it will be necessary for us to spread our conservative message throughout all the land. listen, god bless you, god keep you. thank you so much. [ applause ] with congress on break this week, we are featuring programs in prime time here on c. first at 8:00 eastern, tour the watergate exhibit. followed at 9:00 eastern with matt hollynn and at 10:00 eastern, white house officials and the washington post reporters who broke the story.

all week here on c. each week, american history tv's american artifacts takes viewers behind the scenes at his toric sites. the richard nixon library has a permanent exhibit. the tour chronicles events beginning in 1971 which lead to the break in on june 17th, 1972. inner natalie discussed the aftermath of the scandal and the lasting impact that watergate made on our government system.

>> i'm director of the richard nixon presidential museum in yorba linda, california. it is my honor and privilege to take you on a tour of our new watergate gallery. this was a challenge for us. i was asked to produce this gallery. it is one of my responsibilities when i joined in 2006. i'm a professional historian. we write books. generally we don't do museum exhibits. so this is a challenge in public history. in other words, taking information and making it accessible to people who haven't had a chance to prep for an exam before they walk into a gallery. the other big challenge is we inherited, the national archives took over the nixon library. it was a private library from 1990 to 2007 from the nixon foundation. we became responsible for it. one of our jobs was to make it a nonpartisan institution. we inherited a museum that was produced in a preweb area. it lacked the technology we have all come to expect.

if you think about the way we learn today, it doesn't matter how old you are. we are more active learners. for those who grew up in television age we were accustomed to having the three main networks and pbs tell you exactly what you should be watching. now with the web you can reach out and determine what you want to see. well, what inspired this gallery was an attempt to connect with people who are too young to know anything about watergate. and perhaps even too young to know who richard nixon was. >> i gave them a sword and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish. i guess if i had been in their position, i'd have done the same thing. >> so as we walk through this together, perhaps you can get a sense of our mission and i'm not sure the extent to which this visit today will let you see how

well we achieve that goal but i hope this is an invitation for you to come check it out yourself sometime. the gallery has two main signs. on the left is a timeline. i'll walk you through that. basically takes you from the starting point that i believe is important for understanding watergate through the president's resignation and his pardon, pardoning by president gerald r. ford. on the right-hand side, we're focusing on some key themes. things that we know that the visitors will probably be interested in knowing more about. we have a watergate resource center where you can dip into the oral histories. many of the oral histories we conducted in order to build this gallery. let me tell you a little bit

about the preparatory work we did. i believed, as i came here, that it was really important that the visitor to the watergate gallery learn about watergate from the people who were there. there is no better way to feel part of history than to connect with those who were important at the time. there are many people alive today who played pivotal roles in the watergate story. a number of them have spoken publicly before. some have not. this was an opportunity for us to, first of all, gather information for scholars. but also to give you, the visitor, a chance to hear them speak, george schultz or john dean or members of the house judiciary committee at the time of the impeachment inquiry. you now get a chance to listen to them explain to you what mattered at the time and why they did what they did.

we also wanted an opportunity to highlight the vast resources of the national archives. after all, the nixon library is the custodian of the famous nixon tapes and those really lay out a lot of the detail of watergate in addition to other important activities of the nixon administration. and, of course, we have documents. it is estimated the nixon library has 42 million. and we have the documents of the watergate special prosecution forces in the national archives in washington, d.c. we wanted all of that material where relevant to be accessible to you as you make up your mind about watergate and its implications. so let's start with the timeline. it is divided up into five sections. as i thought about -- i'm director, but i was curator of this exhibit so i had to as a historian conceptualize how it would be.

if you think about the evolution of what would become watergate, you have to understand why the president would make the decision to cover up a break-in that occurred at the democratic national headquarters in june of 1972. although there is no evidence that president nixon knew in advance that this break-in would occur, the operatives were paid by the committee to re-elect the president. he didn't know about it in advance but he did participate in a cover up that makes it difficult for the fbi and the u.s. attorneys to investigate who was responsible for the break-in, where the money came from and who ordered it. why did he care? why did the president get himself involved? to understand you have to go back to 1971. you have to go back to the effect on the nixon administration of the publication in the "new york

times" of highly secret materials known as the pentagon papers. they were leaked to the "new york times" and the "washington post" about vietnam decision making. the nixon administration reacts to this in a very strong way. now, there's no question what daniel ellsberg did was illegal, the issue was how should the government respond. there are all kinds of legitimate and important institutions and structures and processes to deal with a violation of the law. the nixon administration, however, chose to establish an intelligence organization within the white house to deal with this. once they made that decision there were very serious consequences that would ultimately doom the administration. that intelligence organization we know as the plumbers.

we know them as the plumbers because they -- one of their co-leaders chose to nickname them the plumbers because they had an office in the basement of the old executive office building. not far from where the facilities manager and other people were located. they were also supposed to staunch leaks. as plumbers are supposed to do. what we lay out for you here is the many missions, the key missions that were given to the plumbers, not only were they supposed to investigate those behind the pentagon papers leak and to look for other possible -- for people responsible for other leaks, they were also asked to use the material that they found to discredit the president's enemies. that is where the administration began to shift into actions that would later be termed abuse of government power by the house judiciary committee in 1974. on the wall, the key moments and

players are described. if you like to absorb your history that way then this is laid out for you. on the other hand, if you prefer to get your history the way you might get it on an ipad, iphone or any other smart phone, we have a touch screen where you can listen to the president on tape. you can also listen to interviews of people involved in the story. for example, you can hear orlando martinez one of the plumbers that broke into the office of dr. fielding, lewis fielding, daniel ellsberg's

psychologist. you can listen to him talk about that operation. >> we went to check out the house. >> then you might ask yourself, that, by the way, that break-in was illegal. again, if our country you can get a subpoena to get information, could have gone to the fbi. the fbi handles this all the time. the white house chose to use a group of its own and broke in illegally into dr. fielding's office. that was because dr. fielding had not wished to share information about his client. he decided -- he cited doctor/client privilege. the white house breaks in. the question is what did the president know of this? we don't know what he knew in advance but we do know from the tapes he was informed that a domestic covert action had occurred in los angeles. here we go. this is five days after. >> so tomorrow we'll review all this tough. we tried to view -- we had one little operation that aborted

out in los angeles, which i think is better that you don't know about. >> agree. >> but we have some dirty tricks under way that may pay off. >> in this period, the summer of 1971, the administration became so concerned about the president's -- 'president became so concerned about those he termed his enemies, not only were the plumbers given a responsibility to gain information on those who would leak to undermine the administration's vietnam policy, but the president ordered the creation of what would become the enemy's list, a list of people he wanted the irs to audit, to harass. so we have, of course -- we have on the wall some fcsimiles of the documents the president

ordered that the irs be auditing these folks. the first list was created in 1971. in 1972 the list would grow. the initial list was 16. here you hear the president informed of his chief of staff that there is a tax list. they start by talking about daniel shore, one of the president's -- the president splaps daniel schorr, a late npr journalist, he is on the tax list. >> dan schorr, geez, i noticed he is always -- oh. >> he is on our tax list, too. >> the president is being told about a tax list that was prepared and given to the white house on the 14th of september. so you can hear this being described to the president and

the president concurring or believing that this is a good idea and this is something that the u.s. government should do. well n the house judiciary committee cited this in article 2 of its articles of impeachment and a bipartisan majority passed that article of impeachment in july of 1974. >> they think they might have something on them. >> they just want to harass them. >> exactly. >> just give them something to worry about. >> this is not just an exhibit about how the white house did abuse powers, this is an exhibit that shows you where people in our government stood up and said no. this is not right. we should not do this. you can listen to george schultz

tell the story of 1972 he refused to launch audits on the enemies' list he was given. >> that is a very unpleasant thing to have happen to you. what should i do? i said don't do it. and he said, what shall i tell john dean when he asks me how it is going? tell him he reports to me. if he has a problem, he's got a problem with me. so they never brought it up with me although on the tapes there is discussion between the president and john dean. but it was an improper use of the irs and i wouldn't do it. >> in the 1971 pors of the timeline we include something that people don't associate with

watergate. it shows the president's mindset in the summer of 18971. this is when the president ordered halderman to find out the number of jewish americans in the department of labor, bureau of labor statistics. you can listen to the president ordering this from the white house tapes. this led to an illegal action which was an investigation to determine the ethnic background, religious background of members

of the united states government. discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation is illegal in our country. this form of governmental power was decided by the house judiciary committee when it described the misuse of power. we include it because it occurred in july of 1971 at the same time that the president was putting enormous pressure on the white house to go after his political enemies. this comes out of the same spirit and led to the same governmental abuse of power. those are the decisions the whout made in 1971 that involved the establishment of the plumbers, creation of the enemies' list, the plumbers breaking into dr. fielding's office. the two main operatives in the plumbers operation were g. gordon liddy and e. howard hunt. remember those names because they are going to be important again. if you have the white house's overreaction to the leaks, now, again, let's be clear about this. leaking was illegal. but we have in our system of government a way to deal with those crimes. the white house built or created

this investigatory unit in the white house and it didn't use subpoenas to acquire information. that is where the problem arises. here a little later in 1971 the white house wants better political intelligence for the pending 1972 elections. president it appears was concerned about his re-election. and so here we have information laying out for you what we know and what one can know about the extent to which the white house sponsored what was then called a dirty tricks operation, to undermine the campaigns of adversaries and launched an intelligence organization that would use wiretapping and surreptitious entry to acquire information about the president's adversaries. the exhibit is very clear about what we know and what we don't know.

in fact, there is a whole panel here that lays out based on the trial testimony, on the tapes, on the documents that the watergate special prosecution force and house judiciary committee looked at and whe looked at and materials we had in our collection that we were able to release in the last few years, best evidence on what various members of the white house staff and the president knew and did not know about the illegal intelligence operation. again if you would prefer to acquire information through audio-visual means, you have a nice screen you touch here. and you can liston the president himself who was interviewed after he left office. he talks about dirty tricks. >> this sort of things happens in campaigns. i don't particularly like it. i don't particularly like it

when it happens for me and that to be interjected in what should be particularly a high level presidential campaign, but it's going to happen because people are human. >> you can hear his chief of staff inform the president of the dirty tricks organization set up for the '72 campaign. in a sense informing him of what would become the segretti operation. the description is quite clear. you can listen to g. gordon liddy describing an attempt to discredit teddy kennedy by discrediting john f. kennedy through the creation of a cable that would link president kennedy to the death of south vietnamese president.

here you can hear him talking about cubans that were brought back to be involved in the secret intelligence entry bids in 1971 and 1972. this is going to be the hardest thing for the president because he knows who hunt is. and he knows and we know this from the tapes sh he knows hunt is involved in sketchy activities, if not illegal activities for coleson and the re-election campaign. also here we have president nixon himself ordering a violation of the campaign laws by setting up -- coming up with the idea of a fake write-in campaign for ted kennedy in new hampshire. ted kennedy was not running. he was not an announced declared candidate in the 1972 election. the president wanted to siphon

off votes from ed muskie, senator muskie of maine who was considered to be the front-runner. so the president orders the set up of a fake write-in operation which the white house will pay for. >> there is something beyond the financial. >> should something be done to finance? >> why not. why not at least finance a little kennedy write-in. >> yeah. put this down. i would say a postcard mailing to all democrats in the new hampshire to write in for ted kennedy. the man you could elect. that's the way you get hit.

>> so here you get a sense to the extent to which the white house was involved in illegal campaign activities. the fact that the hunt and liddy cuban emigre team that first makes its appearance on this timeline wall in 1971 has reappeared in the story of these illegal activities. well, that sets you up for the break-in and the consequence of the break-in. the hunt and liddy team get a $250,000 budget to engage in surreptitious enter and bugging and dirty tricks for the 1972

campaign. they break into the watergate. that is where the democratic national committee was. they break in successfully. they put in a couple of listening devices. the tape isn't very good so they decide to break in again the night of june 17 of 1972. they are captured early in the morning of june 17. now that you have a sense of who hunt is, who the cubans are, what liddy is up to and the extent to which the white house, not just the president but those around him, are linked, you get a sense then of how terrifying for the white house this failed break-in would be when these cubans are captured. and the question is will the fbi and the u.s. attorney be able to make the connection between that group and hunt and liddy. if they make the link to hunt andliy can they make the link to the committee to re-elect the

president. can they link hunt andliy to the plumber's unit and the break-in to dr. fielding's office and chuck coleson's undertaking. he used hunt for some of them. that is the challenge for the white house. that is why as we lay out through here, that is why the white house undertakes an extensive coverup. we quote from president nixon's memoirs where he writes if the cia could deflect from hunt they would protect us from the vulnerability from watergate. not the break-in but the political activities. this timeline lays out for you what the president met and the vulnerability that existed for him as a result of the failed second break in at the watergate facility. you can follow the evolution of the coverup on the wall where the white house attempted to limit what they would say limit the damage so that the fbi only stopped their investigation with the five burglars. as it became clear that the fbi was discovering other links, the white house then had to say that maybe we can just make g. gordon liddy and hunt responsible. when it was clear you had to involve the committee to re-elect the president. there was a hope you could stop the investigation with john mitchell, who was the head of the committee, john mitchell's deputy, jeb stewart mcgruder. could the investigation hold there? what the white house didn't want is for john mitchell to be indicted. again, you can listen to the cover-up as it evolves. these are hard to hear so we

provide you with transcripts. here you can hear the president being told that e. howard hunt has disappeared. the president knows who e. howard hunt is. h.r. halderman, three days after the arrests, talks to the president about this. >> they were going after the cubans, is that right? >> no, well. >> mccord, my guess will say that he was working with the cubans who wanted to put this in for their own political reasons. but hunt disappeared or is in the process of disappearing. we can undisappear him if we want to. >> it was key for the white house to not talk to hunt because he couldry veal all the other operations. that would pull the white house directly into the watergate scandal. the president is being told

about the fbi investigation because the white house is getting fbi reports and the white house is getting fbi reports because a friend of the fbi is a friend of the white house is the acting director. but also the fbi assumes that the white house ought to know about this. >> mccord, my guess will say that he was working with the cubans who wanted to put this in for their own political reasons. but hunt disappeared or is in the process of disappearing. we can undisappear him if we

want to. >> it was key for the white house to not talk to hunt because he could reveal all the other operations. that would pull the white house directly into the watergate scandal. the president is being told about the fbi investigation because the white house is getting fbi reports and the white house is getting fbi reports because a friend of the fbi is a friend of the white house is the acting director. but also the fbi assumes that the white house ought to know about this. you have in a sense the white house being tipped off. the white house is trying to figure out a way to stop the fbi investigation. so here the president is talking to john ehrlichman, his domestic adviser, about what jeb mcgruder

is going to have to do to stop the investigation. at this point in july of 1972 it is assumed he is going to have to take the fall. the president suggests what he should say to investigators. >> i don't think so. because they'll convict him. >> oh, they'll convict him. >> no. he has to say i did this and it was a bad thing to do and i got carried away and i feel terrible about it. >> well, can't it state it a little better? he could say he did it, but state it slightly -- >> but it isn't going to change that. >> yeah. for instance, i didn't expect it to be this way. >> yeah. yeah. he could do that. >> i think it d