the thing was to prove airtight a criminal obstruction of justice, one incident of clearly obstructing justice in an airtight way and that the special prosecutor people felt they had done that with regard to the money on march 21st, the howard hunt -- howard hunt's going to blow if he doesn't get the money thing. and they felt they'd built a very strong case, including against the president, as i think they may have referred to him as an unindicted co-conspirator or something like that on that. and john didn't agree with that on two counts. first of all, he was not infatuated -- this comes across in some of the reports, so on, with the notion that a president is a co-conspirator because the president has so much power that

really in a conspiracy it's just one person agrees with another to do a wrongful act and then does something to further their agreement. that's not the way john thought the white house or the president worked. the president was the person in charge. these people were his agents, and he didn't see criminal conspiracy law as relevant. the other thing, though, was that he did feel, too, that impeachment because of our feeling that it was a constitutional crime but had to have the seriousness and persistence -- it had to be something more than just one event because taking a president from office is such a major event and potential blow to the country, and everyone would agree not to be done lightly,

at least at the time everyone thought it should be done lightly, we said that at the time, no one thought it should be done lightly. that there had to be something of a persistent problem that went over time that didn't show an error that was transitory but something, you know, that went on. so, john felt that there had to be a pattern or picture -- i don't recall the word he used. and i agreed with this, too, myself. that there had to be some kind of pattern. so, the special prosecutor being prosecutors, you know, you prove someone committed a crime on march 21st, you said this and that and forward it went, and we felt our task was different, to see whether there was this kind of pattern of persistence. so, that's one reason why we kept the focus, not just on march 21st, which was certainly a factor, and as you know, we cited to the committee the

difference between the way the president ruminated in his nightly recording about what he had learned on march 21st and what he told henry peterson the next day about the situation, that if he had told peterson what he had learned, peterson could have prosecuted people. so that was not irrelevant. we looked back hard and i looked back hard at what happened in june, july. the break-in was in june, and the president was in florida. he came back to washington and there were a series of meetings and various things happened, and there was a lot of agreement about what happened in the senate select committee

testimony that created a picture of albeit at that time circumstantial -- the direct evidence more being in march. but circumstantial as to what went on. and i recall, too, that there was also in the musings that went on later, the president reflected back on what had happened earlier and had referred to the plan of containment as having been the right plan. and so, the word containment is just a fancy word or a more -- not a fancy word. a more negative word for cover-up because containment means you're protecting certain people.

and so, we viewed those reflections as evidence that combined with the circumstantial evidence ultimately we thought created a picture all the way going back to june. and my thing that i remember, the one -- you know, in six and a half months when the amount of work we did was so great that it does cloud your memory a bit, because your memory becomes selective. so much happening around you, you just select things to remember, and there's a lot of things that you can't keep in your head. but one of the things that i've always remembered is how firm i was that we had to get that tape, that tape of the conversation between haldeman and the president. there was one on january -- on june 20, i think it was, with the 18 1/2-minute gap occurred so, you know, whether -- no matter what you prove about the 18 1/2-minute gap, there was a missing piece.

but then there was another meeting shortly thereafter and we had to get that tape because that tape would indicate whether the -- would be direct evidence to either support or refute this reminiscence evidence and the circumstantial evidence. and so ultimately that tape was ordered by the supreme court, the special prosecutor case. and it said just what i thought it was going to say. i thought that the circumstantial evidence was clear and convincing and that, therefore, you know, it's like the old story they tell the jury. if someone comes in with a wet umbrella, you can infer it was raining outside and this was the equivalent. >> let's help the viewer. the challenge for you was that you knew from general walters that the cia had been asked

to -- to tell the fbi not to touch -- not to investigate the mexican money. and kenneth goldberg. and you knew that the president's chief of staff, h.r. bob haldeman, had asked the cia to do this. and you knew that haldeman and ehrlichman and the president had met to discuss this. but you couldn't prove that -- >> what was said. >> -- that the president had actually said to them do this. >> and there was other circumstantial evidence going on and the reminiscence how the right plan what they did to contain it but you didn't know the exact words. you had a -- i would have said you had enough to be quite clearly and certainly sure, myself, but you didn't have what's called direct evidence.

>> but, again, to probe, because ti's important, this is because you and mr. doar, you weren't alone in this, felt that someone of haldeman's stature would not be asking an agency to do this unless he had the support of the president. >> right. and more than just that one fact, that the follow-up facts supported the notion of a policy and plan of containment of this problem directed by the white house over these following months and that that evidence suggested that at such an early-on meeting this plan would be formulated and that the president would be in meetings with the people that implemented the containment plan would be aware of or direct the formulation of the plan of containment. >> the assumption was that this kind of plan of containment could not have happened without the president's involvement.

>> particularly since there were these meetings right at this time and then immediately after, various things began to happen and then other things happened. so, again, it's a picture -- i remember one of the things i did towards the end was i prepared a list of 50 events between june and, you know, the following four or five months that were i thought only explicable in the context of presidential involvement. and i couldn't find any events that could only be explicable in the context of no involvement. so, 50 items i felt was strong

and justified finding -- justified going ahead and drafting articles of impeachment based on watergate and the cover-up, finding that the president subverted the constitution by orchestrating, approving and condoning the plan of containment for his personal benefits. >> the president would later point to a conversation he had with l. patrick ray on july 6th, 1972, as evidence that he wanted the investigation to go ahead. i guess this is the conversation where he said gray warns him that there are people in the white house that are trying to

set the cia against the fbi. what was it that led you to see this particular conversation as not dispositive, as not evidence of the president's interest in the investigation going forward? >> well, we knew -- i don't recall whether it was that discussion with gray or a later one, but we did know in connection with one instance where the president had called up the director of the fbi and told him to press forward with all vigor, that the president had a lot of information that we knew he knew that would have helped the director of the fbi, fbi press forward with all vigor, and he did not convey that information. so, that raised the question of

whether these were words that he just wanted to be able to quote because if he really wanted the investigation to go forward, he could have provided information that would be very helpful. >> do you remember when you listened to the tapes the first time? >> i did not do a whole lot of that. obviously, i listened to the tapes. how could you not listen to the tapes? but we had a very careful process for listening to the tapes that i was not involved in. and basically, we felt that since the members were going to come over individually, they did come over individually, to listen to the tapes after they received our transcripts of the tapes, that it was very important that when they listened to the tape and looked at our transcript, our transcript would be accurate. they would say, yes, this transcript is accurate. and that was important because we prepared at some point a

comparison of our transcripts with the transcripts produced by the president, and there were very material differences, very important differences. so, the importance evidentially of our transcripts being correct was key. so, the first idea was that people who were -- had a good ear for music would somehow be able to listen carefully. well, that really didn't bear out. so, what we did was we had a system, as i recall, we had three people who would listen and they all three had to agree. i believe one was on the republican staff, too. i don't remember their names. but in any event, all three had to agree that that is what the tape said before it would go in the transcript. so, that was the process. so, i obviously read the transcripts that were produced,

and i think we felt a little bit of doing this comparison between the white house transcripts and our transcripts. of course, you notice funny little things. when president nixon went on television to say that he was releasing these transcripts, he had all the volumes behind him on a credenza and it looked like it was thousands and thousands and thousands of pages. but when you get the notebook, some notebooks would have just a few pages in it. and i also recall that some of the transcripts they produced, there were side remarks that someone had made that got transcribed that were sort of -- you question because it would say something like "take that out" or, you know, whatever. that could have, of course,

been because they felt it was nonresponsive or irrelevant, but it was sort of funny that that got transcribed, as well. but the big thing was the substantive difference between our transcripts and their transcripts. given that the issue was going to be important and influential likely with the members, we did a lot of work with the accuracy of the transcripts, and my recollection is that members came over and listened and felt that what we had transcribed was correct. >> now, was the transcript or the tape the record? i mean, if you were trying a case, what is the record? >> so, the tape is the official thing and that's why the members came over to listen to it as they should. but if they feel that the transcript is validated, it then becomes easier for them to use the transcript. so, of this interview we're doing, the tape will be the official thing, but if someone

ever does a transcript if it is valid and people look at it and it seems to conform to what's said, it's a -- it's a substitute. so, we worked very hard to be sure the transcripts were accurate. and it was just another aspect of a very important theme was the members did not want the staff to take over the fact-finding and the investigation. they felt that was their job. that's one reason they would come over to listen to the tapes rather than just take our word for what they said. and that is also why we used this phrase, as i recall at least, summary of information. we gave them these books with summaries of information. and it would have a statement of fact, and it would have evidence

that was confirmatory of the fact stated. and so a lawyer would normally call these statements of undisputed facts because we tried to keep them undisputed in that they were corroborated by many sources or -- but the members felt it was their job to find the facts. and so, by using a more neutral phrase, statement of information, it would be respectful of their right to go and look at the sources that are listed, the record as you put it, and make their own conclusion about whether this was a fact or not a fact. so, that phrase and these books i know came out the way john had done cases in the civil rights division, but that phrase summary of information i recall

as being deferential to the members and that was important from a staff point of view, that we were to provide them the materials, and they were to draw conclusions, and then we were to provide them with a way to implement their conclusions in terms of drafting articles. >> do you remember some dismay on the part of the staff when the members didn't quite embrace the concept of statement of information, they thought this was a little complicated? >> i remember their thinking it was quite boring. one of the things i did was to be the reader of the statement of information. so, we started the hearings, you know, with these books, and they all had the book, everyone there. and i remember there's this picture on the front page of "the new york times" with the committee up here and this table

with staff members here taken with a little bit of a wide angle lens so it's all sort of bent around and there's john and there's me sitting next to john as the reader of the statements of information. so -- and i would read it. on june 17th, you know, 1972, there was a meeting between the president and da da da, and this was discussed. and the statement that such and such was discussed would be based on various participants in the meeting. not just one, not just john dean, all agreeing in one way or another this had been the topic. we didn't have exact words in a lot of cases but -- and the members did get impatient. john's biggest challenge, he has told me, was the pressure to do it fast. we ended up taking, as i said, about six months.

and there were a lot of people who would want it to be done much shorter than that. but john felt that it had to be done right, that it had to be a thorough look at what the recor. but john felt that it had to be done right, that it had to be a thorough look at what the record showed, that it -- and i remember our feeling strongly that whatever conclusion we came to, it was important -- important -- that it be solid enough so that it would attract bipartisan support. and even before the smoking gun tape, we did get significant bipartisan support in the committee for the cover-up article. for some of the other articles, too, although i don't remember them as well. it wasn't what happened after

the smoking gun tape came out and basically all of them supported the articles. but we -- this was a -- we wanted this to be -- john wanted this to be as i recall a constitutional process so that you could say at the end of it the constitution has a mechanism to deal with abuse of power and subversion of the constitution in a serious way, and it has a mechanism that works, and the mechanism obviously has a political component in that the public's feeling about how serious this is, is a relevant factor, and the members know how the public feels. that's their job to be in touch with the public, so it has that component, but it has a component of fact, objectivity

to preserve the power of the president which is equally important to preventing the abuse of the power of the president. but we felt that was really, really critical. and i say "we," it doesn't mean all 100. i don't know all 100. but i know it seemed to be a consensus among the staff that we wanted to do that kind of job that would be -- that would be bipartisan. and so just a vignette comes to mind as after the impeachment people, americans, businessmen, and at that time the united states information service had a program, american businessmen, whatever would go and give talks at american embassies and various places around the world. they wouldn't pay your travel but when you got there, they would arrange for you to give talks. and you paid the airfare and the

hotel, and they arranged for you to talk, except in india, where the united states had accumulated all of these rupee balances after the food for peace program and there they would use that to pay your row tell. but you still had to get to india. so i had these friends going around the world giving a talk. they were experts at devising modern waste collection mechanisms in big urban areas, the routing of garbage trucks was their specialty, and they were very popular because all these cities have big problems with the routing of garbage. so, after the impeachment, i wanted to take a trip. so, i contacted the information service, and they send me to -- they arrange for me to give talks to the places i wanted to go, and the places i wanted to go, i wanted to go to iran and india and the united kingdom, and england, those were the three places.

my friends had been to iran, it's beautiful, you know, all -- so those are the places i went. and the united -- the information services were very sorry, no one wants to have you talk in iran. it conflicts with the program our embassy's putting on the american wild west and, of course, i'd forgotten, you know, you can be so naive that our embassador to iran was helms, richard helms. the last thing he wanted was, you know, people talking about, as you said, that the president had told the cia to -- so that wasn't his favorite topic, so no speaking in iran, the american wild west. but in india they booked me into parts of india that were quite anti-american in their traditional kurala state in the south was a communist state, and my message was the system works, the system works.

and it was -- they couldn't dispute it. they couldn't touch it. so, there the embassy loved it, because it was such a positive message about our constitutional system and how it worked. the only problem i had in india is that sometimes after my talks, i'd be approached by a group who was interested in ism impeaching indira gaunddy and they would come up and say maybe we could talk about -- which, of course, i wouldn't do. but it was basically that the system worked. that it was not seen as just a political thing that basically a serious inquiry had been made and a determination had been made about what was necessary to properly sanction with

impeachment, should it have gone forward through the senate, someone who had subverted the constitution for their own purposes. >> let's go back to the period just before the committee vote. you said six weeks reading the statement, statements of information. >> was that how long it was, six weeks? that was longer than i thought, right? >> by the way, why was it decided to read? why did you -- do you know why john doar -- >> i don't know why we read them. i think it was just to get the sense that this record had been put before the committee in a way where they could read it and study it and confirm it.

if you just handed them the books that wouldn't be totally satisfactory, because they might not read them. this is, like, introducing evidence in a trial. when you introduce evidence in a trial, you have a document or a piece of information. you do either read it to the jury, you do what's called publish it to the jury, that's the technical phrase, which can either be reading it or handing it to them and a pause taken in a court proceeding while they read it. and so i don't recall the specific reason, but i think it was sort of this idea that we should publish this information to the committee. >> did you read this -- the documents? >> no. so, the notebook, you'd have the statement of information. then behind it would be the documents. so, you would read the thing, and there would be time for them

to be flipping through and looking at the documents, and each document was marked with a big black bracket to show the part that was relevant to look at, to corroborate this statement made and the statement of information. but beyond that, i can't remember why we read it. >> do you remember mr. doar's reaction to the fact that this was going to happen on television? >> no. i'm sure it wasn't the world's most exciting television. there did come a point where the committee members started to discuss that was very -- i mean, we all remember barbara jordan's impassioned in her voice of we almost like the grand canyon as a metaphor for time, her voice had that, and a number of other

people, you know, on all sides. that was a very good debate. i was there obviously listening to it. i remember. but the other i don't remember thinking about whether it was good television. >> do you remember dick case's role in giving seminars to help the members absorb this information? >> right. i did not participate in any of those. obviously dick case's office was right near mine, and we were -- he was aware of what we were doing and what we were working on and, you know, memos we would write and all that kind of stuff. but my group, we did not have contact with the committee the way dick did, and dick played a really important role in helping the members work through the information. i know that john has referred recent, you know, i