out there. i think it's directed, and i still feel that way. although since i've been here talking to scott and john, who are far more -- about this thing and have a far more thorough knowledge than i, i defer to their wisdom, but that's what i saw up close. i was in and out of his office all day, sat in on lots of conversations with him. and nixon in his very funny way ran the show. >> scott, how about you? what was your first reaction as it started to unfold and you heard of woodward's reporting and your reaction? >> well, you have to go back in time to what a different world it was. it was a very partisan environment, and not just partisan democrat/republican but partisan because of the vietnam war, and my generation was trying to shut down the vietnam war and felt very powerful, but we were outsiders, and the establishment was closed.

and here were reporters and then eventually the watergate committee. i was the sixth person on the democratic side, the majority side. there were seven senators, four democrats, three republicans. and there was a sense of partisanship that was kind of twofold. there was the democrats and republicans and people protecting nixon and democrats who for partisan reasons might want to go after him, and then there was us. i was 27 years old at the time. jerry garcia, the grateful dead, were my notion of how i should dress for work. which was a lot different than the white house or the senate at that time. so there was a skepticism. and i remember the first day of work i interviewed haldeman and ehrlichman who just resigned and they went back and reported that the white house said they'd been interviewed by a group including a white panther who actually was

allowed to ask them questions. thought that was quite bizarre. within a day or so i realized how divided things were. >> at the committee. >> at the committee. because john had just come in and was beginning to tell the majority staff, the democrats, what was really going on. and didn't have a roadmap. john was providing a roadmap to it, and we were, you know, at least my position was we were skeptical. we had to find out what was really going on. but the partisanship, john reported that howard baker, who was the senator, who was the minority co-chair of the committee, had a bad channel to the white house, and had had conversations with john and other people there, and so this was quite astounding, the notion that we were running a committee and yet there was this back channel to the white house that there was -- had republicans terms, and baker stopped having meetings because he knew that john had now reported this to the majority staff.

we weren't telling the minority staff what was going on because of the fear of them undercutting john or doing something to cover up further, and the question was, we were having exec titive sessions where there was some exchange between the minority and the majority and that information was getting back to the white house. so they assumed that it was somebody close to baker and his chief of staff -- his committee director, staff director, was a fellow named fred thompson later to become a senator and now a spokesman for reverse mortgages on late-night tv, but thompson was too busy, and we couldn't figure out how he could do anything. we kind of monitored his phone call, frankly, to make sure. the assumption was it might be jim johnson, i think was his name, anyway, one of baker's administrative assistants. so i came into the office and dan said we've got to figure out if he's the source.

can you help us? i said, well i have an executive session. we had an executive session. i followed johnson. he jumped into a cab, i jumped into a cab, just like in the movies and he got out at the old executive office building. the portion of the white house where most of the staff worked. and went in the side door. the staff entrance. so i came back and reported this. he said, well, we still don't know who he's reporting to. give me a second. i called the staff counsel we thought he might be working with -- >> was that bosart's office? >> i think it was. fred bosart had come over from the pentagon, was their go-to guy in these sinister and mysterious things. i called up mr. bosart's office and said, can i speak to -- i think his name was johnson -- the name of the aide. i need to speak to him. they brought him to the phone

and he was quite surprised to hear me and why are you calling me? i said, just to prove you're there, and he resigned that night, because it was considered to be such a breach of trust that he had immediately left an executive session, and they're very quiet meeting at the senate and gone over to the white house to report. that was it. it was done. so that was the kind of atmosphere that we were working. the majority staff working with john but testing his ideals, was he still the evil work for mitchell and responsible for a cover-up. we were kind of trying to understand following the details that he gave, trying to establish them independently and we weren't doing a very good job up through the time john testified, this remarkable testimony, and in the middle of -- i think just before he testified, nixon said, you have to stop the committee hearings almost immediately after john's testimony, where two more people i think who testified. because leonid brezhnev, the premier of the soviet union was coming to the

united states, big meeting, and we couldn't have watergate going on during that period. well, this gave us a little bit of a reprieve. a little respite. just before that, we began saying, this is not the way to investigate. i'm serious when i say the law, the criminal process in particular, but even the law when it applied to -- on the -- in a senate context. you can't just go around questioning people under oath. you're not going to get the truth. you have to go work around the edges. one of the things we found out, there were all of these invisible people in the white house, and the invisible people were to some extent the lower level staff but particularly women. we didn't have any women professional staff members at the time. the white house didn't have very many. i mean, i can't -- scarlett hills, i can't remember who they might have had. >> the secretarial staff. >> the secretarial staff. this is the point act sexism

that was made last night. it was an invisible world, and here we had -- we would go into the white house and we'd get nothing from these senior -- from higbee, or higbee had a higbee. the deputy assistants and whatnot, but if you talked to their secretaries and they felt comfortable, weren't represented by somebody from the white house staff that worked outside, including remarkably john's own secretary, who was a very forthright person and gave us enormous help. that's when we began to realize we could reconstruct things. so there was a day, i remember going to the monical restaurant right near capitol hill. they have paper -- cloth tops over -- paper -- >> tablecloths. >> table cloths over the regular white tablecloth, and we sat there and said, this is not the way to investigate. i was systems analyst among other things and made an organizational chart of the white house. the question was, here's nixon.

here's dean. we already knew from john's testimony that john didn't have notes other than materials that he gave us was very limited, on the subject of his meetings with the president. so there wasn't going to be paper documentation. we had to figure out who else would know so made a satellite chart of all the people in touch with nixon. all the people that were in touch with dean. in the middle of this, literally, here's dean up here, and you looked at this chart, this flowchart effectively of where information flowed. and there was the office of the counsel of the president. there was this guy who controlled everything in and out of the president's office, alexander butterfield, and lots of other people. we began going down that list particularly talking to their secretaries. that was the process we were using to reconstruct things at the time. >> amongst the development of the satellite, one of the things

just popped into my mind. i wonder if you ever had occasion to go over to the dnc and actually visit those facilities where the arrests occurred? >> we did, but, again, all under these odd circumstances. the democratic staff going to see the democratic national committee. we were not -- i mean, really, investigating as much as we were just looking at the scenery and the -- although we were skeptical, at least i was, of larry o'brien who was the chairman. >> were you pretty able to fill in your satellite chart as to who was there that you might want to reach? >> yes. i mean, we -- >> did you ever find the fact i did hire one of the first female attorneys in the white house? >> the -- well -- >> darlene moles. >> i'd forgotten that. we were looking for people that were knowledgeable of these interactions that john was having with the president. that was always critical. >> i just wanted to share that with jill.

let's proceed along. you've developed the satellite chart. there are now people you haven't talked to. some you're talking to talk to, informing, tell us how you reach alex butterfield? >> what happened, butterfield was on a list of people we were going through. you have to tlolook at the sena side. we had no -- at that point later was a woman named mary diorio, became the first woman staff member. we had no women in the professional staff. we had a lot of women around, they were stenographers and secretaries, whatnot. then were just as bright. but i was one of those people from the jerry garcia era that understood women were human beings and i liked to spend time with them. they were intellectually vibrant. and because they were invisible, people said things all the time in those days. the white house, they didn't think there was anybody else in the room if there were just women there.

so the same thing was true of our staff. i treated these women with respect. one day about 11:00 at night i was working late and this staff was very dedicated and worked around the clock. the women. this woman came by and said -- we were in a converted auditorium and we had open booths, open work areas, little cubicles. and she said, i'm about to put a memo that you would like to see on the desk of the deputy republican staff member, and i wouldn't go in as a matter of principle, wouldn't go into his cubicle. but she said the cubicle, his desk was about three feet inside the door of the cubicle. she said, i will lay it out. and i went there and i read it, just leaning over and read it. it was this remarkable account being given to fred thompson, the minority staff director, from fred bosart, inside the

white house, their go-to man to continue the cover-up, if you will. bosart was telling thompson what to ask dean about his meetings. so i saw this and, wow, so i went to sam dash, the majority, the democratic staff director, and i said, we have to get a copy of that. he arranged quietly to get a copy of this. read it and it was extraordinary amount of detail. very much what john had told us, but always a little twist at the end in which it was john who was covering up. and the questions were all oriented in that way. by this point john had testified when i'm seeing this memo for the first time being typed up and i said, well, this is why they're -- the republican questions -- it was not a sharp staff. i mean, these were not the -- these were not the sharpest knives in the drawer. they were spoons, if anything, but they were asking pretty pointed, direct questions of john. this is where it came from, and i thought, wow. this is really interesting.

so we -- one of the first interview, not the very first, but one of the first interviews on this satellite chart of who would have known things was this former air force general. i guess still an air force general, but the head of -- >> colonel. >> colonel. i've promoted him already. but who had left the white house and gone over to the faa. and so i called up and said that we would like to talk to you about procedures and whatnot at the -- how things are run at the white house. it would be a very informal interview. and he agreed to come. >> so no idea there was a taping system? it's a fishing expedition? >> a fishing expedition but from my point of view, it would prove -- once i had this bosart mem me to thompson, two things were important to me. one, how was this reconstructed by the white house? you know, i thought it probably came out of nixon's, you know, trying to come up with an account. i thought that process would be interesting. i wasn't thinking tapes.

>> do you think at some point that planted in your mind, well, come along, you didn't pop the actual question that it had sanders -- that you were not going to let up on the issue? >> the question was where it came from and how it got there. the second thing that was important to me was, remember that howard baker had been embarrassed by john's testimony about the back channel to the white house and his chief of staff had to resign when that was discovered. i was thinking thompson has to resign and baker probably has to leave the committee. i was pretty naive, but that was my belief. >> i have to be frank, one of the things i did in the procession before i appeared publicly, i decided to let baker, howard baker know that i knew he had a back channel to the white house. and pretty much what he'd said, because i'd written the president's talking papers and helped facilitate and set up the meeting.

and rather than pull the rug out from underneath him publicly, i thought i would gently tug on it privately, which i did. and in a sense i think it neutered him. he said, what else do i know that he wanted to be careful about? and i knew -- i knew from my dealings with sam dash in preparation of my appearance that howard was -- much too -- the frustration of sam dash seemed to be always taking very anti-positions about my testimony in private, but as soon as the majority would resolve that they needed my testimony, he would come out and make it look like it was almost his position. so i tried to use this strategically when i did. tell us how -- keep this thing moving along -- how it comes down to -- once you get alex in there, what happens?

>> well, it's a -- it's friday the 13th, which is not something that occurred to me at the time. >> i understand absolutely sweltering washington friday the 13th? >> it was one of those 90s, felt like 110 because of the humidity days. we met in the air-condition ed basement of the dirksen senate office building in a little room that was maybe 15 x 20 that was never cleaned because we were afraid it would be bugged. originally it had been a very formal kind of hearing table-type things with felt covers, but over the course of months of interviewing constantly, it became -- it was just filthy. there were dust balls the sides

of number 5 kids' soccer balls on the floor, and everybody that came in with an attorney, the attorneys smoked cigars in those days, there was a kind of permanent cloud that never left the room that came down to where the edge of the door was. and in this unpleasant circumstance, alexander butterfield walks in and not accompanied by counsel. it was very rare, and we start going through, and i was methodical. i wanted to think systems analyst again. not lawyer. i wasn't going for the questions at the beginning. i wasn't forcing him somewhere. i went through every drawer in his office held. i went through every procedure. i went through how they kept track of the president's time. who took notes. how they gave him briefing memos. how they recorded the briefing memos and whatnot. it was quite enlightening. for three hours. it must have bored him to death but it was very useful for us. we found out the presidential calendars, how the secret service monitored what he did, when they described those things and didn't. then at the end of it i took out this bosart/thompson memo.

i took off the front part indicating exactly what it was and gave him the part that described the meeting between the president and dean. >> they were set up like a transcript? summary transcript. >> like a summary of the transcript and in a sense -- everything had a twist, tracked what dean's testimony had been and it was prepared before dean's testimony but it always had this twist that dean was responsible for whatever the evil act was at the end. if there was something afraid it would come out, but none was available -- none came out publicly. this was not known. so with this document, i handed it to alex and i said, can you explain, given the systems you just described, how this would be reconstructed? what's it from? and we went through the president's dictabelts. all the different things that -- because i was thinking it came -- it was a created document by nixon based on what they thought dean would testify to. one was, how did they know what dean was going to testify to? but it was very precise and

detailed. and my recollection is that alex took it and looked at it. he had been very straightforward. he said, well, this is -- i asked a couple questions. could this have come from the president's dictabelt? no, too detailed. could this have been -- no, john was the only note taker. we already knew john didn't have notes. so we went on like this. where did this come from? alex took it and very deliberately took it and set it down in front of himself. said, well, let me think about that for a minute. and the questions went off -- i finished up. the questions, don sanders, very skilled fbi agent. very fair. >> before we get to don, let me turn to alex at this point. alex, let's back up just a little bit and get your head as to when you'd been called to come up to the senate. what are you thinking? what's in your head?

what's in your heart? and what are you anticipating? >> i had called howard baker on sunday to see if i could come over and see him. only because he was a republican and the co-chairman of the watergate committee. >> this is before you'd been in there? >> no. >> back all the way up to before you even arrived join get a call to come up and visit with the senate. >> all right. i said i'd be free friday at 2:00 and i was conscious, very conscious of the fact that i was due to go to the soviet union on the following tuesday, and i'd be gone for almost three weeks. so if i was going to meet with this committee staff -- >> and do what in the soviet union? >> i was leading a government industry trade group cutting a ribbon at a trade fair and then the faa was going to be negotiating, we hoped, with the soviets a contract to upgrade

their air traffic control system. >> and at that point you're the administrator of the faa? >> yes, yes. >> and not an unimportant trip? >> no, not an unimportant trip. and i had been at the faa for four months from when i left the white house. so i met with these people and i had been interrogated a number of times before. we all had. >> were you worried about the tapes coming out? >> no. not really terribly. but the only thing that hadn't come out before your testimony which proceeded mine by about three weeks. i thought a lot about the tapes. i said, there they are. i know about them. only seven people knew. maybe eight. i guess four secret service guys and haldeman and higbee and myself and my secretary only knew partially about the tapes. about the cabinet.

so, no. but i thought i would be called, as i usually was, to tell people about the white house. i worked right there. the adjoining office and oversaw the paper flow. >> process questions? >> process questions. i was good for that. i thought it would be more of the same. i of course thought about the tapes but i did not think it was likely i did anything on the tapes. >> and you had no question at that point of their significance? >> oh, no. yeah. how significant they were. yes. those things were running all the time. the only thing i remember differently from what scott just said, i remember getting that piece of paper early on in -- shortly after 2:00 in that four-hour session with the staff and scott was the lead investigator and i remember it as only one sheet of paper. and when they said, where might

this have come from? i looked at this thing and it was, in fact, it looked exactly like a transcript, a verbatim transcript. it had a president, a "d" for dean. it made sense. i mean, it didn't follow the substitution, but i thought, god, it's out. this had to come from the tapes. the very thing i'm so worried about. so i hemmed and hawed and said, gee, this looks very detailed. the president had great retentive powers, but this is too detailed for that. >> your headset, or your mindset at this point is, you don't want to be perceived as a whistleblower, but you really -- in heart of heart,

understand the importance of this evidence and maybe you do have to reveal it? it's a real -- you're really in a conflicted state? >> absolutely. yes. i hate to be the one, and i felt it's a though i were a peripheral person, really. i wasn't that involved in watergate or the cover-up, but anyway, i said finally, sort of panicked, i flew it back down, it slid out to the center of this little conference table. i said, let me think about that for a while. and to my great relief they went on to other items. until sanders was -- until scott turned it over to sanders representing fred thompson. he was the minority deputy counsel, and he said -- he started with a few preliminary questions but then said, getting back to that paper, he said you had mentioned a -- what do they call it, scott? the other -- i can never think of what they call it. the other recording device.

>> dictabelt. >> dictabelt. i had mentioned a dictabelt. that was just for rosemary. the president dictated things on a dictabelt to a few contributors and rosewoods was the grand mogul of the dictabelts. no one was supposed to touch them except rose. he said apart from it, the dictabelt, was there ever any other listening device in the oval office? and as i had said to my wife at breakfast that morning, if they -- i guess if they ask me a direct question, i will just have to answer. and know that -- i mean, i knew it would be the end of my career. certainly in washington. i just knew that. i mean, you can't imagine how nixon was so bugged on this thing being absolute secret. and it was absolute secret all

that time. we know that from what's on the tape. >> did you have any thoughts of calling the white house before going up? >> no. i certainly called him to say i would be testifying. my point of contact, when we left the white house, we all had a point of contact. and mine was len garmin. so i called len and told him i would be testifying, or i thought i would be testifying, and i told him about the friday 13th meeting after that meeting. and then on monday morning when i was called before the main body, the principals on the committee i told him i was going over. he shouted at me. he said, well get your own lawyer. he seemed to -- i was just reporting to him. >> garmin is shouting at you? >> he said, yeah, get your own lawyer. i said, i'm not calling for an attorney. i don't plan to have one. i never did understand that business about having attorney. i knew what i knew and i didn't know what i didn't know, and

i just didn't understand the necessity. >> it's kind of interesting, after -- let's go to what happened after the revelation by alex. >> he has to describe the revelation. >> describe the revelation? >> you were right to the point. >> i was, wasn't i? >> thank you, counselor. >> so i said, when he said that i said, i'm sorry you asked that question. that's the way i remember it. yes, there was. to don simms. yes, there was. then i picked up, that's where this had to come from. and i still don't know. that is still a mystery. >> the question, whether i was aware of that at that point? >> no. >> you don't remember that from sanders' account? >> no. and then we spent 45 minutes -- i was describing the system. i felt reasonably sure that they

had not heard that from any previous witness. it was just too close hold, that secret of nixon's, and now it was out, and i remember being more concerned about foreign dignitaries who had been in our president's office, bugged, and the repercussions from that than i did domestic. >> not members of congress? >> fallout. >> hmm? >> not members of congress? >> well, yeah. just anyone. >> not chief justices? >> no. golda meir, the prime minister wilson, and all the people i just thought that would -- and i hate to be the one that do that, and i know -- i knew that haldeman hadn't come up yet.

>> when foreign dignitaries stayed at camp david, you actually removed the facilities. is that not correct? >> yes. eventually. i didn't tell anyone we put it in, in the president's little office and the cabinet. his lodge. i shouldn't say his cabinet. >> other than the president? >> hmm? >> other than the president, know it was in there? >> the president, yeah. yeah. other than the president. only i. and then we took it out. the secret service said -- put dignitaries in there. they couldn't have it there. he had his own security people looking at it. >> they had protection -- >> i just said, take it out. i never told nixon i said, take it out. but -- >> let's go to what happened as soon as you get this information from butterfield. about friday the 13th. >> there's one other aspect. i went back later and looked at the stenographer's notes and this is what she has down. the memory is what it is, but she was just taking notes. sanders asked a number of different questions about dien