other conversations necessarily map -- but liddy would take anything in the north it. >> host: what is nixon's legacy now? >> guest: one of the things that i think people might look 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 informationweek. >> host: does it change the view that people have of him or that history might have a cam? >> guest: it could explain that someone like kissinger or ehrlichman were much more important his decisions on anything from it the epa to china than nixon was. they drove the decisions. you can see the man suffers making decisions.

>> host: what he is doing is trying to tease out from people what they know. >> guest: well there is some of that but he's also trying to clarify. >> host: 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: they will judge him in the context of other presidents is what they will do. as you know i am a hearty biographer. the president has gotten a really bad rap in no one has ever understood it because they have never dug into the facts. i think as long as the facts about nixon's presidency on 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: will not only that but i mean what these new tapes in the old tape show is he almost had this view of the presidency as an instrument that he had which he could use for personal revenge. to settle political scores. 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 -- 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. it's a record in the top three of all presidential races and the electoral and the popular vote. >> host: in 1972.

>> guest: in 1972 in what happens? he becomes more bitter. was he talking about most? how is going to go after his enemies. this is not a gracious winner but he is also troubled. >> host: you knew him and worked for him and had all those meetings with him. did he seem happy? one of the things and 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 a paper and keep this out. he was happy and he would make jokes. there was. >> guest: nixon has very little sense of humor. >> host: no joy? >> guest: you know i don't know. i listen to some conversations that i did not include because they weren't relevant but in queuing things up i would listen to some. he had a lovely relationship with his daughters.

i'm sure they were stunned when the 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 is a lovely relationship and a few conversations i listen to their most of the stuff was taken out was personal. >> host: we haven't seen, we have only seen one third or half of what's available? there are hundreds of hours that were taken out for privacy reasons. >> guest: there's a treasure trove they are. nobody was bothering to flesh this out to fully understand watergate and now we have the full picture of his rolling watergate. >> host: one of the other things i found fascinating is ehrlichman goes to nixon in march of 73 before you come in and give your speech and they talk about the watergate tap

into the democratic headquarters which function at least for a number of weeks and ehrlichman reports to nixon. there are 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 ought to destroy the tapes. >> guest: his tapes, not the dnc tapes. he was good we ought to get rid of these tapes and the order's haldeman to do it twice and haldeman said sure but nothing happens. why? guess i think he gets consumed in watergate himself. not being a lawyer he thought nixon might be able to use these selectively to his advantage and made the decision he wasn't going to do anything about it. what again is interesting is that after the pointy leaves and

they continue having meetings. he insists they meet in the lincoln sitting room for some of these key meetings about future testimony. >> host: so there's a big portion that was taped that we don't know about. >> guest: i would say it's like 90/10. 90% of nixon on watergate is on tape. >> host: i mean on nixon on being president. >> guest: there's a massive supply. >> host: kissinger said he didn't know about it. he said this is pure madness to take years and years of conversations through a voice-activated system so somebody just went in there and make some noise the system went on. kissinger said it would take years to even do a once through listen.

>> guest: exactly. you once said it's the gift that keeps on giving. that's very true for any stude student. we will never have a record like this again because you can only trace this man's behavior of watergate from the beginning virtually to the end because you know there could not have been a very different pattern that followed after the plug was pulled in mid-july. it was just a repetition of what we had already learned. his defense then becomes just really trying to protect the tapes. >> host: no president is going to tape again. i remember interviewing president obama and i went into the oval office with two tape recorders so they would not be a malfunction and his press secretary said he knew a lot about tapes and everyone laughed

and obama said, you believe they taped everything and he looked at his press secretary kind of like we will never do that. that's never going to happen again. so in a sense you get to look into not just the actions and words of this president but a little bit into his soul and getting into the interior where real decisions are made. >> host: we do, no question. that's something i don't have a sound bite to explain this and i think you have to watch them and see how he handles this as it progresses. it's not a pretty picture. >> host: is there anything on the tapes that sheds light on him in a positive way or anything that is favorable? >> guest: absolutely.

there is no question that his aides did not serve him well. he is not given the facts he needs to know early on. how we would have dealt with them is another issue. >> host: does that include you? >> guest: as soon as i can in late february i am -- about the problems in trying to figure out how much this man knows. >> host: as his counsel how come you're not banging the door down? >> guest: he said the mobile to say because it's true. he had no access. >> host: why didn't you insist on access of their earlier 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: what i assumed, i

couldn't believe what i went to these tapes that he wasn't being told more than he was being told. i just assumed haldeman. >> guest: . >> host: what's the lesson for a lawyer, never assume. >> guest: under the rules of ethics every lawyer has a duty to report up and to report to the very top if necessary. >> host: do you wish you had? would watergate have been different? >> guest: yes. 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 the chance the way it unfolded. >> host: and he has all those earlier the houston plan. wasn't this kind of a mindset that nixon was the driver and if you have gone in there and you said to haldeman a few days

after the watergate burglaries this has a bad aroma about it and i need to talk to the president you would have gone in and slammed her fist down and said this is illegal. this is against the law. you are the president of the united states and you can't do this. >> guest: in your early 30s you don't go and an push around the leader of the western world. neither you nor i would do with that situation much differently at this point in our life. what i did do on march 21 is try to confront him with these problems. one after another after another and he is a response for every one of them. but krogh is terribly troubled and has committed perjury. his response is it's a tough act to prove. i tell him who knows how much is going to cost and he says what

could it cost? he said i pulled a figure out of thin air and i had never thought of this. he said is going to talk cost a million dollars. there will be 5.5 million today. i had no idea but i was trying to stun him with the number. he said hell we can't raise that kind of money. >> host: i know where we can get it ending cash. >> guest: he went in and checked with rosewicz how much money they had in their slush fund that may have 400,000. >> host: at least. >> guest: yes, he was already looking for it. i am not sure if i would have gone and it would have been different because at that point i'm really trying to warn him because i realize no one has warmed -- warned him that what he was doing is his deadly. >> host: as i mentioned you the one thing i disagreed 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 you are quite firm about it. he said he never found the existence of such a scheme and if so, if it exists in this fantasy scenario the number two in the fbi who was one of our sources named deep throat who was giannetti at the "washington post." >> guest: before you respond to that were you surprised how much we knew at the time we know at? >> host: i was astounded. 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: the answer to this, in your series right give you full credit for merging the

issues and beginning the process of bringing abuse of power and misuse of campaign operations 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 campaign. the posts melted that information and changed for upper watergate as more than just a bungled burglary. but i i never found bob was a central organization that was running a 50 state campaign of sabotage and what have you. i'd never heard of it. i hadn't found any evidence of it. was there ad hoc and freelance stuff going on? probably come i don't know but where was the going? >> host: the watergate committee found donald degrandy and 22 people. they were spies in the muskie

campaign. they were sending out phony letters are. >> guest: let me tell you something, that was coming back to the white house. >> host: but that was an operation that was set up by him part the presidents -- >> guest: as you know we can probably debate this for a full hour or more and you and i have disagreed to disagree on this. i get your point. >> host: and i get your point but what i think and i think this is important and i think it's validated by your book is that there was a mindset and if we can achieve our means, our political means and screw somebody or have a public relation's victory go to it. there is no barrier and if you look in details at what the senate watergate committee did what the nixon operatives did to muskie they really drove him from the race or certainly

helped and got the nominee they wanted former governor was much more to the left. he was a big political victory that worked. if you think of watergate as a burglary or just a cover-up it masks the dimensions because the dimensions were to do these things to candidates that were really pretty. you take one candidates stationary and pointed out accusing another candidate of mild sexual improprieties and so forth. you get chaos. >> guest: i don't think that was directed from the white house. let's not debate that back and forth. look at my opening statement in my senate testimony where he i said exactly this. this was a mindset.

this was a predisposition of a do-it-yourself white house to gather intelligence, the political intelligence by whatever means they thought they might be able to do it. this was the mindset that came right from the top of the white house. you know when presidents wear hats, all their staff wear hats. when presidents have fires in the fireplace all the staff is a fire in the fireplace. if the president doesn't do that thing they don't do it so it really comes from the top. >> host: the concentration of power in the presidency is astounding. >> guest: it is and this has largely been because congress doesn't want to take these things on. things that have to be done and look at the particular area of intelligence. in national security to an area he dealt with for a long time. 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 has not wanted to grapple with these things and there are some things that they don't grapple well with. >> host: yes that's true and there's a vacuum. in an interesting way on the dark side like nixon exercised his power in an astonishing way. i think when all of the tapes and everything is out even what we know now and what is added in your book, the idea that a presidential aide like chuck colson comes in and says i did all these things. >> guest: let me ask you this. i thought you might in particular find the story of ron sigler whose tail has never been

told. ron never wrote the book he helped to write. he never gave a history for 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 has as a sounding board as his presidency progresses when haldeman leaves. >> host: and in the final day days. the new chief of staff in sigler who were the ones who went to nixon and listen to him and tried to manage all of this. you know i think there's no doubt that it's true but no one ever established the ziegler had primary knowledge, first-hand knowledge of the crime himself other than what he heard from nixon and haldeman and ehrlichman and you.

>> guest: it's true but could you name him as a focus there bearer. you could in a sense but he wasn't and i'm pleased that he wasn't. >> host: when we wrote stories he denounced as regularly and then. >> guest: you saw that conversation where he goes to nixon and says i want to apologize to the post matt. >> host: and he did publicly. at least in my mind and my colleague carles, that was important and kind of okay you did your job, now let's move into the next phase. the problem with the next phase is as your tapes show they continue the cover-up. >> guest: is the cover-up of a cover-up. i agree completely. >> host: frank gammon who worked for nixon who was a nixon

defender that you review in "the wall street journal" in your book says 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 i admitted the part of the march 21 conversation where nixon says that 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 he will find that he is dead wrong. >> host: the second thing he says at the end, there are many mysteries about watergate. i don't think there are many mysteries that all but he makes a good point when he says we don't know who ordered the

break-in and we don't know what they were looking for. >> guest: not true and in fact i think there's no question there was financial information of some sort. i put an appendix together where jurado getting from every every conversation put in reform so people could see and there's no question. at least that's what the white house understood and what i didn't add and what i have done elsewhere showed everybody involved in the break-in thought they were getting financial information. parker, martinez, hans. hans says that the instructions he gave them. they have done this under oath so no question what they are looking for. >> host: they were looking for more dirt. >> guest: there's little doubt in my mind how it actually happened and i don't go into this in great depth in the book at all. what happens is that when

mitchell approves the plan watergate is a part of it of the democratic national committee. mcgruder sends liddy on this mission. when the results come back mcgruder told me at the time contemporaneously, and he told me and he is testified to this fact also. i left my cell phone on. anyway, he has testified to this very clearly that what happened is the results were such junk

when he put together his book will i think he tried to do an honest accounting. he does it bought 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 things that corrected so many things. this is a contemporaneous record. we make these kinds of mistakes. >> host: now one of the things you do in your life as you go

around to law firms and talk to lawyers. >> guest: bar association's. >> host: bar associations about this type of situation would a lawyer should do. suppose you were teaching in college or high school and you taught a class on watergate and you wanted to tell the students and some grand synthesized way what this was and what is the lesson citizens and students should take away from this extraordinary scandal. >> guest: we had 20 lawyers who got on the wrong side of the law during watergate. that's the best count i can make. 20 got on the wrong side of the wall and many other god on this site without seeing it. many that