a teaching tool as well. we can use these to show other lawyers that won't hopefully make the mistakes of the other water gates. these are unanswered questions. >> there were lots of reforms after watergate. that's principal reform recommended the creation of an independent counsel law. there were new finance campaign laws. very extentive. creation of a federal elections commission. investigative journalism. got a lot of money. it was suddenly out m vogue. there were changes in everything from presidential papers and what a president could retain and what he could not retain and

how long he could retain it. make a long story short, all these watergate reforms have vanished for one reason or another. campaign finance got affected by citizens united. the independent counsel law got affected by the fact that both sides got sufficiently gored by the law. they decided not to revive it. the -- citizens united opened up money the likes of which we've only begun to see in the process. all those things that were designed to hopefully prevent mother watergate have vanished bar one, and that's the professional bar. it was striking to me to see reforms that came directly out of some testimony that i gave before the senate committee have stayed in place and they are as

important today as they were in the years immediately after watergate when the bar said we're going to do something to give sensitivity training and to give information training so that the kinds of mistakes that were made during watergate will never be repeated. the bar was having a conversation on this in june and they were talking to my predecessors who were talking about other situations, and all of them talk about how watergate affected how they operated as white house council. let's go back to the basic theme of my dialogue today. if you don't have questions,

i'll just keep talking, but if you do have questions, i would love to answer them, so let's have a show of hands and see who has a question. all right. right here. >> in watching some of the senate hearings, it strikes me that very few people are taking the fifth amendment. why do you think that was? >> well, actually everybody -- a lot of things happened. different witnesses, different situations. those who were immunized technically had to take the fifth amendment before they could be immunized, but they did it privately. i think there was a definite desire by the committee not to have a repetition of what had happened during the mccarthy era where people were brought up and intentionally embarrassed just by taking the fifth amendment. so when it was necessary, it was done privately in executive

session. so that's why you would never see it publicly. other people didn't take it at all because they had their own version and they thought they could get away with it and didn't feel they were incriminating themselves. they really had concocted versions. it's quite striking to me that the perjury that was committed before the committee. how bob haldaman, as professor rotunda mentioned when he got up here, could review the tapes, listen to them. more than once he went through several of my conversations. he made notes on them. he got up and told the senate exactly the opposite of what those conversations said. i mean, that's hut sba h. he thought these people have to be awfully dumb. they'll never get this information, and i can get away with it this. it was extremely dangerous. i read a passage just the other day in nixon's memoir where he

truly believed he was not going to be forced to turn over the tapes. he thought he could successfully win and would not be forced that issue. in fact, he -- interestingly, he writes on april 10th in his diary of 1973 before they had been revealed that he -- he has told haldaman, he thinks he should destroy everything but the national security information, so -- and then later after alex reveals them he remorses that they hadn't destroyed them. the reason he didn't destroy them, i think i have a more complete answer than alex does, is it got too late. there were multiple subpoenas on them. technically the senate never successfully gets the tapes. only the prosecutors and the house impeachment committee is given without their subpoena not a lot of tapes, but a handful.

>> it was pretty striking. i don't know how intentional this was. it's one of the things that you talk about unanswered questions. one of the questions i had -- see, you don't raise your hands. you're going to get a talk. one of thes questions i had is i went to the archives, and i noticed that sealed m archives the last trip i happened to make there in march of last year was one of the more extended trips to gather material. i visited my papers before and

stuff in the watergate prosecutors office before, but i noticed in some of the early papers there was nixon's grand jury testimony that i thought that could raise some really interesting questions. he was brought before the grand jury before he was pardoned. he was brought there to committee perjury. he is a bright enough man not to do that, and there was no reason to not tell the truth in the areas interested because they dealt with the area that scott was investigating on the used money. what had happened to it, questions about falsifying the material of that was supplied to the house judiciary committee and giving them bogus tapes. the use of the irs to attack his enemies. some interesting subjects. i thought, you know, it makes no sense -- it's a sad thing this information has never been put out, and i happened that

afternoon to go down to gw to visit with a friend of mine down there who is now the -- one of the deenz there. grand jury. that's sealed for life. it's out of reach. alan shook his head. he said not so. i said what are you talking about? he said, well, recently in the second circuit they have released the grand jury testimony of no less than richard nixon in the hiss case back from the mccarthy era. they've also released in the second circuit the grand jury testimony of julius and ethyl rosenberg and with hoffa in tennessee, and they're doing it on the basis of historical importance.

the judge has the authority when he thinks necessary and appropriate for appropriate reasons can do it. alan said historical reasons are justification. i said, well, this strikes me as a pretty good historical reason. i got stanley cutler who had done this successfully with the tapes, and he got several other historical societies. i filed a declaration, but the best news alan gave me is that i think that public citizen, the group that nader started, the litigation group years ago, might be interested in this case. sure enough, they were.

>> i want to tell you something else about the taepz that's very interesting. you can think of your next question while i'm doing this. i was surprised to find theoretically all of the private information that's removed from the tapes. anything that's personal to the family, his conversations with private friend like beebee on something totally unrelated to government. scott -- you and i might discuss one day that i think abuse of government power would be included, and that would have to be amongst the release, so if it's beebee and nixon discussing where they're going to go out on beebee's yacht, that's one thing.

if they're talking about taking money, that is another thing. that would fall under the abuse of power. anyway, what i have discovered is that the process in getting this released, not everything got removed. particularly with his wife and with his daughters. now, i had the very real public expression and given the fact that some of the things i was doing for the president caused me to deal with not trisha as much as julie and her husband, and with the first lady, state matters. i was the liaison for the properties. i had to talk to his other lawyers and collect information. stuff that confused me as to who my client was as to being the office of the president or the president, and it really, i know now today, we talk about this in our cle a great deal about representing the office of the

president is what the white house counsel does, and if he wants these other things done, he hires private counsel. a particularly different relationship with his wife and his daughters. a lovely relationship with his wife and his daughter. everyone thought he was cold with pat. he obviously was shy publicly, but it's not true privately. he was very warm to his wife. the conversation that is struck me is after he thinks he has a peace accord with the vietnamese with north vietnam in january of 1972, he went -- he doesn't call henry kissinger first. he calls pat nixon and says,

pat, listen to this and recites it. she says, oh, dick, i'm so thrilled. it's a lovely husband-wife conversation. like coming home from the office and here's what they talk about, but he is calling from the office. same thing with the daughters. it's a lovely father-daughter relationship. >> i'm trying to take that assessment through this process as well. >> i just want to make something clear. the senate watergate committee never called anyone and took the fifth. they took the fifth and either gave them immunity and called them or we did not give immunity and did not call them. >> did not embarrass them like mccarthy did. >> you have the right to take the fifth. you don't have to take it publicly.

we never called anyone who took the fifth. >> question over here. yes. >> i've often wondered how mark felt was able to get so much information and leak it. >> the question is how can mark felt get so much information in detail? well, i'll tell you what stuns me more is how much information he could get wrong in detail. one of the things we learned and one of the reasons that i happened to just read a manu script on what motivated felt by somebody who went back and talked to his colleagues in great detail. it will be out by the university of kansas. i think next month. it's well done. it's well documented what his role was.

it explains why the investigation of watergate exceeded, if you will, the enthusiasm and the effort to investigate, say, the jfk assassination. it explains why the nixon white house couldn't get them to investigate leaks of national security that they didn't care to bother with because mark felt wanted to embarrass pat gray out of his job. didn't want to remove nixon. wanted to show the nixon white house that they had selected the wrong guy and that they had to select a hoover krony to come back in and take this transition period and it's pretty clear. now, why did he get so much information wrong? i don't know. i actually -- this scholar happened to notice i posted -- i was taking a long trip one day. a 17-hour flight. i happened to carry all the president's men with me, and i

plucked out everything that felt had said, and i knew the historical record well enough to say this is right or wrong, and particularly stuff that related to me and from the tapes and what have you, and felt is about 50% wrong in the information he gave bob woodward, and that's pretty striking for your source. i don't know if he has an agenda. you know, bob couldn't check this out for years, and now it's irrelevant to really check it. he doesn't want to impeach his source, so it sits there. it's still misquoted often as being source material, although it's clear who it's from. so felt is a bad source, if you will. he is a clearly motivated source to move his temporary boss pat gray out of a job. question. isn't this better than me lecturing just all the way, just getting your thoughts? >> thank you, mr. dean.

on the subject of legal ethics, could you talk a little bit about the deliberating process you had before you went before the congress giving information that you learned during the course of your client. >> when i -- when i went in and told -- i didn't have early dealings with the president. one of the things we talk about in our cle is -- in fact, we decided to use the first week of watergate as an example of how, if you want to make mistakes, we started making them right from the get go in the way we handled it. one of the issues that particularly has been changed in influence by the post-watergate reforms and the development of the model code are the lawyers -- one clarity he represents the organization and not the head of the organization as well as the reporting requirements where you report up to the top of the organization

when you learned manufacturings of fraud and misconduct in the organization. particularly if you are an investigator organization. in certain jurisdictions that have adopted the model of code, you can have the leverage of saying to the top of the organization that if you don't do this, i feel compelled to resign with noise in one situation or report out in some various forms. we get into this in some detail in the cle we're doing. california, as it happens, has not adopted all of the model code. rather, some parts of it. the model code is created not to develop a new brand of whistle blower in lawyers, but, rather, give the lawyers some tools to work with their clients in these tough situations. my situation i don't get to nixon until -- the break-in and the arrest occur on june 17th of 1972. i don't start dealing with him

on this subject. i deal with him on other subjects, but i'm enjoying that my responsibility you were told what you would be dealing with the president about, and until he started asking me questions in late february of 1973, i have no dealings with him, and i early begin to note, try to figure out how much he knows about what's really going on. i discover, for example, by march 17th he doesn't know what's driving ehrlichman and others to protect the white house. that hes the elsburg break-in to uncover what dan elsburg was doing by entering his psychiatrist office in beverly hills with hunt and liddy using the same people they had used at the watergate, and this goes right back not to the re-election committee. it goes right back to john ehrlichman and the white house, which is trouble sol. nixon hasn't been told about

this, and he is really very surprised about it when i tell him about it. he would later say that, well, had i been told, i probably would have authorized it. had he had authorized it, he would have followed a national security proceeding. there's there's a way if you want to deal with the restrabints on th fourth amount, there's a procedure the attorney general must follow even in place in those days. and that was not a mysterious or unique situation. there was a way to do it. but it wasn't done. so i first realize he's not fully informed. and then when he's pushing me as i was talking earlier to write this bogus report, i realized i should tell him i'm not going to write a report that's bogus, but if i write a report, here's what's going to be some of the information in the report and i don't think -- it's your call if you want this this information

reported out. by march 21st when i get another demand sent for the first time to the white house and to me from howard hunt that he's going to in essence blow the whistle on erlichman if he's not paid what he's owed for attorney's fees and living experiences as a part of this hush man that's being paid, that he'll have seam a seamy things to say and it was clarified that he was talking about the elsburg break-in. i don't know anybody that had promised him that money it start with. it's pure extortion, but it was working. so i tell nixon when that comes in, i need to talk to him and i tell halderman that the stuff

we're doing is obstruction by justice. by then i had pulled the statute down and there's no doubt i can't convince -- this is the sort of thing my colleague and predecessor doesn't want to hear it. he says we're just not. i don't want to hear you tell me we're obstructing justice. just denial. so this is the kind of problem i'm dealing with. i had earlier had a similar probleming saying i'm not a criminal lawyer, i wasn't in the prosecutor's office. we should bring somebody like one of the assistant u.s. attorneys over and have him detail to the white house to help us deal with these things so we don't make mistakes. didn't want to hear it. these people had very clear visions of what they wanted to do and the white house counsel is a mid level -- to this day remains a fairly mid level post. i did a program up in san francisco not too long ago who

went over -- left the bench, court of appeals in the district of columbia, a to become bill clinton's white house counsel and i don't think he thought he was taking a mid level post, but he was. here's former member of congress stepping done to the counsel self the president post. it anyway, to make a long story short, on march 21st, i told him there was a cancer growing on the presidency, if he didn't deal with it, i thought it would consume the president. i really had hoped that in that conversation i would turn him. in many ways i think it's the first conversation i really meet richard nixon -- who richard nixon is. i raised one problem after another. i tell him, for example that bud croak has come to me who was another aide in the white house

and he was confirmed as undersecretary of state. bud was one of the so-called plumbers investigating leaks in the break-in. and he tells me that he perjure original material and the relationship of hunt and liddy to the white house. it's all fuzzy, but nixon's response was not fuzzy. he said, john, perjury is a tough rap. difficult to prove. so i go through a whole laundry list of things to try to turn him. i've listened to the tapes years later and i just go silent. i'm stunned that i can't convince him of any of this. and at the end of it, he's still suggesting i write a report or go visit with the cabinet and brief the cabinet. and i don't get that thinking.

but one of the thing that's emerging at this time is he says everybody should go to the grand jury. i think that's a great idea. the reason i thought it was a great idea, naively, i said if i compete go to the grand jury, it's sealed, it's quiet, we'll resolve this, everybody will come forward and explain their role and be accountable. and if we made mistakes, we pay the piper. that was my thought so i tell everybody i have any respect for, i'm going to grand jury. i don't think they thought i would tell the truth, but i did it. i go to the assistant u.s. attorneys who are in charge of the case. i realize very quickly this case is so far beyond their ability to handle. i'm not talking about initially, but the president this my conversations with the president. so it'sian vee involving process.

we think he would be a pretty good scapegoat, just lay it off on him. we can say this is where it started, this is where it stopped and this will be their defense for a long time. nixon will draw his defense as the march 21st conversation a the first time that anybody ever told him there was a coverup. and that will be his firewall. it won't hold. i can tell you today after listening to many, many tapes, he was fully aware of the payment of money all the way along. fully informed. and as i suspected when i had talked to him in a fleeting call our conversation on september 15th after the indictments came down, i told the is that the i was under the full impression the president had been completely briefed. you deal with somebody on a regular basis, you get a sense of how they're dealing with

something. so my break is slow, my eve in thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward.y eve thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward.ny eve thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward.ay eve thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward.iy even thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward.vy eve in thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward.ey in thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward. ev in thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward.even thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward.ve in thinking my colleagues will do thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward. in thinking my colleagues will do as i do and come forward. on the contrary they decide we'll lay it off on john, this will be the firewall and that's why it became my word against his word. that's why the tapes became so important. that's how the tapes resolved it. so when i realize i was the target and was going to have to take the blame for all this, then i really decided, well, they just picked the wrong guy. i'm willing to fight for what i believe and tell the truth as i understood it. the waiver of privilege, my lawyer asked that we wave the attorney/client privilege and for political reason, he did.iv attorney/client privilege and for political reason, he did.

he thought he couldn't risk trying to silence me with the attorney/client privilege. so that was waived before i testified before the senate. question, please. yes. scott. here's a mike. >> john, as a wateter gate oig staff member, i remember we were making an investment in you as whistle blower. we knew one of your motives had to be that you didn't want this to come out badly for you this, was your best strategy. we wanted to believe that you were telling the truth. you had a remarkable memory. i remember going -- we followed up before anything was public wh what you'd said to us, we interviewed another counsel who had played a role in the

coverup. he said he was never at the country club and it couldn't have happened and we told you that and you remembered that he was wearing a plaid tie of one played and a different set of plaid pants. this is very odd for us because i didn't grow up at country clubs people in plaid pants. but you were quite struck with the clash in plaids and you remembered which plaids they were. and the expression on his face when we told him that was like, oh, gee. and he suddenly remembered things and his attitude changed. probably because he thought, wait a minute, they must have more information than i realized. as good as your memory was, as a whistle blower, you had to calculate all the odds against this where you had the republicans cooperating with the white house, which you had been involved in, you had a range of factors. there was really no one on your side except maybe the ameri