next, an oral history interview that provides a new look into the nixon impeachment inquiry. to mark the 40th anniversary of the watergate break-in on june 17th, the richard nixon presidential library released interviews with key staff charged with investigating whether there were grounds to impeach president nixon. this is the first time that will many of these individuals have spoken for the record about the work and inner politics of the impeachment inquiry. a selection of these interviews will be televised for the first time on american history tv throughout june. we hear now from bernard nussbaum. he served as a senior member of

the staff advising the house judiciary committee on impeachment. he worked alongside future first lady and secretary of state hillary rodham clinton and later served as counsel to the president of the united states in the clinton administration. this is the first of two parts, and is about one hour. >> hi. i'm director of the richard nixon presidential library museum in yorba linda, california. it's october 1st, 2011. we're in new york city. i have the honor and privilege to be interviewing bernie nussbaum for the richard nixon oral history program. thank you for doing this. >> glad to be here. >> so to help the viewer understand 1974 and you, let's go back and tell us please a little bit about how you became a lawyer. >> i was born in 1937. so i was 37 years old in 1974. i was born in manhattan on the lower east side of manhattan.

my parents were immigrants. they were the first in their family to come to the united states. they met and married here but they were born in poland. i was the first child born in the united states. i grew up on the lower eastside, which was primarily a poor neighborhood. populated by jews and others and you know. at the time. and there was a very modest but very warm and loving upbringing. i went to new york city public schools. i was educated in the public schools. i entered public school in 1942, i graduated from stib sant high school in 1954. and then i went from there with honors actually and then i went from there to columbia college. i got a scholarship. i was the first in my family to attend college. i went to columbia college where i did well. i became editor-in-chief of the colombian daily spectator, the

college daily newspaper and i was phi beta kappa and then i went to harvard law school. i got into harvard law school and i did pretty well at harvard law school also. i made the law review and i was editor of the law review. a year -- at the end of law school, at the end of my third year in law school, my contemporaries were in law school were anthony kennedy who is now on the supreme court who was in my class and anyone know scalia who i served with on the law review so i knew these people a long time ago at that time. after law school, i didn't clerk but i received an award called the harvard university sheldon traveling fellowship and i travelled around the world for a year. i traveled to 30 countries. i was 24 years old at the time. i came back to the united states at the age of 25. i decided wayent to be a trial lawyer so i applied to the u.s. attorney's office. i applied before i left and there was a new u.s. attorney, john kennedy had just been

elected president a short time before. the u.s. attorney was robert morgan that will and he interviewed me and he offered me a job as assistant u.s. attorney. it was unusual to get a job right out of law school but the office was sort of turning over at that time so i was 25 years old when i obtained that job when i got that job. and i started it when i returned from this trip around the world. i went to 30 different countries. and i started out in 1962. and i worked in the u.s. attorney's office from 1962 to 1966 prosecuting criminal cases. i took six months out to serve in the united states army reserves which i did during that period. and i got to know morgan that will fairly well obviously. he was my boss at the time and it was a great office. it was an office of prosecutors and you really learned to try cases in that office and to deal with judges and juries and to deal with factual presentations

and factual gatherings and investigations. i left the u.s. attorney's office in 1966 and joined a firm which a friend of mine had -- was involved in starting. it was a firm called whack tell lipton rosen cats and kern at the time. it was seven, eight lawyers at the time. i joined that in 1966. that firm has now grown. it's a very successful firm. i've been with actually that firm for 45 years from 1966 till today other than leaving on a couple of occasions one of which was watergate, the other one was to go to the white house in 1992-1993. so i joined that firm and i became a lawyer at walk tell lipton and i became a private practitioner and i and we spent time with my other partners. i came as an associate. i became a partner two years later building the practice that we now enjoy. in -- i was active politically to some extent.

i ran for office actually in 196, for the state sneempl 196 if in a primary in brooklyn where i lived at the time. unfortunately, i lost. so far that i could move to the suburbs with my wife and my children. i ended up having with my wife three children. and i moved to scarsdale, new york at that time. and so i -- i was involved in the morgan that will campaign. he ran for governor in 1970 and i was his campaign manager in 1970. and i met elizabeth, elizabeth holtzman had worked, a woman named elizabeth walked in walk tell lip fon for a short time when i came. she was there for a short time "so that's how i met her. she left walk tell lipton and went into government to work for john lindsay. and then she went into politics. she left government to go into politics and she ran i think it

was in 1970, yes, it was 1970, yeah for state committee woman. which was sort of a party position. in brooklyn. and she was attacked legally claiming she didn't really live in brooklyn, her parents lived in brooklyn, and she asked he to represent her in that case and i did. and we prevailed. she showed she spent a great deal of time in brooklyn. her parents testified but we won that case in 1970, so she was sort of solidified in politics. i tried it in the brooklyn courts. i was the trial lawyer in that case and then two years later, this is all related actually to watergate and the impeachment obviously in some respect. two years later she decided to run for congress. she ran for congress against a long-term congressman named emmanuel seller who had been in congress for 30 years, 35 years, very powerful figure in brooklyn and in congress. he was the chairman of the house judiciary committee. nobody thought she had a chance

at that time. even i didn't think she had a chance. she told me she was running but she ran and she won by 600 votes against seller in a primary. it was a big surprise. the brooklyn organization and seller then brought a lawsuit against her to set aside the election and asking for a new election claiming she stole the election. there was fraud. people voted who shouldn't have voted, ridiculous charges. i mean the brooklyn organization controlled the were electoral process and she was an outsider who happened to pull it off by campaigning very hard and being very attractive. she asked me to represent her again. i was reluctant to do it. i had a summer vacation planned. this takes place during the summer. my wife wasn't too happy about this. we took a cabin in maine while i never got to, but i did represent her and in a very tough fight we won. we won in the brooklyn courts, which was people i didn't think we would do it but we did win and then we won in the appellate

division and we won in the court of appeals. so we sustained her victory at that time, which was i'm very proud of and she was very happy about. that had an interesting impact. we didn't nope it in 1972 but we know now looking back, because she won and went to congress, seller wasn't in congress which meant he had to step down as chairman of the house judiciary committee. he was no longer in congress and a new chairman was appointed and that was peter rodino. peter ultimately became chairman during the impeachment proceedings involving richard nixon and he performed enormously well. i'm sure in these interviews you'll hear about rodino. he just died a few years ago. he lived well into his 90s. but he had the right temperament. even though he had been attacked as a party hack and things like that, he performed at a very high level. we wonder, no one can tell for sure how seller would have performed but he was a very partisan person. you know, come from the brooklyn

organization. he was an able guy in many ways. i don't want to dep prap indicate seller but ity it would have been a different proceeding looking back and most people also think. so that in a funny way, although i ultimately was involved in the impeachment proceedings, what i did two years before, elizabeth holtzman did two years before probably had a greater impact on the proceeding as anything we did in 1974. holtzman turned out as a congresswoman to be on the house judiciary committee and she was part of the impeachment proceedings and an important part of the proceedings. but i think her victory two years before and mile sustaining of that victory as a lawyer had probably a greater impact and what whatever she did or i did two years later when we were part of it. >> you're being a bit modest. >> there's a little courtroom drama in your victory two years before. >> oh. >> it's a great story. >> well, there's a lot of courtroom drama in that one.

no, it was -- the brooklyn organization really wanted to win that case and there was a -- and one of the -- the judge was a judge named dominick rinaldi who was an old-time judge who came up through the organization which most of the judges did at that time. and what i did in that case was i knew it would be tough to win below in the trial court. i was hopeful i would win in the appellate court hope to i lost the trial court. what i ended up with doing with people in my firm was to submit a brief to him at the beginning of the trial, a very lengthy brief sort of summarizing all the law which made it -- which showed how really judges shouldn't upset elections except in the most unusual circumstances. i really told the judge in the beginning of the trial this is the brief i'm going to submit to the court of appeals. i said it in a nice way and i got on with the judge because it's my job as a trial lawyer to try to get on with the judge. so i really showed him that you

know, i was going to take this all the way. exactly what i was going to say to the court of appeals. and then we starred trying the case. the organization had very good lawyers. they really fought very hard in this case. the lawyer hots opposed me in this case ultimately became a judge, which is not surprising. but he was a very good lawyer. it was a hard fight. but i was fighting back very hard. they were accusing us of fraud and things like that which was ridiculous. we were the outsiders, the reformers at one point i said to demonstrate beat had no control over any processes at all, i'm going to call the chairman of the brooklyn organization. the whole courtroom started shaking. everybody in that courtroom had gotten his job through esposito. they all started screaming basically. so i with drew my request to subpoena esposito. then surprisingly, the judge judge below justice rinaldi ruled in our favor.

and then when i argued in the appellate division, his law secretary came to watch me argue and told me the judge had just been the subject of an article in the village voice i guess it was by jack neufield listing the ten worst judges in new york and they listed rinaldi first. he asked me if i saw that article. i said i did. i said it was a terrible thing. i thought the judge was fine. he really tried a good case. he said well, the judge, he says well, i'm glad you think that. the judge thinks that, too. he thinks this is a very bad article and he would like to sue the village voice for libel and would like you to represent him. it's one of the biggest compliments i've gotten as a lawyer the judge asking me to represent him. i backed out. i said i can't do that. i still feel guilty about that to this day. the judge did get a lawyer and they did sue and the case went to the court of appeals and the court of appeals ultimately determined not that there was

immunity, that the village voice -- the judge lost in the effect in the court of appeals his libel suit. but it was a very interesting by play of that case. but the point is in terms of watergate and in terms of the impeachment that the house judiciary committee had a different leader than it otherwise would have had. >> i also like the story of how you changed your whole strategy when you heard -- >> oh. the judicial complexity here. at the same time we were fighting to preserve holzman's victory against seller, she won by 600 votes against seller, there was another case going on at the same time. ala lowenstein who was a prominent liberal democrat, political reformer on the same political side as holtzman, he had run against a congressman named rooney, john rooney.

and he lost by 900 votes. in other words, rooney won by 900 votes, holtzman won by 600 votes. rooney rather lowenstein brought a suit to try to upset the rooney victory. so we have here is lowenstein trying to upset a 900-vote victory and seller trying to upset a 600-vote victory. so even though we were on the same side politically, we were on the opposite sides legally. i'm making the claim in the motelman case basically that you can't upset elections unless there's overwhelming proof. you just can't. this is all nonsense about irregularities and things like that, and that was the thrust of my brief in effect and the thrust of my witnesses. i called a statistician from columbia law school to point out that the art to the election would have changed because of certain alleged regularities were greater than all the grains

of sand on all the beaches of the earth. i had all sorts of testimony like that. i'm saying you can never overturn elections although certain elections you can. lowenstein is arguing you can overturn elections because he's arguing against rooney. so we had different sides legally although we're on the same side politically. so i win in the lower court. holtzman wins in the lower court and rooney wins in the lower court. then weep go to the appellate division and it sustains the decision below the holtzman election is not set aside, the victory is not set aside and the rooney victory is not set aside. so that's the second level. then we go to the court of appeals which was the highest court in the state. i think i'm sort of home now. i won in the court which is the most political below. i won in the appellate division which is not that the political. now i'm in the court of appeals which should be the least political court over the circumstances here. and at the same time, i'm winning rooney is winning and

lowenstein is losing too, which i sort of expected. if i can win so i'm now in the court of appeals and we're sitting there arguing in the court of appeals this major case although i'm fairly confident. i have an argument planned out obviously along the lines i argued earlier before. and the first case they hear is the lowenstein rooney case. and low wen teen's lawyer gets up to argue that elections should be set aside which is contrary to the position i'm going to take in the next case and he's treated sort of very nicely by the court of appeals and then rooney's lawyer gets up and says you can't set aside elections making similar kinds of arguments to the ones i made and the court is the all over him questioning him very hard and saying why can't they do this and wasn't there this error and that error. it's true 0 rooney was the organization candidate. they said no, we can set aside the election. that's the thrust of some of the questions. he's getting a really hard time.

and i realize you know, i realize if they're going to go in that direction in that case which is the 900-vote victory, what will they do in my case where tracy only a 600-vote victory so sitting there, and this is what you were alluding to i realize i have to throw out my whole argument and i start writing notes to myself and i get up and the first thing i say su just heard that case which we discussed whether you should set aside that 900 vote victory. now you're hearing my case which is a 600-vote victory. my case is not that the case. there are 12 differences between my case than case. i start listing one after another. one of the main differences is we were, of course, the insurgent jens, the reform and rooney was the machine was behind rooney. but i listed -- that happened in this case, didn't happen in my case. so i started listing -- i started distinguishing ourselves from the other case fearing that we would stb dragged down because of their attitude in the

other case. and but the court of appeals also gave me a tough time. i didn't get a tough time in the appellate division but in the court of appeals. and then i sat down and i didn't know what the result was going to be. i was questioned. i fought back and the way rooney's lawyer was questioned. then we went back to the hotel to an voight the decisions. in those cases the decisions come down right away because the elections take place shortly thereafter. if you had another election. about five hours later we're sitting in the hotel, the decision came down. the rooney victory was upset by a vote of 4-3 and the holtzman 600 victory was sustained. we won by a vote of 5-2. there were two dissents. the first judges that dissented. and that was -- and the circumstances it was an amazing thing that we could sustain a 600-vote victory and rooney could not sustain a 900 vote

victory. now there were differences in the cases as i argues to the court and that had this great result that holtzman went up to congress and seller was no longer chairman of the house judiciary committee and the rest is history. >> how do you get hired by john dohr? >> how do i get hired by john doer? i've got to go back even before being hired by john. as i said i was an assist isn't u.s. attorney and i went to harvard law school and i met a lot of people obviously at harvard who i knew very well, one of whom was archie cox who was one of my professor at agency and phil high man who was a contemporary of mine in law school, he was a year ahead of me. he was in scalia's class. and i get a call from the special counsel, the independent counsel, the special prosecutor which had been appointed as a result of watergate. this is prior to the impeachment

proceedings. this, of course, the special counsel archie cox is ultimately fired and that results in the firestorm that causes. house judiciary committee impeachment inquiry. so i get a call six, seven, eight nine months before from phil high man i think i got the call, some senior member of the staff who i knew from law school. they call dodd ask me to come down to consider joining their staff to leaving my law firm and joining their staff as a prosecutor on the special prosecutor staff. i turn it down on the firm. i'm now a partner in a law firm. i have a wife and children. i'm doing fairly well. i live in the suburbs. i'm working very hard. and i don't want to be a prosecutor again. at this point in my life p. i've been there done that kind of thing. i tell him that on the phone and i just turn him down, an opportunity to join that staff. i was interested obviously it was a significant thing. the special prosecutor was appointed but it's an

institution i'm not a fan of as later on although i thought it did a great job in that thing and it was proper to have it in that situation. so i turn it down. then of course, lifetime some time goes by and cox is fired in the saturday night massacre, the famous saturday night massacre. and then the house judiciary committee starts indicating that it's going to conduct an impeachment inquiry regarding president nixon and they appoint john doer as chief counsel. they're going to set up a special staff, not going to use their regular staff and appoint him as chief counsel. so john calls me. i get a call from john doer asking me, this is how i remember it, asking me if i would meet him because he would like me to join to join his staff. he wants to meet me first. and i say no on the telephone. i say i've got a similar call months ago.

i don't know if i said that to him but this was in my mind. i said i'm here. i'm really not prepared to leave. i understood this was no longer a prosecutor thing. this is the house judiciary thing so i sort of turned it down. the next day, i get a call from robin morgan that will. now my old boss who now happens to be at my firm. at 92 he retired as district attorney, has now sort of counsel to our law firm in new york 50 years after he hired me, he's now at our firm. this is 1973 i'm talking about, late 1973. i'm talking about, the saturday night massacre was october '73. so this was after that a month after that, november 1973 early december 1973. so morganthal calls me. i don't know marginenthal. i know him fairly well from -- he's a guy who was a wonderful u.s. attorney, wonderful district attorney. great man. but thinks the only job in the

world worth having is working for him. a lot of people are like that, you know. so and i know that. so because he tries to get people to work for him and he had great staffs. that's why he's had such a great career. so he call meez up the next day and says i was just talking to john doer and i recommended you for this thing as did some other people to doer, he said and doer told me you weren't interested. i think you should think about this. this sort of shocked me. i never thought morganthal would ever recommend anybody working for anybody else other than working for him. i really think you should think about this. then he said something i never forgot. he said you've got to think about this in two different ways it may make it more attractive to you. number one, this is history. and how often do you get a chance to participate in an event an historical event and number two, just as important,

it's short. how long can you keep a president hanging? you're not going to be gone for so long. you're not going to be -- this is not a career thing. you're not going to be gone for years, you know. i can understand not going to a prosecutor's office. it's history and it's short. now doer's going to call you again or somebody's going to call you again and i really think you should consider that. i hung up the phone and i really thought about that. it struck me that he was right. it was history and it was short. my partners weren't very happy. we were pretty successful but i did get a call and i agreed to see doer. and i went down to washington and i met with doer and he was very attractive. we talked about how this thing would proceed, and it sounded very important and very exciting. a real challenge to a lawyer. and then i went back and i was enthusiastic about it. once i met him, it was a foregone conclusion i wanted to do it. i talked to my wife who was

wonderful. we had three little children, one was 8, one was 5, one was 2 and i was going to go off now on this thing. which was going to be hard for us. it turned out to be hard. that was a tough year in a family sense. i was away a lot that year. it was a very hard year. but it worked out. and i had to talk to my partners who most of them were understanding. there was only a few partners. they thought i was sort of crazy to go off. i resigned from my firm because this is a very sensitive thing. my firm was not as well-known as it is today. it was not as strong as it is today. it was successful, it was -- so i resigned. some people in the impeachment didn't have to resign. i resigned because i felt if things went badly on this impeachment and who knows what kind of attacks we would be under and there were attacks to some extent, i just didn't want it to hurt the firm. i wasn't even guaranteed i could

come back to the firm under that circumstance but i said i just wanted to do this. this was a great challenge. my wife was supportive. of although it turned out to be a hard year. she said and i went and i did it. and my partners were understanding, too. even though they were reluctant to see me do this. but i did it. so i went down and i did it and that's how i got hired. >> did you recruit any of the staff? >> i was involved -- i was involved in sort of vetting and discussing with doer certain people such as evan davis, for example. you know, and i was supportive of him hiring certain people who sort of came along. i tried to induce him to hire certain additional people which he decided he didn't really want to do. actually people who turned out to be very prominent later on. one is pierre la val now in the

second circuit and the other is tony nil sifton who became chief judge of the eastern district of new york, both federal judges. siftton unfortunately died a few years ago. la val is still a judge in the second circuit. doer decided i don't want to overstate this, i wanted more litigators and more trial lawyers for this thing. i envisioned a trial in the senate. i wanted guys, my contemporaries. doer, you know, he had me and he had some other people. he had joe woods, dick kates. he felt he had enough people along those lines and therefore, he passed up the opportunity to hire la val and to hire siftton but somehow their careers managed to do okay without coming down to us there. sody try to get him to do that. he was more comfortable with the staff he sort of put together. a lot of the younger people we had such as hillary rodham and maureen who was not a lawyer at the time and it worked out. i mean, he was -- his -- his

comfort level was important. he had me. and i was sort of a both very useful to him and an irritant at the same time. but i was very aggressive. i was 37 years old. i was a trial lawyer. i had been a trial lawyer. and we had disputes from time to time as to how things should happen. you know, how things should proceed. when i think back, he was right most of the time and i was wrong most of the time. he wanted to be -- he understood that we couldn't come off as prosecutorial. he understood -- this is very important. he really understood and rodino did, too. i understood it to some extent but less so. he was -- i understood what he was saying and i sort of agreed with what he was saying but i still wanted to be more aggressive in terms of the investigation. he was very cautious how we should investigate this thing. i understood that the papers we'd be writing if we sent out