in other words, they sort of missed reporting on the patron because it wasn't in an investigative. it was a process. so the reporter's organization were where the people understood the process much better. so, again, you had, again, congressman kept saying. you can't leave people in the dark. you have to, in proper time, keep people informed. keep the members informed. you had to move everybody along at the same time. and my job wound up sort of dealing with that outside world. and his job was to deal with the inside world. >> did you deal with woodward or bernstein? >> rarely. >> bob came and told me bs you know, he whispered those things in my ear and i said i have no idea what he's talking about. so he went away.

i might have asked mary. shefgs a great reporter in her time. >> these two investigative reporters, i grew to like dan shore a lot. but there's a whole group of jack nelson, who was a great civil rights group. it wound up there was a generation of reporters -- bill cotta cottage, jack nelson and others who went south in the -- in those early '60s and covered the civil rights movement who then became bureau chiefs. those are the people who you have a great rapport with. but the point is, it's not -- that's irrelevant. what's irrelevant is you had to keep the public informed as you moved along.

the decision not to investigate. to actually base the whole proceeding on the work doenl by the water gate special prosecution for us. >> i don't know how -- remember, that was a decision made. that was a decision made. i mean, i was sitting there, but sort of that was way above me, kind of thing. >> that was within the leadership of the house and with the staff. i mean, they came to that conclusion. but i don't i think they thought they had everything first of all, i don't think we had the manpower. you could have.

>> the decision to issue a subpoena, at least one, that must have been hard. >> very hard. i remember, again, i would be an observer in a situation like that, you know, when those discussions took place. extremely intense. just very intense. again, not arguing, but you didn't know what to do. you had to respect the presidency. you had to respect the person who held the job. it was president nixon. he's not just sending a letter to the president or subpoenas or whatever.

you just don't do that without a lot of thought. >> do you think he was reluctant? >> sure he was reluctant it was pres dent-setting. it was a large decision. he was very reluctant. >> do you think he had to convince him? yes, john had to present the case, as a good lawyer would. he had to present why this was critical. yes, absolutely. >> do you remember the decision to retranscribe some of the tapes because the trimanscripti wasn't very good? >> yeah, i remember that. >> tell us since you did not know how the process would go, tell us about the effect of the supreme court decision the

unanimous decision against the president. >> i think it was a jolt to the committee. this is more of a member issue. in other words, i think that was -- that was like a wild moment. wow. w-o-w. wow. i mean, it's just -- and i think it had a powerful impact on the republicans. that's why i remember. >> do you remember ever playing the smoking gun tape? >> no. >> do you remember the effect of the transcript of the smoking gun? >> um-hmm. >> do you remember the effect on the chairman? >> nothing. he absorbed it. i remember we talked about it one evening. and just, you know, it was a rather matter-of-fact

conversation, that kind of thing. i was sort of flabbergasted. i remember myself. i'm sitting there thinking, man, wow, they're just reporting us. my vague memory, it was a matter-of-fact conversation. that's how i remember. but in my mind, i'm thinking wow, this is really important. >> nobody knew the president was going to resign. so you had to think about presenting to the house. what was the next step supposed to be? >> i had already started. he sent me off just to meet with -- >> you mean to talk about the senate? >> yeah, to talk with the senate. i went over there a couple of times.

i think there was preparation. i mean, i know there was preparation. i was not involved in those conversations. i remember i had a couple confers with the staff. >> can you recall any? >> just procedural. how are you going to go about this what does it mean, that kind of thing. he wanted a very informal conversation. i think he was just looking for knowledge. >> this was before the votes? >> yeah.

>> when was the house supposed to vote. again, it never happened because the president resigned. >> sometime that fall. >> there were going to be a few months. your votes were at the end of july. so you were going to go into an august recess. >> come out in the fall. >> oh, my goodness, this would have been a drawn-out process. >> well, we didn't know. in other words, we just assumed that. and, again, nobody had been through this before. so we didn't know what the house would have done. in other words, if -- once it left our hands, you know, it's just like that. it leaves your hands. and this goes to the full house. other people start taking control. that timetable is no longer the chairman's timetable. so we just had to start making assumptions and preparing.

there was a lot of conversations with the speaker. they had to start preparing for this. we thought it would be pretty soon after the vote. but we always thought, you know, september. >> and then it would go to the senate? >> yeah. at the end of the year. what conversations we had if, in fact, the steps move forward, he was found charged and then try ed -- >> don't know. i don't remember those conversations.

you'd have to ask the staff. >> did the congressman edit the statements of information? did he actually go through and make suggestions? >> um-hmm. you mean on the charges? >> well, first of all, i meant just the material. they'd bring him other and he would talk and he would talk about this and that and this wording and that wording. there were other members, too. >> did he want to get rid of a few of these articles? >>. >> yeah, he put it through the political prison m of the process. and i thought he -- and i can't

remember -- i mean, he was stronger about some than others. >> i'm afraid to learn about the cambodia. >> he thought that was too political. >> the cambodia one sfwh. >> yeah. >> what about the taxes? >> i don't remember. i remember the cambodia thing came up. we thought we'd play right into a partisan kind of anti-war. it doesn't matter what we were. he just thought that was outside. >> he wasn't comfortable. >> but he couldn't prevent it? >> no, he couldn't. but you asked me what he thought. >> so do you think it was something he did to appease the more liberal? >>. >> his judgment would be not to do it. >> part of the pressure on him, and you mentioned this to me off camera.

y you said that the white house tried to mob him up. what do you mean? >> italian american from northern jersey. you know, it's the cliche. you know, italians are mob-connected. there was a lot of corruption out of newark. his roommate -- there was a lot of politicians who had a connection with a lot of crime. so the white house, immediately upon once the process began, started putting stories out that he was influenced or in some way

connected to the crime families. we had to deal with this issue almost every day in the early days. the papers put major investigations on this. and i do believe it was the wall street journal that came forward with a story just ending this. there actually was a stap. there was a series of tapes. there was a tape that they uncovered, it must have been abf.b.i. tape or some tape that they uncovered that where he is braugt up in tape. and the clear -- the indication on the tape is he's not one of us. and that was it. there was a story in the wall street journt. but very, very intense from sort of summer starting with the fact that the president -- vice president agnew ranked through

the fall into the binter. we had to deal with these constant stories of his board of coffin nexts to organized crime. >> how did you become convinced that the white house was behind it? >> it's sort of logic. they knew where it was coming from. there's nothing you can do about it. you just had to stand up and say this is who he is. you had to put your palms up. >> one of the other decisions that the chairman had to make was whether to call witnesses to be interrogated or interviewed. nine people were interviewed.

do you remember how that came about? >> they had to call these people. i was a committee issue. >> where were you when you found out president nixon was going to resign? >> i was sitting in my office. we got a call. it could have been from saint claire. we got a call from someone that the president was on television. trying to remember. it was around 9:00. we were in shock. i remember just sitting there that night.

we didn't know what to say. nobody said anything. it was just a shock. it never entered our minds. >> you thought the president would fight right to the trial? >> why wouldn't he? >> it was just nothing. it sort of took our breath away. >> did you ever have a confers with congressman about the party? he understood it, but he didn't think it was right. he understood it. he understood president ford's motivation was to get the country heeled. but, again, like i've said often, he was very much our process. he thought you let the system carry forward.

but he wasn't strong. i remember this conversation we had. he just said i understand what, again, we knew very well and had a good relationship with president ford. he said i understand. i understand how he has to move on. but being an institutionalist, he figured that was not the right decision. >> since your time, vice president ford, before that, congressman ford, do you remember the politics around the selection of a vice president by president nixon? the fact that john connolly was his first choice? >> um-hmm. >> what do you remember? >> first of all, it's all in the air. a lot of the conversation, he picked president ford because

whoa would want him as president? thafts a common thing at the time. i remember radino liked gerald ford. that was sort of the common wisdom of the time that there was a political move on the part. and that would prevent the -- our process from moving forward because we'd never move forward with the idea that jerry ford would be president. >> did the chairman like the final report of his committee? >> um-hmm. um-hmm. i think, again, i think he was greatly relieved that this was over. that he felt he fulfilled his obligation. i think he felt that. and i think he felt honored by the whole process. and i think, you know, that he was on norred to do it.

but he thought he gave his best. >> do you think that his relationship with tip o'neil and speaker of the house and others, did it change as a result of this process? did they have more respect for him afterwards? >> oh, yeah. he had a very wonderful rest of his career. he was honored. he loved the attention. he would go to speak and, yeah, he was deeply -- there was an aura about him, you know, that he carried for the rest of his career. and, you know, again, retrospectively, all of the members then honored him. i remember i went to his funeral and there was people who from long gone in their own distinguished careers, they came back honored. so, yeah, he was -- he liked that.

>> can you give us a word picture? what was barbara jordan like? >> she was -- i have no more to add. she was just like wonderful. you like to be with her. you come into a room, she filled the room. in other words, she'd come in the room, she'd fill the room. you would think, wow, she just filled the room. she had the voice and all of that was wonderful. she had a lot of energy. she was big, and so you like to be with her because she was funny and, you know, she was just a freshman. so it was that sort of distance, but again the chairman -- the chairman -- who wouldn't like to be around barbara jordan. she was just fun, and she was smart, and he thought, you know -- he thought, wow, what a wonderful career she had ahead of her. he always said, my goodness, this member is going to go far.

>> did the chairman do anything at the end of the process special to thank the staff? >> yeah, he thanked the staff. remember, he spent -- it sort of all went back to normal in the sense that all of a sudden, 125 people went away, whatever that number was, and there it was. >> did he go to the congressional hotel to see them, to see their offices? >> we went over a number of times. but during the process. you've read the books and the stories of people were very unhappy on the left with the process. jack brooks and others were still -- jerry and others i guess for years carried on that they were very unhappy with the way this was conducted. >> but they wanted five

articles? >> i don't know. you'd have to go back. they were unhappy. they just didn't feel he, john door, were -- with their choices and they didn't carry the process and i'm thinking what a momentous event in our history has been sort of accepted by the american public. that's how the process was to work. but, listen, it was a very traumatic undertaking. you're not going to get unanimous opinion on this. >> do you think the process worked? >> i think the process worked brilliantly. >> you leave government. you go into the movie business. you had something to do with phillip lee?

>> yes, i produced it. i want to leave -- it doesn't matter what i did. i had a lot of wonderful mentors, peter rodino. another wonderful mentor, john gardner. when this process ended i said, what am i going to do with my life? he said, well, go reinvent yourself. constantly reinvent yourself. he was just this wonderful man. i decided i wanted to do something that was completely not -- this was it. i said i love -- great respect for government. i just don't want to do it again. it was such a traumatic undertaking. i said, so i spent a year -- john gardner was very wise.

he guided me through this year, all kinds of people. ibm in new york where they all wore black. i'd fit in today actually. you'd interview with people and they would say, well, what have you done? what have you done? i'm thinking, wow, gist did something, but it didn't count. what a wonderful way. take a challenge i know nothing about. i loved the idea that there were no rules in the movie business. i thought what a wonderful way to sort of drain myself of this world, take a challenge i know nothing about, and go out -- i spent a number of wonderful

years with -- it was barry diller, michael eisner, jerry katzenberg. then i went on and left there and said it's enough of that. louie mile became a great friend. i remember i was editing one of his scripts once. again, it's like being somewhere i know nothing. he said, franz, you don't know shit. and we became great friends. i had no idea what i'm doing. but editing the miles script. i loved it. i left. i said, this is wonderful. and headed off to australia because there was a lot of young, interesting, dynamic film makers coming out of australia. i thought it would be fun. then we came across a story that eventually became gallipoli. i had to get money. i had to get financing.

i got money from -- still alive. a guy named bob stigwood. he produced "saturday night fever," "grease." he said go find the rest of the money. i went to australia and found this little newspaper man who owned a bunch of newspapers. he thought movies were frivolous, totally frivolous because he was a newspaper man. i knew something that he knew but we never talked about it. huh he gave half the money because his father was the most instrumental person in telling the world about this tragedy of gallipilee. of course, it was rupert murdoch. so that was an extraordinary experience. >> you knew that about rupert murdoch's father before you met rupert murdoch? >> we never talked about it. when we said go find money, peter and i said this is how the stories got told.

it was reported he snuck out with all the dispatches to london and the "times" of london. when i went to pitch the story, he never said a word and never said a word. he had such a big empire, would he he waste his time on a film that was just peanuts to him. of course, what it was i tapped into an honor with him. >> peter weir is the one who brought mel gibson. >> yes. he found mel gibson. mel gibson who has had an interesting career. he was -- he's an american, born in upstate new york, went to australia when he was 10 and had done minor films. we saw him on stage actually. his australian accent was so thick that we started giving him american lessons when we did the film. you could tell them extraordinary potential. peter found him, peter was also

an extraordinary director, a wonderful person to deal with. that was a one-off experience, a fabulous experience. >> did you do breaker moron. >> no, bruce beresford directed that. that was done almost at the same time. it was done before gal lip pee actually by a director called bruce beresford. >> you want to mention another film you did? >> no, that's it. >> this has been wonderful. have we missed a story? >> no. >> i'm in so much god damned trouble now with this tv shit, thank god peter is dead. >> thank you very much for your time, francis. this has been wonderful. thank you. >> thank you everybody. wednesday is independence day. you can spend the day watching 24 hours of american history tv right here on c-span 3. starting at 8:00 a.m. eastern.

a discussion on the war of 1812. it's the 200th anniversary of the little known war. and then a look at how president lyndon johnson viewed the role of federal government in his efforts on social reform. and finally, an author examines the author of a 19th century aristocrat and his views on equality. american history all day july 4th here on c-span3. this weekend, head to the state capitol with book tv and american history tv in jefferson city, missouri, saturday at noon eastern. family life inside the governor's mansion. from her book "if walls could talk".