smells, don't do it. do it the right things is and that's what ethics are all about. i want to thank our panel members here. we have enjoyed it. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span three. to join the conversation, like us on facebook. senate watergate committee from rufus edmisten and his grandson, judge sam ervin, iv. they recall his character and how the self-proclaimed country lawyer relied on his knowledge of the law and personal convictions to guide the committee. this event was hosted by the north carolina museum of history. it is about an hour.

>> all right. good afternoon. thanks for coming out to the north carolina museum of history. we are getting ready to do our program right now. my name is michael scott. i do a lot of programming at the museum of history. we have three distinguished guests with us. we have dr. karl campbell, author of the book "senator sam ervin, last of the founding fathers." he will be guiding the ship through the waters of watergate. in the center, we have former state attorney general and no stranger to most people here, rufus edmisten. [applause] closest to me, i hope no stranger to people around here, or maybe not, he is a judge. judge sam ervin iv. [applause] all right. thank you, guys. i will let them take it away.

>> good afternoon. it has been 40 years and a few hours since richard nixon resigned from the presidency. [applause] wow. [laughter] for those of us of a certain age, we remember the trauma of watergate. and perhaps four decades later, we are ready to put the scandal in a greater historical context. for those of you younger who don't remember watergate, perhaps you're wondering why every scandal since 1974 has to end with the word "gate." as in our new jersey example, "bridgegate." this anniversary of watergate has created the usual controversies in the press and on the bookcases. there are a lot of new twists

and turns just in the last three or four days. there has been three new books published on watergate. i want to mention them quickly. taking us back further in watergate, ken hughes' book "chasing shadows" is based on the tapes and suggests watergate goes back to 1968 and to nixon's attempt to prolong the vietnam war for his own personal political gain. taking watergate further into the future, in one book "the invisible bridge, the fall of nixon and the rise of reagan," it has gotten a lot of controversy, somewhat unfair and partisan. some of it serious charges about his scholarship. then there is "the nixon defense" on sale in the

bookstore out there. it is an examination of the tapes, including thousands of hours not previously heard. it is by a fellow named john dean, yes, that john dean. guess what, nixon is still guilty. according to those tapes, he looks worse than he did even 40 years ago. in north carolina, we have long known the best way to understand the watergate scandal was from the perspective of senator sam ervin. he chaired the senate watergate hearings in 1973 and brought some good old-fashioned tar heel common sense to the craziness in washington. after the ervin hearings, nixon's complicity in watergate was as clear as ervin liked to say, "as clear as the noon day sun in a cloudless sky."

i have been asked to give a brief overview of sam ervin's life before we begin the discussion. i promise it will be brief, one page. sam ervin was born in morganton, north carolina in 1896. he called that little town that lies in the shadows of the blue ridge mountains his home until his death in 1985. he served with distinction in world war i. he attended the university of north carolina at chapel hill and later harvard university law school, which he went through backwards, but that is a story for later. he practiced law in morganton and became a traveling superior court justice and later an associate member of the north carolina supreme court. he probably would have been happy serving on that court for the rest of his life. but in may of 1954, just six days before the supreme court announced its decision in the

brown ruling, our senator died suddenly sitting at his desk in the senate office building. at this critical juncture in north carolina and american history, the state's governor appointed sam ervin to the united states senate. he arrived just in time to lead the south's opposition to the brown decision. he arrived just in time to help bring down senator joe mccarthy. for the next 20 years, from 1954 until 1974, ervin served as north carolina's senior senator. following the pattern he established in the first year, he remained a steadfast opponent of civil rights, but he became the senate's leading champion of civil liberties. most americans remember sam ervin as the affable, bible quoting, old country lawyer who chaired the senate hearings in

1973. his stories from down-home in north carolina, his reciting from memory passages ranging from shakespeare to aesop's fables and especially his earnest lectures in defense of constitutional government in -- and. him to a disenchanted public suffering through a long national crisis. when ervin began in the summer of 1973 with the hearings, the cloud hung over richard nixon. but few expected the extent of the legalities or involvement of the president himself. by the end of the summer, a gallup poll reported nearly 90% of all americans had watched some part of those hearings. richard nixon, who received the third-largest mandate in the history of the united states when he won reelection in 1972, had the lowest public approval rating of any president in the preceding 20 years. as nixon's ratings fell, ervin's

popularity skyrocketed. coghlan,ed one -- rob the college student and founder of the national sam ervin fan club explained, and i quote, "watergate has given us a person we believe in. and we believe. he says he's just an old country lawyer. but when he talks about the constitution, he makes you want to stand up and pledge allegiance." so we are here today to talk about senator sam and watergate. there will be time in the last 10 or 15 minutes for questions from the audience. let's begin with a question from rufus. -- for rufus. in the spring of 1974, putting the hearings together, before the hearings began, what did watergate mean to you and what were you thinking you were going to find before you began?

>> before i say that i have to , point out the museum of history has done a fantastic job with this exhibit. it won a national award. if you have not seen it before, i will give a tour. it will be my interpretation. it will be directed toward my good looks and a few things like that. [laughter] with us today is gene boyce, who was on the team that discovered the tapes. michael carpenter is right up there, who somehow has to be the -- over here is judge william creech, a longtime ervin aide and fabulous individual who will do my work on the constitutional rights subcommittee. welcome, judge. [applause] i want to point out jimmy is getting these jowls coming along very well. i will not refer to him as jimmy

anymore today because he is judge ervin. i want you to know that. he may be a supreme court justice if all the stars fall right. now, i wasn't supposed to do that. [applause] he knew i would do that. what was it like right before watergate? i thought we were doing a rehearsal because i had been there with bill creech on the constitutional rights subcommittee. we had been studying all these things. as you said in your book, senator ervin had a 10-year battle with richard nixon. frankly, he never trusted the man. now my unique and wonderful , position was for 10 years, half his senate career, i tagged along with him. i got to drive him. we have some fun stories if we have time i will tell you about in my book. later on. [laughter] i thought we were doing a rehearsal when all the watergate came up because everybody in the

world in the senate, as the judge remembers, wanted to be on the watergate committee. as it heated up, teddy kennedy wanted to be on it. they saw something coming. it took a different path. we sat for months holding boring hearings on executive privilege, these esoteric subjects that later became what watergate was all about because richard nixon could not keep his hands off anything he was supposed to keep it off of. so i thought it was a rehearsal. i later saw the gravity of it, and we got in high gear. i went back and read all the things i had done during the years when i was chief counsel. >> jimmy, can you tell us about your grandfather's feelings as he was approaching this? what was his frame of reference? >> his frame of reference was essentially what rufus just said. i think it is fair to say, he

had concerns about president nixon for a long time. he was in the house in 1946 very briefly and was friends with a representative from california. jerry voorhees. he did not agree with congressman voorhees about much. because congressman voorhees was a fairly advanced liberal at that point. but he liked congressman voorhees and thought he was a person of integrity. he was very unhappy with the campaign president nixon ran against congressman voorhees in the 1946 election. it was an attack on congressman voorhees as a communist. when he got to washington, he had a series of concerns about president nixon that i don't think ever abated. on the other hand, i think it was very hard for him to come to the conclusion that president nixon had done some of the things we now know he did.

he had a reverence for the office of the presidency i think a lot of folks had. it took a while for him to come to grips with the notion a president might have done some of the things he ultimately was found to have done. my recollection you have to , remember i was 17 the summer of the hearings. i remember a conversation i had with him in may 1973. rufus may remember this. his brother, john, died. granddad came down for the funeral right before the hearing started. i was talking to him. he and i talked about a lot of things. i asked how bad is this really. i don't remember his exact words, but the gist of it was far more serious than he ever thought it was. i think by that point, he knew what john dean's book was going -- john dean's folks were going to say although he was not at liberty to say publicly. at that point, i think he knew

what he was dealing with. >> often when we talk about watergate, it becomes a greek tragedy about richard nixon. it is about what nixon knew and when did he know it. i think from sam ervin's point of view, this was a larger issue. this was not just about richard nixon. but it was about what you are referring to. the subcommittee on separation of powers have been building a case against the imperial presidency for some time. i remember one of the first bills richard nixon passed was the district of columbia crime bill. in that bill, there were two draconian measures to fight the war on drugs including no knock police entry. your grandfather was ballistic about these issues. >> i saw the speech he gave against the district of columbia crime bill in 1971. somewhere in that timeframe, maybe 1970.

he gave a four-hour speech against that bill almost from memory starting with nothing but a stack of books on his desk on the senate floor. he was outraged by it because it did a number of things he thought were completely antithetical to the constitution as he understood it. the concept of bail generally is you cannot be denied bail in a noncapital case. this statute allowed judges to deprive people of release on bail pending trial based on the finding they were dangerous. even now you can get large disputes in the psychological community about whether you can predict that. he was probably even more outraged by the no-knock search provision which typically in common law, you had to announce yourself if you were an officer getting ready to make a search. this bill allowed them to execute a search warrant by essentially kicking the door without announcing it, on the theory that if you did not do that, people would destroy the

drugs or whatever contraband thought to be on the premises to be searched. he thought that was an outrageous infringement on civil liberties of the citizens of the country and fought it almost single-handedly. he managed in the end today fair the end to getn a fair number of his colleagues to vote against it, but not enough to defeat it. >> i think this is an important point you made earlier. watergate, people immediately think of the break-in. i think it was jay anthony lukas who once said watergate was like a flaw in the marble that ran through the entire edifice and eventually broke down the structure of the administration. you guys on the committee, these issues were long before the break-in that were part of the fight between congress and the imperial presidency. >> of course. can you imagine the president who condones the plumbers group

reaching into the psychiatrist's office because he was mad because he had leaked papers? -- leaked the pentagon papers? as john dean said the other night, some of you were there because i see you again, they were running the place like a mafia down there. that is a strong word. i said it. john dean said it. they did not act like the mafia. the mafia was a lot cleaner than they were. they were dummies. they did some of the dumbest things in the world. for the life of me, i cannot understand how someone as savvy as nixon was could do some of the stupid things. my theory has always been that we in public office, i ran 11 times. i never had in my office thing -- a thing worth a dime. there was nothing in there. i would pay somebody to break in and clean it up it was so bad. they were stupid. if president nixon had surrounded himself with a few

people who had as much ron -- run for city council or county commission, they would never have dreamed of doing the stupid stuff they did. they had been in on this way before watergate. we had all kinds of things, having the military spy on civilians. that is something i saw him get madder about than anything in the world. we were driving down the road one day way before watergate. he had this old chrysler. i felt like a ship of fools going down the road weaving back-and-forth as i drove that thing. he never changed cars while i was with him. he changed oil occasionally. but not cars. he said, you know, rufus, richard nixon is afraid of freedom. i always kept that in my mind. he said richard nixon is afraid of freedom. that characterized the maniacal activities at the white house

before karl and during watergate. the whole thing about it is, poor mcgovern, you could have taken anybody and beaten the poor man. where did he win? >> massachusetts. >> orange county. north carolina. [laughter] >> and northampton. >> to answer your question, it is like a windshield. it just kept going and going, that crack, until john dean said the famous thing. he asked the president you know , there is a cancer in the presidency. you have seen it. that did not take with nixon if you recall. he ignored it. as dean said, he said those folks did not want to face reality down there.

i have been on a couple of radio programs lately. somebody said we ought to impeach obama. i said, wait a minute. i don't believe obama has sat at the table at the white house, the desk in the oval office, and said, how much will it take to pay them off? will $1 million do it? break in that place. there's a bit of difference, a tiny bit of difference. the caller into the last show said, i don't care. you picked on nixon. >> it is interesting. if you have been following the press on some of the books i mentioned earlier how partisan the coverage remains and how many people are still bringing up the argument, this was a partisan attack on richard nixon. the other day i saw somebody who said the only thing nixon did wrong was being a republican because the democrats had gotten away with that kind of thing for years. true.

there has been a long context of taping and executive power. these are important questions. what richard nixon did was in such a different level than any president before or after. i think history increasingly is finding evidence of that. i wonder if we could back up for a minute and talk about how ervin got this. -- got there. of all the senators, why would they pick senator sam ervin? he was fairly well known in north carolina but not a national person. why sam ervin to have this -- to head this thing? >> i never talked to the people who made the decision. if you read the statements granddad made over the years, he was asked to be the chairman of the committee against the background rufus has talked about, that everyone knew many of these issues, particularly the issue of executive privilege

because everybody knew that was going to be a big bone of contention with any congressional attempt to investigate watergate, and granddad had done a lot of work on it. at that time, he was 78 years old. he had no further ambitions. he ultimately did not run for reelection the next year. he could not be accused of trying to politicize things for his own benefit. secondly, if you looked at his voting record, he cannot be categorized as a partisan in the sense he always lined up with the opposition to nixon on substantive issues or in favor of him substantively. he tended to support the president on some things and not others. lastly, he had more judicial experience, as i understand it than anyone else in the senate. , he spent about seven years as a state trial court judge and another six years as a state supreme court justice.

intermittently before he was in the senate, he practiced law. so he had more of a judicial cast of mind. most people referred to him as judge rather than senator most of the time. >> i referred to him as god. [laughter] >> given granddad's calvinism, i am not sure what he would have thought of that. [laughter] >> as a presbyterian, he would have thought it was predestined. [laughter] >> he told me about world war i, i was predestined to get behind that tree and miss that bullet. [laughter] >> or his other version of that was he told somebody one time when they were arguing predestination with him that if you denied the validity of predestination, you had to assume when something happened god was just as surprised as everybody else. [laughter]

>> sam ervin was a good scotch irish presbyterian who would always give the good scotch irish prayer. dear lord, help me from being wrong because as you know, i shall never admit i am wrong whether or not i was. [laughter] >> his other favorite prayer he liked to use occasionally was what he said was the lawyer's prayer. some lawyer was called on at a camp meeting many years ago to give the opening prayer. he was not used to praying in public. the lawyer said the first thing that came to his head which was in essence, "lord, stir up much strife lest thy servant perish." [laughter] >> that is the young lawyer's prayer, he said. >> which takes us back to how conservative sam ervin was as a

politician. a lot of people don't remember when school prayer was stopped in the supreme court, sam ervin was one of the first people to denounce the removing of prayer from the public schools. he used that quote about the lawyer. he went to lunch. there, to his surprise, was most of the supreme court. he told them i was just down in morganton. i talked to an elementary school teacher. she said she walked into her class and there were a bunch of little children in the corner. she said, get off your knees, what are you doing? they said, we are shooting craps. [laughter] the teacher said, "good, i thought you were praying and i was going to have to make you stop." [laughter] but sam ervin, after he read the material with the amendment to the constitution saying we needed to return prayer to

school, sam ervin was ready to change his mind and was a champion of the separation of church and state. >> i was sitting on the floor. there is a wonderful old couch no longer there. i would sneak over to watch the great people. senator ervin was making his pitch about this being very bad, it was going to violate the separation of church and state. he used the example of somebody in new york city with the buddhists in charge of government, the buddhist prayer, how would you like that? that resonated with people, shallow-water baptists like me. he made such a reasoned argument. back in those days, occasionally someone would listen when the senators would come on the floor. one was senator wayne morse of oregon. after it was over, he came over. i overheard it. he said, "sam, i heard your speech. i've changed my mind and i'm not going to vote for that amendment."

>> and it did not pass. >> i think that also goes to one other thing. randy told me one time you should not be in public office unless you were prepared to lose an election if you stuck to your principles. if you did not have sufficient principles that you were prepared to brave public opinion on occasion, you did not have enough backbone to hold public office. he clearly had that. he did not spend lots of time reading poll numbers. i doubt he ever commissioned a poll. he truthfully made up his own mind and figured if the public did not like it, they have the right to defeat him when he ran for reelection. he was ok with that. i do remember in 1968 the last time he ran. rufus and i went around with him a little bit. rufus drove and they let me tag along. he usually finished his speeches by saying something to the effect of, you don't have to reelect me, but you need to

understand if i am defeated, i am not staying in washington to be a lobbyist. i'm coming back to north carolina. so if you don't want me around, you need to reelect. [laughter] >> let me tell you what campaigning was like back then. this was 1968. we still had the same old chrysler. you went to the county seat. you went and saw the clerk of the court. he walked around the courthouse. that night in town, you would have a big rally. i remember he had radio ads. you remember this. people have voluntarily sent senator ervin contributions. he used to marvel at that. he did not write a letter saying i want these. after it was over, i was up there one saturday. he said i need you to help me stamp some letters. i got in and he was writing

checks out meticulously giving back the portion of what he did not spend of contributions whether they were $100 or $500 and a little note to everybody saying, i did not use this, i'm going to give it back to you. what was the percentage, i do not know. >> i remember he was given $30,000. he spent $20,000, rebated as much of the remaining $10,000 he could find and give the rest of the local hospital. -- and gave the rest of it to the local hospital. i was not sure i believed that story until a week ago when i ran into somebody who claimed to have gotten one of those checks. [laughter] >> in my research, i have seen the letters. >> would you give it back? >> what i give what back -- would i give what back? [laughter] >> would you give money back? [laughter] >> well, my brother who ran for reelection to the supreme court three years ago did when he did not have opposition. but i believe i would spend it if i had a campaign to win. >> let's talk about morganton. sam ervin used to say he was just a country lawyer, but it was true.

he was just a country lawyer. he practiced law. i think that had a profound impact on his style and personality, his use of humor. i wonder if you could talk about morganton and country lawyering. >> at the time he was born, and still to this day, i lived there, and came down from morganton this morning and will go back this afternoon. they don't let us live anywhere else, apparently. [laughter] morganton is a small town at the foot of the mountains in western north carolina. if you read historical discussions of the south, you become more aware of the fact the south is not one monolithic place. instead there are real regional , differences within the south. as a small town, morganton is a place where at the time he was growing up, you knew everybody, everybody knew you. it was a place that seems, as best as i can tell and remains

this way, a very individualistic kind of place. his father was a self-educated lawyer who had come up from south carolina after the civil war for economic reasons. he was very much -- you have got to make something of yourself, very strong emphasis on individual freedom. a lot of what granddad got came from the lessons he learned from his father, my great-grandfather. growing up in a small town, you learn how to communicate with people. you have to deal with everybody . he grew up in an environment where there was not a lot of stratification in terms of your personal interactions. there were class and racial differences in the community. as a lawyer, he's was primarily -- he was primarily a jury lawyer. almost all his arguments were made to 12 citizens of the county in the jury box.

he had to learn how to cross examine witnesses. he had to learn how to appeal to different parts of the public. i think that had a lot to do with the style he developed. >> humor is a wonderful weapon we don't see used enough in politics today. it humanizes while it also can make its point. one of my favorite sam ervin stories about watergate was about the president's lawyers making the case about executive privilege. he said, "that reminds me of when i was a country lawyer in morganton. a woman came in from the mountains and said she needed legal advice. i put down my books. i gave her one hour. she got up to leave. i said that will be $5. she said, what for? he said, my legal advice. she said, i ain't going to take it. [laughter] without batting an eye, his eyebrows would go up a couple of

times, and he said, "that is what we say to the president. we are not going to take your legal advice." point made brilliantly but humanly, which i thought was wonderful. you must have had -- >> i heard these stories over and over again and laughed harder every time. it is hard to believe. i think my favorite was one time this woman came to him. she was about 90 years old. she said, i want a divorce from my husband. the lawyer said to her, how long have you been married to him? she said, about 75 years. why after all those years would you want a divorce? she said it is this way. , enough is enough. [laughter] he used that one. i was running for attorney general for the second time. i was going down in a parade. this woman ran up and said, what are you running for this time?

i said attorney general. ,she said are you still a , lawyer? i said yes. , she said i will have you know i will not vote for no damn lawyer. i said, i am no lawyer. i got her vote. [laughter] >> it was an exercise in plagiarism. one time during the hearings, granddad was a harvard graduate. he did go backwards. he took the third year first and the first year last. i did not believe that story until i got to harvard and was able to verify it. at one point during the hearings after he made one of these, "i'm just a country lawyer comments," someone said he is also a harvard graduate.

granddad said, thank god no one would ever know. [laughter] >> i like that one. >> during watergate, which was such a serious matter, and it was one of the first truly televised scandals in american history, you had these blue-eyed technocrats who talked in sound bites that knew exactly what -- exactly how long they had to say. they were scripted and clear. kind of like a shakespearean play, you have this human , falstaffian character who was very shrewd at using these stories and that personality. a lot of people think ervin's role was educational. he was the person. watergate was complicated. there were so many pieces and parts. ervin in that committee helped to educate the american people by using ervin as a vehicle to put it together. there were several moments that were turning points in those

hearings. one was certainly the tapes. i wonder if you could recount from the inside what it was like when they found out this whole thing could be settled by simply getting the tapes and pushing the play button. how did that come about? >> gene boyce was the deputy counsel for the watergate committee. [applause] gene boyce was the head of the team. before we put people on the stand, you see what they're going to say first because you don't like surprises. all of us thought alexander butterfield was a minor witness. we were out having a party. i was among those. -- i was among those having the party. i often wished i had asked that question. he was asked if he could kick himself for not asking it himself. they took a clue from john dean's testimony where he said i

felt like i was being taped. he and i were in my office the other night. he talked about that a lot. he said i felt i was being , taped. he said that at the book signing. gene and his crew picked up on it. it was not an accident. the rumor keeps going around that this was an accident. gene and his crowd thought that out. he left. the gentleman asked the question. i remember you sent somebody to tell me about it, gene. i was at this party was senator -- with senator ervin. i told him. i will never forget it. he said don't tell that damn old weichert. he was a member of the committee, but we knew he was the biggest leaker around. that is how it came about. in that day, in that hearing room, it was very deliberative. fred thompson was given the privilege of asking the question because we did not want it

coming from a, quote, partisan democrat. the press had better manners back then. there was no foolishness like cell phones. there was one old telephone booth in the senate caucus room. when alexander butterfield said that, a hush fell over the room. just a hush. they did not all run out of there immediately like they do today. well, they would be on their cell phones. they listened to the rest of his testimony. then there was a scramble like a covey of quail being flushed. what did you do when you got news back in those days? you have to go find a telephone. where do you find a telephone if you're in the senate caucus room? you have to run to some senator's office and beg for a telephone because you are not talking to your editor while this is going on. the whole process of how you report things has changed dramatically.

the scene in the exhibit shows you how at one time or another, 90% of americans watched a little bit of watergate. you are correct about the drama. the only thing it did not have was heavy sex. i don't know -- i'm not really up on that. thehis is where i censor conversation. >> he warned me. everybody behaved better back then. we had people jump up in the back of the hearing rooms. in the senate room, this woman jumped up and said, praise the lord, sam ervin is a saint. she would not shut up though. i told the policeman to take her out. she screamed all the way out. she kept quoting john 3:16. i don't know what happened to her. i have no idea. >> this charge of partisanship, 40 years later we still hear it.

that sam ervin was out to get richard nixon. sam ervin did not perform this hearing as a judicial hearing should be, but instead was very partisan. part of my reaction is the nixon people sent several operatives down to north carolina to see if they could get dirt on sam ervin. they talked to several republican elected officials who said not only is there no dirt, but i trust sam ervin as much as anyone in my own party and you are going to find nothing on sam ervin that is partisan or unfair. barry goldwater said the same thing. what do you say about this charge? that it was not judicial, it was partisan. >> i think you say two things about it. the first is what many people tend to forget to some extent is what is the technical purpose of the committee. this was not just a fact-finding

investigation in and of itself. all committees like that are created for the purpose of recommending amendments to federal law to deal with problems discovered and addressed in these kinds of hearings. ultimately, the whole watergate issue came to the senate primarily as a campaign finance scandal. the ultimate output of the committee was a series of modifications to the federal election laws in 1974 that included the now-defunct presidential public financing program and other things like that. it was not ever intended to be a judicial gathering because it was to develop a factual record against which to develop legislation. that aside, the reason i think you can have confidence in the watergate investigation in the senate committee and the next year in the house impeachment committee is that there were a number of members of the

republican party who were perfectly prepared to break ranks because they did not like what they were seeing. you did not have what you see now in many instances where you have a seven-member committee, four democrats, three republicans. but their decisions did not break down along party lines. my understanding is granddad and howard baker, vice chairman, had an agreement they were not going to split on procedural issues, that they were going to work things out together. for example, the vote to send rufus to the white house with the subpoena was unanimous. senator baker did not act as a defender of nixon. certainly senator weichert did not. even senator gurney was not a nonstop partisan for the president. then you got in the impeachment hearings the next summer, there were a group of republicans who voted to impeach president nixon before the smoking gun tape came

out. i am not sure you could have that kind of result now. we've gotten so politicized and so partisan that people are almost afraid to exercise their own judgment in spite of the potential cost to themselves. there were members of the republican party willing to stand up and do what they thought was correct. i think that is one of the legacies of that hearing. it puts the quietus on the theory this was some kind of partisan witchhunt. if it was, why did butler decide to vote for impeachment? why did other members of the house vote that way? act as henator baker did? >> senator ervin and baker made an agreement in the beginning. we are not going to do anything unless we agree on it. if you notice in this hearing, no subpoenas were issued. the vote to subpoena the president was unanimous.

in my opinion, i'm not an historian, it is the only hearing that has worked. nothing since watergate has worked because you could not have two people like sam ervin and senator baker. they were like two peas in a pod. speaking of "out to get the ," i have to tell you this one thing. after the tapes had been discovered, the committee was in senator ervin's office. they were discussing that we want to give the president the chance to turn over the tapes. all of a sudden, senator ervin turns to me and says go get the president on the telephone. that was not like go in there and buy a pack of -- [laughter] i got to the white house. i think it was rosemary. i said, this is rufus edmisten, deputy chief counsel of the watergate committee. at that time, if you saw this coming, you just about had a heart attack because we had subpoena power.

if you lied to the committee, you would go to jail. she said hold on, i will be back , with you. all the time nixon had been saying ervin is out to get me. all of a sudden, this voice comes on. "senator ervin, this is richard nixon." i was so stunned at the -- that the president came on. i said, "mr. president, hold on, the senator wants to get you." [laughter] then i added, "on the phone." [laughter] i walked back in there. so help me, goodness, i told that to the committee real quick. they rolled on the floor. "out to get you" has a good connotation for me. >> i was not there. as an historian when you read the documents alone in archives, you get the sense the actors in

the drama knew this was more important than your regular partisan game. this was about the presidency. this was about the constitution. this was about the nation. sam ervin and the other senators rose to the occasion. they realized there was something bigger on the line. certainly we know now more about , how people think politically. there's a lot of neuroscience going on about political thought that i am not an expert on. we do know people that change -- people do not change their minds quickly. people do not get a fact and say that is compelling evidence and i will change my mind. instead, we have a framework and understand the world. the facts come out that -- come out of that framework. at first, we dismiss the messengers. the facts keep coming. eventually, there is a moment in which it builds up and you have to turn your framework to accept all this information. i think that is what these committees did.

over the summer, when we got to the saturday night massacre and people were fired, that seemed to be the gestalt, the final reaction to the ervin hearings. i do believe that we could sit up here and talk for another three or four hours. but we would like to get some questions from the audience. we do have time to do that. >> before we do that, i want to show this book. this is karl's book. >> is he wonderful, or what? >> i personally think it is the best book done on ervin. it is not tedious. you need to get it. he leaves nothing unturned. i promise you he will never write a book on me because he is too truthful. [laughter] >> he said i am too truthful. i have got that note. if you would like to ask a question and raise your hand we , have people with microphones and would love to accept her -- your questions. looks like we have one here.

thank you. >> say, for instance, richard nixon did not resign and the impeachment process kept going on, any way way to predict how -- any way to predict how that might have turned out? >> there is no doubt. we know from statements of the senators themselves he would have been impeached. he would have been found guilty. he would have been removed from office. there is a famous moment where barry goldwater spoke with him with other republicans and said, "mr. president, not only do you not have the votes -- you don't have my vote." that is why he resigned. because there was no way possible. that should remind us that the evidence is overwhelming. this is not an open legal question. the president clearly was guilty of the obstruction of justice and many other crimes. >> senator hugh scott went down there. that convinced the president. i don't have my senate minority

leader with me, i am gone. i am out of here. a couple of days later, he said, let's go. >> more questions? do we have a microphone that can come over here? i think we can settle all of watergate in the next 10 minutes. yes, sir. >> rufus, i believe you were the one that had the enviable duty of presenting -- what is the legal term -- the subpoena to the president of the united states. would you tell us about that? >> boy, what a day. >> there went the 10 minutes. [laughter] >> let me set a record. obviously, i was the guy, maybe i was the project director of the watergate committee. i made things work. when the senate committee voted, i chose myself to do it.

it was quite a day. i was loaded in the back of a police car. i looked like i was going to the federal penitentiary. went down the street. it was almost like the red sea opening up. we did not have sirens or lights. got down there, must have been 200 reporters. all these things punching at me. we had alerted them we were coming with it. believe you me the air was thick , in washington at that time. gene and michael will recall, it was thick. everyone knew you were headed to the president. you are headed toward a constitutional crisis. i walked up to the executive office building. out stepped his counsel and a man who was a noted legal professor whose book i have used in law school. i did my bit about, "on behalf of the senate," handed it to them. a smart-alecky thing. i had one of those blue constitutions in my back pocket.

i whipped that the baby out and said, "you might want one of these, too." [laughter] >> really? >> if that is not a smart aleck, i don't know what is. it was a seminal day. i think, more importantly was , when the tapes were discovered. that was the first time a subpoena had been served on any sitting president by a committee of the congress. like "time" magazine said, rufus edmisten has a footnote in history. it is a small one, by the way. >> but you're not done yet. another question perhaps? >> rufus, would you talk about how you were hired by senator ervin, you and gene, others, how did you get the job? >> dumb luck. when i was growing up, i was intrigued by these folks who would come by and make speeches. i would see senator ervin. i kept hounding him. i finally went to say i want to

, work for you someday, senator ervin. i went to washington in 1963 to law school at nighttime and taught the third grade for one year. i kept hounding the senator's office and the senator about wanting a job. a job came open on the constitutional rights subcommittee. the secretary said the senator will put you on bill creech's subcommittee. it was perseverance and tenacity and not quitting. , what a wonderful life i have had being around a man like sam ervin. can you believe it? >> actually, you are sitting right next to him. [laughter] >> we have been very kind today. [laughter] >> right there is raelana. i want to thank her. marvelous job. [applause]

please leave it up at least another week so i can come back over here. >> ford pardoned nixon. good idea bad idea? , >> i will answer quick. good idea. >> i will answer longer. bad idea. i think it would have been one of the greatest moments of american history for us to show the entire world that in america no one is above the law and no one is treated any different. i think the picture of a president behind bars would have been a wonderful and patriotic moment in our history. [applause] >> you have got the deciding vote. >> granddad at the time thought it was a bad idea. i don't think he changed his mind. if he did i am not aware of it. , i have always been torn on that issue. i may have been in the judiciary too long to see all sides of

everything. i think there is something to both positions. first of all i think the , ultimate question raised by watergate is, is a president subject to the law? after all if you go back and , look at the position being taken in defense of many of the things being done, it was if the president says it, it is legal , period. that is antithetical to any notion of the constitutional government. so if the president had been , tried and convicted, as he probably would have been, and sentenced, i think that would have been as graphic a demonstration of the fact that nobody in this country is above the law. that is something we need to remind ourselves of fairly regularly. on the other hand, i think it would have been a traumatic experience for the country, which is probably why rufus gave the answer he gave. >> absolutely. >> on balance, i am inclined to think it was a mistake to have

pardoned him. but i understand the other side. i can see the position. i am not at all sure what i still, to this day think is , right. >> gerald ford lost his presidency over it. i think it was an act of courage. he knew if he did that he would never be reelected. i admire gerald ford. >> it was a very courageous act. he did it. there was no upside to it for president ford. ford did it, from everything i have read solely , because he thought this was a part of our history we needed to put in the past, and that we would not be able to do it if we continued down the road of having the president indicted. i can see that. i don't think i agree with it in the end, but it is a reasonable thing to think. >> we have put this in the past today. >> it is amazing. we are talking about a major historical event.

too often people think, watergate, what a tragedy. when you hear the stories of personal courage, of politicians doing the right thing, i think watergate is a moment to be proud of. they said the system worked. i think a historian said the system barely worked. i think part of what sam ervin would be reminding us vigilance is the cost of liberty. these issues we are referring to today, you can put new names and new parties, and they are just as relevant today as they were 40 years ago. do we have time for one more question? he is the gentleman with the microphone. >> [inaudible] >> what about john dean? >> the other night you had a barbecue with john dean. besides the surprise mr. butterfield gave you 40 years ago, was there anything funny

and surprising that john dean said to you over barbecue the other night? >> first of all, i called up john dean's office and said, would he like to go to supper? he said, what is supper? i said when you grow up on the , farm, that is dinner. we went by the office. i opened up some albums and there were these gorgeous pictures of his beautiful, angelic wife. he said i'm still married to , that woman. i want you to know that. he said, can i have that? i said no, but you can take pictures of it. he was thrilled to death. we went over to the "raleigh times" and he got immersed in north carolina barbecue. he's not going to lose the governorship like i did over condemning barbecue. >> that for another time. [laughter]

we have a request for a female question. [laughter] i am not sure what one of those is, but i will be glad to take a question right here. yes, ma'am. >> i think it is time for a question from a woman. thank you for your many years of service not only to our country but to this state. my question is -- [applause] my question is, what was it about nixon that caused such fierce loyalty from a relatively educated staff, and particularly rosemary woods? >> they were all a little bit psychotic like he was. [laughter] i am serious. this man was a case study in psychosis. he was a weird man. i kid you not. i met him one time before. he never got information except from haldeman and ehrlichman before john dean went in.

he was a closeted man. those that were loyal did not stay loyal long. if you notice, every single one of them bailed. it did not quite happen that way. >> ladies and gentlemen i think , we are coming to the end of our time. i would like to thank you for being here today and remind all of us that the history news network's headline says, "history is not just the past. it is the present and the future, too." thank you very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> you are watching american history tv. follow us on twitter. for information on our schedule,

upcoming programming semi . discusseshomas devine henry wallace's 1948 campaign for president as the nominee of the press of party. wallace served as vice president under fdr, before being placed by harry truman for the 1944 election. professor devine argues the wallace's campaign strategy of focusing on courting minorities in the jim crow south, alienated much of the white electorate. despite wallace is effort, the majority of african-americans decided to vote for president truman. wallace came in fourth in the general election. finishing with fewer votes in the other third-party candidate, strom thurmond. this event from the kansas city public library in missouri is about one hour. >> i printed this out and big en