that, vehemently opposed. there was no independent counsel act. i mean the democrats would introduce one, you know, in place. vehemently opposed to that. and i argued vehemently in the white house to the president that he should not appoint an independent counsel. i said, this is a dangerous institution. i said, there's no basis to appoint it here. you did nothing wrong in office here. you did nothing wrong in arkansas 20 years ago or 15 years ago but it has nothing to do with you being president right now. you appoint this it will be like a knife in your heart. whoever is appointed the independent counsel will take years. i said if you appointed me as independent counsel, appoint me. your counsel. make me independent. you know what i would do? i said i'll tell you what i would do. i said i would spend three or four years investigating everything in arkansas. i would turn over every rock because i'm not going to go back to new york, you know, not having explored -- i'm sure i'll find people who committed

criminal acts in arkansas in the last 20 years. i have a feeling, mr. president, that probably happened. and maybe those people then in order to avoid trying to go to jail will find, remember something about you, which didn't happen, but will remember something about you and say things like, this is crazy. there's no basis to do this. all you will do is create an institution which will haunt you as long as you're president and beyond. don't do this. don't do this. you know, ridiculous. the republicans, even democrats, the media storm that's going on with respect to whitewater and things like that, you know, i said, no. and we had a big debate on the telephone. it's all mentioned in a recent book. i said, you want to -- you have to do something? i said i'll tell you what you do, mr. president. you and hillary go down to the senate judiciary committee and

testify. ford testified after the nixon pardon. go down and testify. let them ask as many questions as they want about whitewater. and they started screaming, i'd rather -- and the other staff members, started screaming, this is crazy. bad publicity. i'd rather have vast publicity. you'll be able to handle any testimony because there is nothing here in any event than set up an institution with 25 assistant u.s. attorneys and 25 fbi agents who will start investigating you and your friends in arkansas for the rest of your presidency. a and when i said this by the way monica lewinsky was a junior in high school. she wasn't even around at this time. but don't set up this institution. they'll be after you, your friends, everything. oh, they keep asking me about it. he folded. he folded. even hillary folded. hillary was on my side and then she couldn't deal with it. and they appointed the independent counsel who -- and

the first one was replaced, bob fis k, by ken starr. i then left the white house because i was a very controversial figure who gave bad advice about not appointing independent counsel as well as other allegations so i left after a year and a half, a year and a quarter in the white house and what happened happened. td rest is history. he did write in his memoir that the biggest mistake he made was appointing independent counsel. so it's a dangerous institution to be used very sparingly especially with respect to a president. but that's what happened. but that affected me. i understood the dangers of -- '74 did affect me for '93-'94. and i also -- hillary was involved in '73-'74 and with me in '93-'94. she understood it. but the great pressure in the white house, the staff members and foolish democratic senators,

they folded. if they didn't fold the clinton presidency -- that would have changed history, too. the clinton presidency would have proceeded. i'm not justifying any conduct president clinton committed or may have with respect to ms. lewinsky later on, you know, that's -- the fact is it wouldn't have had the impact on his presidency it had. there would have been no impeachment. al gore would probably have been elected president in 2000 and the world would have been different. that's what happens. if nixon destroyed the tapes the world would have been different. if president clinton had listened to me with respect to appointing independent counsel the world would have been different, but i'm -- i lead a good life. i'm a happy man. it was tricky meeting with the whole committee at once at times because of a lot of leaks and always worried about that. the staff never -- that's another great tribute to the staff. i'm sure other people must have mentioned this. this is a staff that never leaked. and nobody has ever written a

book about this -- no staff member has ever tried to write a sort of an inside view of what happened here. we were trained -- this is confidential. this is private. this is secret. none of us even talked about this for many years except in a most general way, i made a speech now and then about it. it was very good. but in answer to your question about, yes, we tried to communicate with various representatives and i also would meet from time to time with some of them who had questions. most of my time was spent trying to put together the ultimate factual presentation. in fact, i think i told you the story before. i was so convinced that we'd have to go to trial in the senate after finally it looked like the articles of impeachment weren't going to pass on a nonpartisan basis that i remember very vividly the resignation of president nixon.

i remember that day. my wife was in washington at this point with our three children and she wanted to go back home because i was working around the clock. our kids were little and they'd have to go back to school and she didn't want to stay in the washington area. she wanted to go back to our home in westchester county where they go back to school and i really wanted her to stay and we were having big discussions about that to put it mildly. i wanted her to stay with me because i really wanted her there with the kids and she wanted to go back because she never saw me anyway she said and the kids never really saw me. so we were having these discussions and then comes august of 1974. my mindset and what i was directed in doing, i am now past the votes, the key votes in the house in effect, the articles of impeachment have been approved. now i'm totally focusing on as i have been sort of all along, how do we try this case? how do we try this first case in the senate? the first trial in the senate in

a hundred or so years? who do we call as witnesses? what exhibits do we use? how do we use the tapes? trying to figure it all out. some people are helping me. but not a lot of help. not a lot of people on the staff have tried a lot of cases. none of us have tried a case in the senate. as an aside, i'll get back to this in a second, jim st. clair at one session of the committee when we were there, he said, you know, you and i are learning obsolete skills. i said what are you talking about? he says i'm learning how to defend a president and you're learning how to prosecute a president and neither one of us will have much use of this in private practice. i said that may be true but it's -- i started laughing. in any event i'm trying to figure out how to try this so i'm sitting in my office and i remember dorr or somebody, i think it was dorr, who walked in and said, bernie shall the president is about to speak and also some rumors about what might happen like he might resign. he said why don't you come?

we had set up a television in sort of the common room. i said no i don't want to watch. he's not going to resign. nothing is going to happen. it's going to be another rationalization. i got to work and figure out what we're going to do. i guess i was a little crazed. you know, the trial would take place in a month or so, got to be fast and i got to figure out what are we going to do? and in my mind because we didn't have a lot of trial lawyers i didn't have a lot of help. maybe more help than i thought. so he looked at me strange and said you're being silly and he walks out. 15 minutes later burt jenner walks in and this i remember. bernie, stop being an idiot. you're being an idiot again. come and watch with the rest of the staff the speech. we're all going to watch the speech together. go back to work after that. so in a morose fashion i sort of put my pencil down. all right. i'm acting pretty stupid. so i get up, walk in, and sit

down on the chair with the little television sets, not the fancy televisions we have today. i'm sitting there looking at the set glaring, morose not talking to anybody particularly and president nixon comes on the screen and he starts a speech. and he says, he's going to resign. totally shocked me. i was convinced in listening to the tapes he will never resign. he's going to resign. and i never forget this. i thought, gee whiz. i said, now i don't have to fight with my wife anymore. that's all i thought about. i didn't think about history. i didn't think about the impeachment. i didn't think about what we did. i thought oh, my god. i can go home tonight and there will be no fight. we can go home. we can go home. with the kids. that's all i thought. i didn't think, gee, this is really an historic event. a president resigning. we were part of this process. i thought about my wife's going to be -- well i don't know if

she'll be happy because i can go home with her but, you know, we're going to go home together. and she was happy. and the next morning i remember watching president nixon speak to the white house staff that amazing speech, you know, about, you know, don't get angry because then they win. things like that. that famous -- actually it was very moving. he was really -- i remember watching with my wife and my kids were too little. they were there. but my mother-in-law was there trying to keep the peace. we were watching it together and looking at the speech. we were going to go home. and that's what i remember about the end of it. >> could we get a sense of how you would have tried the case by looking at the -- dorr's final report? >> you know, first -- you know -- one of the interesting issues was who tries the case?

that's what i was also concerned about. you know, you appoint house managers, lawyers really don't try the case on the floor of the senate. it was interesting. the clinton impeachment later on how that sort of worked. chuck ruff who i knew spoke on the floor of the senate. i was trying to think would we be able to speak on the floor of the senate? would the lawyers be able to speak? if not, or even if they were, which congressmen would we be using to present our case? this was all a very -- and would we be using witnesses? or just documents? i never -- i was just in the beginning of that stage. or do we just play tapes? or call john dean and play the tape? this is kind of things i was wrestling with. and we had three articles. how do we prove each of the articles of impeachment, the watergate article, article one,

article two, the abuse of agency articles. one was the break-in. number two was the abuse of various agencies. and number three is the failure to turn over documents to the committee. how do you make those kind of presentations? and i was just starting to weigh those things at the time. to me, it was difficult and important to sort of -- how do you try a case in the senate? >> did you talk to anybody in the senate? did you have a chance? >> no. it ended suddenly. >> did you have a sense of timetable? >> yes. i was very concerned about that. that's why i didn't want to leave my office. i thought it would be very -- fairly quick. i thought it would be 30 to 60 days after the articles of impeachment would come down and that's an important time to prepare -- and we'd have to prepare the congressmen. because we weren't really going to be able and even in the clinton impeachment you have

congressmen presented on the floor, you know, so we have to prepare them. they're not steeped as we were so i have to spend time preparing them. how do i prepare? who is going to prepare them? this was a big job. if he really wanted to fight it all the way through as president clinton did in 1998. >> what role would john dorr have played? >> that's an interesting -- i envisioned him playing a very important role making, you know, a basic presentation -- if the congressional -- yeah. if the senate would have permitted it, you know, then we had to get senate permission. the whole prestigious thing was -- i remember reading about the johnson impeachment figuring out how he did it there. but that was sort of a cut and dry thing. you know, there was no real factual issues. it was sort of a legal determination whether he had the right to fire one cabinet member contrary to an act of congress

in effect. but we got all sorts of factual things and how do you put them forward? i wanted john to play a big role. not me. i didn't envision myself as the prosecutor. john had -- was the leader of the staff although maybe i thought i might play -- i could play some role but i never really articulated it. it depends on john anyway. he would make the decision. but he, you know, speaking on behalf of the staff i thought would make a very good impression because he has the right balance and then which of the house members? and maybe the more conservative house members like walter flowers and jim mann would be very effective. they were very effective on the committee when they spoke. jim mann was great. you know, the watchman in the night speech that he made. these are all decisions that were in the process of being made at the time when the president made them much easier by resigning. >> did mr. dorr play any role as a consultant at the time of the

clinton impeachment? >> not to my -- i don't know. not to my knowledge. i wasn't around in the clinton impeachment. if you listened to me there would have been no clinton impeachment. but i wasn't around. the answer is probably not. but i don't know for sure. i don't know for sure. >> did you know that bert marshall opposed article 3? >> no. i did not know that. he did? that's interesting. >> he and fisk had a debate -- >> yeah that was important. i was a strong supporter of article 3 and i did know that dorr reached out to other people such as fisk and marshall to get their judgment on these things. he didn't rely on my judgment solely. i mean, he looked to me for advice but he didn't -- he was looking to other people as well.

so if i argued strongly as i did for article 3 i knew he would go to other people and he should. that's the right thing to do. just because i say there should be an article 3 doesn't mean there should be. i thought there should be and thought it was very important to history terms. even article 3, it was part of -- the reason i wanted an article 3 is because we had to sit down -- the executive branch is obligated to cooperate to enable us to try it in the senate. i'm always thinking of the ultimate trial in the senate and they don't give us the material that makes that trial much more difficult. that itself was an impeachable offense. in an impeachment process. that's why it was important. it's important because it inhibited our -- they had no right to withhold anything. i believe in executive privilege and certainly was a big defender 18 years later of executive privilege but if there is an impeachment proceeding there is no executive privilege.

there should have been none in the clinton proceedings and there wasn't. >> it's a tough question though. you had said a legitimate impeachment. what -- who decides -- >> no, no. yes. it's true. you can't -- the congress decides in effect whether it's legitimate. if it starts -- you're right. i shouldn't even have used the qualifier "legitimate." there was an impeachment proceeding in 1998, the clinton impeachment proceeding. it's a legitimate impeachment proceeding. it was just wrong. you know. it's legitimate. i don't think clinton can claim executive privilege in that proceeding. it's legitimate. the committee authorized the impeachment and he has to cooperate or suffer the consequences. i mean, i think a lot of mistakes were made not so much in the impeachment proceeding but prior to that. i don't think he should have

testified before a grand jury. i don't think he should have done a number things but i wasn't involved. i wasn't counsel to the president. i was long gone. i left in 1994. this all took place four or five years later. >> a couple of points just to see what role you played. there was a debate within the '74 impeachment staff about whether this was a grand jury or not and what rights to accord the president's defense counsel and whether that person -- whether st. clair could, you know, cross examine, things like that. >> yeah. this was for the congress -- impeachment is solely in the province of the legislative branch, the house, in the form sort of as a grand jury and the senate as the trial court and ultimate finder of fact or conclusions of law in effect.

but it's up to the house to say whatever procedure it believes is appropriate. i believed in that but i also believed from points of fairness and due process that the president had to be given every opportunity to make whatever defense he wanted to make. you don't necessarily have a grand jury but i felt that the house didn't have to do it but i felt it should do it. it should do it so the country sees. this is a very significant thing in our country when you try to impeach a president. and consequently it should be fair and perceived to be fair. therefore st. clair should be committed to make whatever arguments he wished to make to present whatever witnesses he wished to make, whatever documents he wished to do. he might not have that right in the grand jury normally but this is different. it is a grand inquest, grand jury type of proceeding but it has to be done fairly and in

accordance with due process. but congress itself and the committee can make the decisions what that requires and what it doesn't require. i think that's the way the committee acted. >> it is and pencils?

>> oh, yes. i've heard this. now of course i'm a very laid back guy as anybody can see but i'm fairly intense at times and i guess people remember me breaking pencils and dorr asking me once who is going to pay for all these pencils, federal government pencils? i said i'll pay for the pencils. you know? i would snap pencils. i'd walk around sometimes snapping pencils. but i don't do that anymore. see i'm a little older now. i don't snap pencils. i'm -- still when i try a case i get wound up. trial work is tough work. it's not, you know, but it's fascinating. >> mr. dorr was very careful about keeping his cards close to his chest. >> yes. but listening to the tapes had an effect on him, didn't it? >> yes. yes, it confirmed -- we all believed that the president really acted improperly.

there really was a misuse. it was wrong to break into the headquarters of your political opponents. it's wrong to wire tap. it's wrong to break into the headquarters of the psychiatrist. it's wrong, you know, and then to misuse the fbi, patrick gray, and misuse the cia, this is, you know, we all felt that. you know? and when you heard the tapes, it sort of put it all together for us and it did have an impact on dorr. whether we could, i mean, maybe dorr would have -- only he can speak for himself -- have reached the conclusion we should have asked for itch peoplement, if without tapes i don't know what conclusion you would have reached. i mean, i don't know what we'd have done. >> did he give you a sense of what he was thinking or did he not share it with you? how did it work? >> he -- what he said we