someone sing for him "no one knows the trouble i've seen" and his alleged suicide moments when mary todd broke off their first engagement. he had great stoic character and did not show these i am just wondering, do you know of any scholarship that delves into that emotional side, that he did have. i have not come across a lot of it. and if not there because she hid it. that was very much there. >> i will start. that is about lincoln diagnosis clinical depression. the other comment is that

although lincoln is hard to read emotionally, what was so fascinating was that they spoke about loving lincoln. over and over again people right we loved him. they loved him as a father. people most often spoke of him as a brother and son. that speaks to his emotional distance. >> i have some questions on psychohistory. i am a licensed psychiatrist. i am bound not to speculate . you can look at what information is available and put into some context. i caution against trying to

utilize information on someone who has been dead since 1865, trying to put that into a category that is 150 years later in terms of that. i think at times with a figure as large as abraham lincoln, what would have not have been as large is made larger in that extent. i do have some concern about that. having said that, it was not clinical depression. it would be classified as this fine mia -- dysfimia. one of the most astute psychological assessments of lincoln, it depends on what you are trying to find. i would make a point about lincoln. he is a man that a lot of people

thought they knew. he is an ended my in a lot of ways day -- he is an engima and a lot of ways. when lincoln talked about slavery he talked about the economic consequences, he rarely mentions the breakup of families. he mentions the psychological aspects to that, and he never went to the funeral of his father. i find that very revealing and a man have the sympathy that we know lincoln have. i am us a psychiatrist. >> the spielberg movie is very insightful, especially the scripts, and seeing the relationship he had with his 12-year-old son, as an essential part of that when willie died up until the end of lincoln's life.

i think it supported lincoln and allowed him to do his political and policy work with strength. the point made is by the end of his life he has more or less moved beyond depression. that strength that he showed is strongly related to his relationship with the death of willie. >> thank you. >> noted the problem with posthumous diagnosis. i do find in the case of both and the other presidential assassins, the in of the crime seems out of proportion to the

specific issues that motivated the assassins themselves. i wonder whether or not that is an issue either of you would like to address. it is a point historians have made even oswald, i am left ambiguous with respect to booth. if it wasn't an ordnance identification with the confederacy that the in normandy of this crime seems to be somewhat difficult to explain . i wonder if anything in booth's riding may give motivation. martha: the one piece of evidence we have based on riding his white supremacy. what his companion testified he said when lincoln was giving a speech on april 11, that this

will be the last speech he ever makes, although that is in direct testimony booth did write a long letter that made the same point in his own handwriting before that was taken. that is not -- a lot of white supremacists and didn't murder lincoln. i think that is pretty clear. moderator: everyone is looking at you. jerry: the most interesting point about that to me, this is even with people's racial attitudes of the 21st century, he didn't see how they could gain freedom without him losing his. if you can explain that, you will understand a good bit about what he was thinking.

just traditional in his views. we also have to add in the irrational element here. that is not absent. my take is booth did not say it there, he said at the box. there is what he said here, which is overlooked, is revenge for the south. revenge is not a noble motive. it is an undeniably human one. like i am hurting, and i want to share this with you. i'm going to share this feeling with other people. that is an element in his thinking that is not explained by political views and racial ones. he felt hurt by what had happened there.

the history of this generation was being written by young men his age and he was playing a hero, not being one. i think that eight and to him. that is what john ford thought. >> a question for dr. fox. this is speculating to the carriage ride. i heard he talked with mary lincoln about going back to springfield after his term ended , and what they would do. he talked about let's take a trip to the holy land. i never quite knew if that was something he wanted to do for diplomacy while he was president, or if that was in the future, and do you think he speculates he also talks about going back to the south during reconstruction, and being

hands-on and peacemaker as it were. dr. fox: let me give you a tentative response. i believe that whatever reference he made to the holy land may have been characterized in virginia. they both were in virginia around the fifth or sixth of april. she had gone back to washington. then they returned with another party to virginia including sumner and the frenchman who was visiting. i. really know what to make of this statement. -- i don't really know what to make of the statement. let's go to the holy land. lincoln would have nodded. [laughter]

that turns into lincoln wanting to go to the holy land. and he said supposedly that evening of the assassination he would like to see california. i think he may have been like had you feel that going to california and he was like -- and that turns into the recollection that he wants to go to california. [laughter] i definitely think lincoln was cozying up to mary. i don't know about any of the quotations being real. i do feel like it would make sense at that moment to make that gesture. they'd had a horrible experience on march 26 when she flew up -- blew up at the wife of the

general. she had humiliated him. she had embarrassed herself. it makes sense it would have been an effort at reconciliation. that was an effort of their marriage. they were bad to each other, but they also had moments of restoring. it wasn't just april 14. it was a dynamic that probably made their marriage work, a version of codependency. certainly a strong love. martha: he told his law partner when he left the white house he would come back to illinois and they would start practicing law together. we will pick up where we left off.

>> anyone who can comment on what started in the 1960's, whether or not he had symptoms of the disease. >> that tends not to be the thought at this point. >> it has been ruled out? dr. goldman: the symptoms are not associated with that. my understanding that is not felt to be likely in his case. he may have some things, but not a full-blown case. >> martha, you do a great job illustrating the difference between the north and south, to booth and the assassination. if you looked at similar reactions to harpers ferry and john brown, would you expect to see a similar difference as a predicted to the war?

martha: john brown is a great example because abolitionists were so vocal, utterly outraged. the northern population was not the white population anti-slavery. people were really outraged at the execution of john brown. and the confederate, the future confederate white seven's were certain he should be put to death. john brought is a good example because it is so extreme. you have these extreme sides responding to something in what we now think of as becoming of the civil war. at that moment when could not have said that. what i found in response to the assassination after the war is over, you could go back and see the roots of some of that in that very pivotal moment before several years before the war

starts. >> can i add a comment? it is most remarkable in five years of his execution everything he predicted came true. african-americans being armed. i have agreed with the two latest books that were done on john brown, there were so many things that were done in the last 10 years before the war that back fired on slavery's advocates. it did nothing but galvanize emancipation and abolition because they saw it up front. they became federal agents that had to return slaves. anthony burns being walked back to slavery with enraged bostonians following him back in

a similar way. they waited too long to execute john brown because during that time he showed tremendous grace. i think there was an element when i look at the contemporary newspaper accounts, in the way he faced his imminent execution. >> dr. hodes, we all know that when lincoln was assassinated, there was a harsh editorial about lincoln. he turned it into his editor who simply refuse to print it. he said i own the paper. he said why? if i print this editorial there will not be a brick left in this building tomorrow. i was

wondering, there is a lot of controversy over reconstruction and amnesty in the congress. did you look at beyond andrew johnson, the more deeply into the way the members of congress, and how that -- their reaction? martha: i have a chapter in the book called "glee." the confederates and the copperheads. i have a few pages at the end where i write about the responses of the radical republicans in congress. i only have a few pieces of evidence. in these diary entries, the radical republicans expressed a certain relief that lincoln had

been assassinated. they worry they were going to treat the confederacy with too much leniency. it is at the end of the chapter print one of the members of congress wrote down in his diary he was disgusted by how his comrades seem so relieved lincoln had been assassinated. what is fascinating about this lenience model is, people were struggling with their faith and why god had taken lincoln away. on the one hand people were trying to figure out was he the model of we should treat the confederates, or did god take him away because he was too lenient? as i think i said in my talk, the faithful decide got had taken lincoln away because he was too lenient. then, at the same time, his most

radical mourners hold him up as a model of radical reconstruction. there are all kinds of twists and turns. what happens is the radical members of congress who express believe -- relief, they and others think that lincoln would have been more lenient than andrew johnson. i've seen this all across my research. thank god johnson is president. he will treat the confederates as they deserve. it is true johnson hated the southern aristocracy. people didn't count on white mourners, johnson hated black people more than he hated the confederates. african-americans did not have that lag time. they figure that out. editors will say things like johnson is from the class of poor white southerners. they hate black people. they didn't make that mistake.

white northerners think that he will get there -- give them there, pins. >> there was a window of a shop in mississippi after the assassination, black mourners looking at that picture of lincoln. a new york tribune reporter went and talked to them. they told him they were afraid for their future because lincoln was dead. the reporter told them not to worry because they had andrew johnson on their side. it was a striking transformation the first little while after the assassination with radical republicans liking andrew johnson.

charles sumner wrote to a friend in england telling him it was going great. we are on board for male suffrage. in may, forget what i told you he is turning. johnson is not to be trusted. the turnabout was quick in two steps. people understood johnson was not the friend of black people. i just want comments if i can on john wilkes booth since he has, on several context. i think martha ran into the same thing that i did. the killing of booth took place at the 26th of april.

12 days after the assassination. the funeral train was between albany and buffalo when the news was announced. they arrive in buffalo. there are already news men selling pictures of john wilkes booth to the crowd walking to see the body of lincoln. there is a fear on the part of anyone in washington that there is going to be so much devotion of booth expressed in northern cities like buffalo, that he takes over this situation. the micro manages the body of booth, denying any public knowledge of where the body is. in order not only -- but partly to protect the funeral pageant of lincoln from being demoted in public attention.

that dynamic between the body of booth in the body of lincoln is a fascinating story. it shows the importance of lincoln's body more than it would in his own right. to see how he is managing both bodies at once. making sure no one engages in self play with lincoln's body and hiding booth's body. he gets flack from democrats and republicans for being so secretive booth's body. >> on that fascinating point -- >> it was a mistake. half of the country didn't trust him. they thought what is he hiding? why did we see the body? then you have the stories booth wasn't killed. that is the start of that. it is too bad. thegovernment did a great job

on top seeing him. moderator: we are out of time. we have gone one minute over. please stay in your seats. we have an important event coming up. the announcement and awarding of our book prize. take just a few moments. let's have a round of applause for our speakers. [applause] >> that concludes our live coverage in ford's theatre in washington dc where president lincoln was assassinated. we will air the program tonight starting at 6:00 p.m. eastern. john dean joined the nixon white house as counsel to the president after john ehrlichman left the position.

part two of a two-part interview with mr. dean. he talks about the fallout from the break-in and how it became in his words a cancer on the presidency. he discusses why he began to cooperate with federal investigators, and his sentencing after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice. the richard nixon presidential library conducted this interview as part of a project to document the 37th president's administration. this is 90 minutes. moderator: tell us your reaction when you hear about the break-in. john: i had been in manila giving a speech for the bureau of narcotics. the drug enforcement agency becomes later. it was a graduation speech for a bunch of agents who had been

trained by dea. i was crossing the dateline. i was lying back and i arrived in san francisco feeling jetlagged badly. i call my deputy and said i'm going to stay in san francisco just rest today and come back tomorrow. he said i think you better come back. there has been some activity here that you should know about. your friend wouldn't say that if it wasn't serious. i met with fred, who lived down the street from me. in old town. he tells me about this arrest at the dnc. my reaction is colson. thinking back to brookings, all that. this sounds like colson has gone crazy again. the next morning it doesn't take me very long, it is liddy, it is

a disaster. he -- his men, other footprints are around. he says i can't talk to libby you have to talk to him. i learned from liddy the people who are sitting in the d.c. jail. to this day, i don't think it's the cover-up had gone where it went had it not been liddy's bungling back to the white house. if it had been something they had cooked up over the relation -- reelection committee, they would have cut him off and left mitchell to sink or swim on his own. because ehrlichman is involved in the break-in, he blames mitchell for not keeping liddy

under raines. mitchell turns around and blames ehrlichman for sending a guy like liddy over to his operation. i become the middleman between the because i'm the only one that can talk to them. mitchell is denying the fact that -- i shouldn't say denied. when halderman asked him monday morning after the break-in did you approve this, he would say mitchell just stonefaced him. just like the question had not been asked. it isn't until literally a year later that it comes out that mitchell indeed has approved the liddy plan. moderator: you are trying to make sense of it. what are you supposed to be doing? john: i learn about the plumber operation. what they have done.

i realize this could cost the president the election, and we have white house aides who i don't know. halderman. if of the president. i don't know who is involved. no one is sharing it with me. they bring me in slowly. halderman and ehrlichman take charge immediately. i am invited to the meeting. i'm in the second part of the meeting. nobody is really sharing anything. my former boss from the justice department asked me to come back to the justice department with him and talk to him because liddy has gone out over the weekend, when he is playing golf

at burning tree, and told him blurted the whole thing out. these are my men. they were arrested in watergate. we've got serious problems. these told the chief law enforcement officer who has been compromised. he is troubled by this. he asked if i will meet with peterson. i talked to peterson, who has been the head of the criminal division, and i have had lots of heart to hearts with peterson earlier when the white house is leaning on people not to be prosecuted in the labor movement. peterson and i talk about it. he says these people don't understand the way the department of justice works. they don't understand what an fbi investigation has started. you just don't turn off a prosecution at that point. you can't put a fixed in. it will not happen. you have to tell the people to

back off, which i did. i've have these hearts -- heart to hearts when people have done things they shouldn't be doing. peterson didn't accuse them of obstructing justice, just being stupid. i tell peterson, because i know about the ellsberg break-in, i know of other wiretaps at this point from caulfield running a wiretaps or the secret service on nexen's brother -- nixon's brother. moderator: you know this before the break-in. john: i know we have a disaster on our hands. i say the fbi has by this time made a federal case. initially it is a local burglary. there is electronic equipment found quickly. it makes it a federal case.

which reports are back to peterson. i tell henry listen, i don't know all the details of this. and i obviously would be in a position to tell you i did. i don't think the white house could take a wide open investigation by the fbi. if the fbi agent start coming in their following leads, i'm thinking about what i don't know is national security or not national security. tell henry, this has national security implications. he says the fbi and the department of justice is going to do a narrow investigation.

that is pretty much what they did. moderator: are you winking back and forth at each other? does he know what the implications are? john: there are no implications. to my knowledge, henry peterson never obstructed justice. he would report to the president later after i had broken rank. it could be deemed an obstruction of justice. you've got to draw the line somewhere. i'm dealing with the authorities. it is not much different than telling people we have talked with prosecutors. here is your defense. he said -- well i don't believe any department of justice in any era would feel they had the wherewithal and the power to investigate a white house.

that is who they work for. they work for the president. henry peterson served at his pleasure. he happened to be a career guide. i'm not trying to obstruct justice. this is something that is not even in my radar for a long time. have i been trained in the criminal laws, which i had not. it never occurred you needed to have spirits as a former prosecutor or defense attorney to go to work as white house counsel. today, it was very essential in the nixon administration you have that skill. post-watergate every white house counsel has had experienced criminal or prosecutorial background on the staff. it is a sad commentary but it is a reality because of the criminalization of politics. it never occurred to me we were obstructing justice. i just know you couldn't lie and do things like that. i was distressed by the hush money and try to tell colleagues

this is not a good idea. higher powers that be are making these calls. henry is playing it perfectly straight. i think he just did intend, and that is all they did do, is make a narrow investigation. they just are picking up all kinds of other stuff immediately. the fact these burglars have cash in their bank accounts in florida or they had been laundering money for liddy, to get back into the campaign. it opened up a can of worms, and that is how it became impossible. it kept unraveling each day a little bit further. i always hope next and would get in front -- i always hoped that nexen would get in front of it. moderator: where did hunt get on your radar? john: i met hunt once in chuck colson's office. hunt were pounced two times.

he said colson introduced him in the hall once. i didn't remember that. i remembered meeting him in the waiting room area of colson's office. i've never had any dealings with him. i had very few dealings with liddy after he went over there. i told him he had access to my files for i have the state election laws. i found gordon mazen -- gordon wasn't much of a lawyer. those were details he got someone else then who was competent to handle. >> when did you first become involved in the hush money? john: the hush money, what libby claims he told me when we met on monday morning, he needed funds for a commitment. somebody had made a commitment to him to take care of his people.

that is incredible to me. how the anybody know he was quite discreet everything up and how all these contingency plans? this is just liddy inventing things after the fact. he did the same thing with bob marty that said the commitment had been made to these people to take care of them if anything happened. they were in deep trouble. they needed money to live on for lawyers. as that progress, it wasn't initially hush money but became evident of they didn't have some way to sustain themselves they are going to have to talk. that is how the hush money involved. moderator: wind you first talked to the president? after the break in. john: the first time i am in their four just things like will signings or other unrelated

matters is in september, the day after the indictment come down against the cuban-americans who have been arrested inside the watergate. nixon is pleased the case has been held at that level. neither mr. normand rather -- neither mitchellthe money being giving to liddy was to protect surrogates and do intelligence gathering of a general nature. it has held. liddy and his men aren't talking. what's interesting is some of the cases. some of the burglars had their cases reversed. by the court of appeals and the district of columbia. they had legitimate right to

rely on hunt representations. that they were doing this for the president, which makes you have presidential authority to undertake this burglary. i never understood those holdings. they have helped to this day. moderator: i ask about when you met him because it is on august 29, the president and a public statement which surprised you mention something called the dean investigation. john: he was asked by the traveling press corps why he was not appointing a special prosecutor to look into this because of the conflicts of interest. there was no need for that. the fbi is investigating it. the congress has a number of committees investigating it. the general accounting office was investigating it. the fcc may have even been involved. he finally says my own lawyer has made this investigation.

he found nobody presently employed in this administration is involved in it. i say this was the first time i'd heard of this investigation. after the president made the announcement ziegler asked me, do you have -- can i have a copy of the reports of background? i said there is no report. i don't know who put that in the president's ear, or if he dreamed it up, there has never been a report made by me. from that time on there was a great deal of pressure periodically that i write such a report. i always refused to do so. when halderman suggested i said i will get everybody to write their own affidavit i will summarize them. -- and i will summarize them. there never was a dean report. moderator: you meet with the

president in september. how -- john: i am on the report. it was a shrewd move. if i had done it. what their thought was, the president would be able to pull that rp out of his drawer and say listen, this is all i ever knew. i relied on my counsel. so i wasn't going to lie to the president about it. i wasn't even thinking in those terms. but when i realize the way the game might be played, as we were getting towards the shorter strokes, i was glad i hadn't written that report. moderator: it would have been used against you. john: yes. moderator: the game is changing. so, you now whether you like it

or not are the intermediary for extortion. john: yes. the first time i get a direct request is march 19th or 20th of 1973. it happens i'm dealing with the president on a regular basis because after the president wins his reelection overwhelmingly, he wants to get rid of watergate. he wants it to stop. it is taking too much time of halderman and ehrlichman to be involved in it. both of them say deal with dean. he knows everything about this and can keep you abreast of it. i don't how much they have told him or not told him. i've never really looked back to construct that. i had the impression they really hadn't been very rare with him in keeping him aware of the problems. they are up to their eyeballs

with their own problems. so i tried to start educating him. by the time i get the first direct request comes from one of the lawyers at the reelection committee who has met with howard heinz lawyer, handling the break-in after the democratic national committee brings a lawsuit. he's one of the civil lawsuit attorneys. he meets with hunts lawyer. hunts lawyer gives him the message to give to me that it hunt doesn't get paid his money 100 $20,000 he needed two days ago, he's going to have things to say about what he did for john ehrlichman. an obvious reference the lawyer does understand to the break-in. that to me, this the first time i get direct extortion money request. that to me was the end.

i said that is it. i told them, i have two tell you on about to blow this up. i'm sorry people are going to be hurt. it is getting too far. there is no end in sight. i'm going to try to get the president to put an end to it. that is when i would go in on march 21 and get his attention i told him after our introductory chatter there was a cancer on his presidency. it was malignant, the way it was consuming and getting worse. i figured he had to do the surgery. by the time when i went then he had his feet on the desk and talked to me around shoes. he had both feet on the floor by the time i gave him that introductory chat. i try to take him, i can't believe how much information he

said. did you prepare those remarks? that was the next and rainiest summary of the high points. i certainly gave him the just of everything. he would later rely on that as his defense. i've listen to that tape. it was clear to me what i was trying to do. i try to hit them with a fact as to how bad things were, but the president believes he emitted perjury when he was nominated to be undersecretary. they asked him questions about the ellsberg break-in, which nixon said that was the first time i heard about that. they didn't want to tell about the potential of being charged with perjury. he said perjury is a tough rap. it is hard to nail somebody for perjury. he has answers for everything. when i lay on the fact that these guys want money, who knows how much, he asked me, and what

they want? at that point, it is the spring of 1973, i said $1 million pulling it out of thin air to take what i thought would be an ugly number, not knowing if that was the amount or not. his response was, that is no problem. i know where we get $1 million. which was not carrying the day. i now know that he went to see rose and her office and said how much money do we have in the kitty. he was prepared and have the frame of mind we had to pay hound dog. he would later claim he didn't give in order to do so. i don't think he did because it got handled by the reelection committee. moderator: would you like some more water? john: yeah. moderator: we have a tape of

that meeting. we don't have a tape of what happened afterwards. when you left the oval office, what was your reaction? john: my reaction was i had removed myself as the desk officer of the cover-up. i had made very clear, because halderman came in during the second half, the sequence of follow-up was to be to bring john mitchell down, and to get mitchell to stand up an account for the burglary. and hope if he would do that, no one would look into the cover-up. what happened, as i later described, a meeting in halderman's office, nobody said anything. i thought i was going to see a great confrontation. halderman nor earl amick -- nor ehrlichman had the guts to confront mitchell.

as a later meeting with nixon where nick's and know what happened. -- where nixon wants to know what happened. it was humorous and the way it was said. that great line, modified limited hangout. they were suggesting mitchell might do, where you say something but don't say anything. mitchell was something it out. he was prepared to go down in flames of necessary. he just wasn't going to stand up and be accounted for. moderator: if you were the desk officer, who was the general in charge? john: several generals. mitchell at first. then it was a combination. mostly halderman. moderator: halderman felt vulnerable? john: i don't know that he felt

vulnerable. everybody had a vulnerability. ehrlichman had a greater vulnerability. he took more overt acts of getting young to make documents disappear that would track back to the break-in to him. halderman -- he was aware of that as well. they just knew there was a huge disaster. they thought that pr was the answer. i tried to dissuade them. the first am i told ehrlichman that we were obstructing justice, he said there is something putrid in the water you are drinking where you live. he didn't want to hear it. i said you better listen. we are on the other side of the law on this. moderator: what role did the president play in the cover-up? john: it wouldn't have happened if he didn't want it. when you go back, he bases his defense on my march 21

conversation when it comes falling down. if for dean came in, -- before dean kamen, i didn't know anything. i would give him bits and pieces. i happen to layout and use that dramatic term there is a cancer on your presidency. that is his defense. when the tapes come out that he has talked to halderman, within days of the break-in about using the cia to block the cia investigation, he is clearly involved all the way around. i have never made an effort. i don't think they are all available were transcribed. somebody will construct what his knowledge was when and where along the way. moderator: when did you use -- year of the possibility of the cia? john: what happened is, pat

grayson has been head of the civil division of the justice department when i was there. you develop a working trust with people. which he didn't have four ehrlichman. he had no rapport with nexen -- nixon. greg calls me over after they had done preliminary investigations and said this has got to be one of 2-3 things. it is either the reelection committee has authorized these guys to do this, and it is a bungled operation they screwed up and i don't know who from their authorized it, but the other strong things that we are troubled about is the fact that howard hunt is an x cia guy all three of the cuban-americans

have cia ties. we suspect this may be a cia operation as well. i was reporting back to halderman and mitchell. i give that report to mitchell. he said to me, tell halderman when you -- i told him i brought halderman up to date. tell halderman to call dig walters -- to call walters to tell the fbi to stay out of this. that is what i did. when i report to halderman i say here is what mitchell is suggesting. halderman would go into the office and tell the president of that. the president not only tells them how to do it, better than mitchell could have suggested. that is where that generated from. moderator: tell us about what you did with hunt's safe in the

white house. john: there is mrs misunderstanding about that -- there is misunderstanding about that. when colson says hunt has an office, he is on the payroll and i'm going to clean that up with personnel because there is a safe in his office that is locked and nobody has the combination. i believe today that colson's secretary did give her the combination but that wasn't being volunteered. lord knows what is in there. other than the fact that hunt dropped down to my office and told my secretary my safe is loaded. he is worried about it. ehrlichman gives instructions when bruce carlisle comes up to have whatever procedure you to open that safe.

that happens when i am gone. the safe is opened. my deputy is there. they bring the contents, there is a gun, some diaries, papers. they are put in boxes by the secret service and dumped in my office. friends suggested the doctor's office is across the hall. let's not touch this stuff without surgical gloves on. that makes sense to me. we get surgical gloves and go through these papers. there is a lot of stuff about the ellsberg break-in. there are personal things of hunt letters from his wife drafts of letters to her. i've never known this for a fact. she may have been a cia agent. women weren't very few and far

between in the ranks of the cia. there is an address book and a lot of other things. which sits in my safe, all of the others think it is in the safe, a big antenna shake case -- a big case filled with wires, bugging devices. what we find out later is this is mccord had given him this. hunt had come to the white house after the arrest of the dnc, stuck this into this safe. this sits around. what are we going to do with this stuff? the fbi is one to want whatever is in his say. ehrlichman says drive across the

potomac every night. throw into the potomac. i say i can't do that. we turned over the case of stuff, which was related to the break-in or what have you. this is unsophisticated. we give the rest of the stuff to pat gray in 2 envelopes. he's called over by ehrlichman. ehrlichman tells him this stuff should never see the light of day. it should be capped whatever secure file you have. the white house can say we have turned everything over to the fbi. much later, we learn pat gray on his own initiative, and this -- i was there. he destroys that data. 2 envelopes full of it. he burns it with christmas

wrappings in connecticut. this is clearly an obstruction of justice. he didn't get nailed for it. he claims he been told, to the best of our knowledge, not of it related to the break-in. that was true. [indiscernible] there was a stack of cables, who sent them back to the state department, there was one that showed hunt was playing cia forger and making the kennedy administration, if not the president responsible for the killing of dm when he was president of south, that assassination. there were memos relating to that where they try to peddle it to various people in the media.

there is a lot of troublesome stuff. unrelated to watergate. i have never been sure if that was an obstruction, to do that. i had very clear instructions from peterson they were only going to look at the watergate break-in. obstruction of justice is a crime which nailed most of the people involved in watergate. it is about as fuzzy a crime as a prosecutor has in his kit. it is pretty much anything that you don't give the prosecutor that he wants. or that he thinks may be relevant. and anything else he may find of interest. you just can't -- i don't see how when you get into a

situation where the politics are such high stakes at that level that you would expect to just turn over particularly an agency that had loathed richard nixon the kind of data that could have destroyed him. and call that an obstruction of justice. moderator: let me ask you about the enemies list. where did that come from? john: the enemies list was one of those things that got more attention during the hearings than it deserved. it was one of those things i hadn't planned to testify to. lowell weichert happened to be a neighbor of mine. we had conversations. he knew that there were some collections like this. as i tried to explain to the senate when i revealed this information, it was assembled by a fellow named george bell, who

was anything but a tough guy. he was a mild-mannered successful businessman who was working on a dollar a year basis at the white house volunteering . colson had given him one of many assignments, to gather the names of the people who were less than friends. they got shortened down to the enemies list. it may have been to people we don't want to invite to white house functions. it expanded out. at one point there was no question, it gets halderman's attention. you think that is a great idea to see if we can't get an enemies project going where we can use the power of the federal government to screw these people in essence. there is pressure, and i learned much more about this by going through files.

they are the ones who are costly putting pressure on me to come up with this so-called enemies project. i finally an essence wrote a project that would become -- i put into the record during the senate wrote a memo that i put into the record during the senate hearings on how to screw our enemies, was sort of the title and i used it and was as blatant as possible to try to make it look as absurd as it was, and to my amazement, haldeman thinks it is a great idea, and they want to implement it. i learned that i was almost fired because one of the things i didn't name memo was to make sure the counselor's office had nothing to do with us. i said well if you get a lanoxin or are somebody like that whom i take this on, but i had no interest in it, i did not think it was the right thing to have our office doing, so i was

passing the buck but the names and actually appear before the senate, there were hundreds or so named. these are names that george bell had stuck around i put in the same place and have this file for them, and when i actually narrowed the project down, i selected some pretty high profile people and went to colson and said -- who do you think should be our top 10? colson gave me the name of the 10 knowing what the project was going to be. the project never went anywhere. it got a sort of a modified form with fred malek and his trying to make sure that no people who were less than from a to the white house got any federal contracts. there was an effort to lean on the irs to start some tax audits, and finally they insisted -- because i knew him from my days at the justice

department, the commissioner of internal revenue was johnny walters, so they had me call walters, and i in essence just told walters, i said listen, i can handle this request in any way you want, but i just want you to know that this is what the white house wants. if it is something you may be uncomfortable with, it is your decision. i wanted to make it very clear that it was not my decision, these are people they want tax audits on, people who they think have earned them, and i said you handle that however you want to. i have done my task. and he left and he apparently took up with george schultz and schultz vetoed it, which surprised nobody. one of the conversations i had later with next then, i thinks 15th conversation, whenever that conversation was, he said he did

not send george shultz out there to get candy ass he expected more than what he was getting, but that did not surprise me from what i knew of george shultz. i was a most 99% sure that johnnie walters was not going to have anything to do with it, but this did not get them around both shultz and walters. i knew they had open access to irs files when the guy was sort of a special counsel title, may have worked in ehrlichman's office, may have just been a freelancer, but clark mullen half, a well-known established super ethical journalist, ombudsman who was going to go and look at irs stuff for whatever reason and was

getting a lot of irs files over. we did not do that in my office. caufield apparently did. tax returns. moderator: roger -- john: i was going to say they had placed in the internal revenue service a man that was very from it to the white house by the name of roger barth and fourth was able to get, i think several audits initiated however he did i do not know and one was of course larry o'brien, that nixon was very interested in constantly pounding on his desk that ehrlichman do something about. moderator: tell us about your role in the i.t.t. store. john: i had very little to do with the itt matter. i had been away, i had been on a foreign vacation when that all got corrupted in the press, the fact that idt had arranged to

give money and convention facilities to the republican party and all the business about the memo and the settlement of the idtpt case. as i said, i was out of town and it was the hot subject. the most memorable moment of my involvement was when they wanted to prove the memo to our bosses with anderson that he had gotten a hold up was a forgery and it was not really from her and she had not written it. i was not privy to the fact that howard hunt was putting on wigs and going out in visiting with beard and a hospital. fred in my office was covering the meetings more than i, but at one point they did ask if i would go and meet with hoover to see if hoover would do the right thing and make sure they got the right decision on this forged memo.

i had met with hoover in other meetings, in big meetings in the justice department, but i really had no rapport with him, and i went over to his office, and there was the storied director setting up the glass table with his reflection in it and i came into the office, and he said w won'tyou come in and sit in his chair an tell me what your problem is, and i did, and he took that under advisement, and he got chatty at one point. he said you know, i am not very fond of jack anderson. i will tell you what jack anderson is really all about. this is a story that jack anderson had broken. he said i have a couple of small dogs, and we put down paper at night in the interpol for the dogs, and the dogs do their business right there, and the housekeeper puts the dogs'

papers in the garbage can out back, in the morning, i saw one of jack anderson's men going through my trust. and i want to tell you, mr. dean, mr. anderson will go lower than dog shit to get information. i did not know whether to laugh or what to do because he was being dead serious. [laughs] i took that as a sign that we might get a very favorable ruling on this memo, which ultimately came back that they said no, the memo is not a full orgery. so that was about the extent of my -- other than to sort of monitor what was going on. moderator: what was the connection between the conventions -- the choice of san diego and the decision not to pursue the antitrust? john: i do not know the answer to that. i do know that -- of course when he would be nominated to become attorney general, lots of questions would come up -- i did

get involved also in the fact that peter flanagan was being called as a witness, and they were not going to confirm kleindienst unless flanagan testified, and it was very strong on the executive privilege. he had been on the eisenhower administration when he had taken a tough line, so nixon was very much a frame of of that frame of mind. when i talk to flanagan, i realize you do not have anything against the white house. he had some knowledge of it, he certainly did not have harmful information, and he was very willing to testify, so we made an exception and flanagan went up and testify but kleindienst testified and perjured himself to get the nomination. moderator: and dita beard her recollection was an honest

recollection? john: the best i could tell it was an honest recollection, or at least her takes on the facts. the fellow who headed the antitrust division was a straight shooter full stop it is hard for me to believe that mclaren would have put in the fix unless he had a very legitimate question about the case that they would have done it so my antenna never particularly got quivering on all that business, and i thought, you know -- but it was effective and why it plays in the bigger picture, how effective larry o'brien was in actually hammering the next and white house was the fact that this picture of corruption, as they were settling antitrust cases in getting this money from itt to have the convention in san diego -- ultimately was

changed from san diego to miami, and that i think that in the larger picture of why o'brien was targeted when mitchell wanted to get -- they sense liddy to the dnc, they were looking for information about o'brien just to discredit him. that is white next and was hammering ehrlichman to get a tax audit going on o'brien not only because of how effective he was, of course with his relationship with howard hughes. john: caufield is following o'brien in 1971. john: yes. moderator: they are getting a hold of his itineraries, taping him. who would be running that operation? john: that would be haldeman. and nixon because nixon clearly does not like how effective o'brien is of a democratic spokesman, and he thought there

was a situation between o'brien and kennedy, which there was and he was still up until the last minute very distressed and concerned about having to run against teddy kennedy. moderator: who was the cadet officer in haldeman's operation? john: it was spread around. he would be sort of the super junior staffer. after that, stronach relied -- straun and kerlei would move around. haldeman would have morning meetings, the senior staff meetings and he would meet with his own staff, senior staff, ray price, myself, fred malek bill timmons used to come in to that, some others, and these things would be shepherded around, but i cannot recall ever anything of

an illicit nature ever coming into those meetings. moderator: i was going to say you would think that would be closely held. john: yeah, it was. ehrlichman was the one who was principally giving the instructions to caufield. he would pick up the phone -- and it is very hard to separate haldeman and ehrlichman because they met constantly, ehrlichman could be talking to haldeman and say yes we have got to get something for the boss come on o'brien, and then ehrlichman would call caulfield. moderator: just so we have a sense of the climate, in your book, you refer to the tickler. what did you mean by that? john: your papers are full of tickle memos, and a tickle file is a time dated file where summary puts a data head to look ahead at that date and see if something is due, and if it is not, who then you send a tickle

memo out and you call and say where is that, and keep this file going. it is a perpetual file, good management technique. we do it with computers today but it was done manually in those days. moderator: all right, moving ahead, when did you first suspect that you were being taped in the white house? john: the first time that it really became apparent that i was taped was a meeting i had with the president on april 15 of 1973, and it was late on a saturday. i had earlier told my colleagues that i was going to go to the prosecutors and deal with them directly. i do not think they thought i would be as candid with the prosecutors. i was reluctant at first it was the prosecutors because i asked them, i said, "can you take the

information i give you and not give it back to the main justice department?" and they said of course we will be happy to work on that arrangement. so it was an informal sort of here is what i know, we can look at the criminality of all of this, but let's understand what is going on, and do it that way. so it was a deal my lawyer worked out, he was a former prosecutor, this is the way prosecutors operate. they need to get their head going where it needs to go because i was determined -- my thought was in breaking rank that by doing so i forced nixon to end it. that he would indeed say i am in trouble, my staff is in trouble, i have got to let everybody go and i have to get out of front of this. it did not happen, unfortunately. a little earlier than march 21 that is when i really set i have got to push this as hard as i can push it. i was not out to nail anybody it was not too sick my own neck.

a liebig outplayed, that i would test five i got immunity and i would walk. none of that really happened. i worked out a deal with the prosecutors, and i started to give them a little bit to see what they can handle. one of the things i gave them because it comes up in the nature of the conversation because of the way the testimony had happened in the original trial included file of motion former serial that was found in his safe that had disappeared -- for material that was found in a safe that had disappeared that pat gray had this destroy documents that ehrlichman and i had given to him, and when they asked me i had to tell them honestly. they were flabbergasted that the director of the fbi had destroyed information. the information was suddenly getting much hotter. the other thing my lawyers had done is do not tell these guys about because it is ongoing obstruction since there is a criminal trial going on is the

fact of the break-in into ellsberg's office. the government has a lot of trouble with that. they are prosecuting them and they are prosecuting a man may have illegally investigated, and it will probably result in ellsberg's case being thrown out. you have got to tell them that. i said, charlie you tell them that, and you have my permission to do it. and he told them. we still had not worked out the national security implications of this, but i agree, since they are dodging it, that the best way to do it is for you to tell them which we did. anyway, this happens right up to the 15th, and it has gotten so uncomfortable for these guys. three assistant u.s. attorneys who are now dealing in leagues they had never envisioned, never dreamed it might go to these areas. to make a long story short they tell my lawyer they will have to break ranking and go back and

report the department of justice. now i have got the director of the fbi, i have got the way white house with a major case they are trying so they break the deal and we tell them if they break the deal, we break the deal, which we did. that is when we stopped dealing with the prosecutors, and we said we will go deal with sam dash. we will not have the same problems you do. anyway when this goes back to the justice department, right up to the white house, right up to nixon, ehrlichman calls me and said i would like to talk to you about what you are telling these prosecutors because i am nailing him on a number of items. on things like the hunt for safe, telling liddy to get out of town, other things. i said john, i will not talk to you. if i have to come i will talk to the president because the president has got to get himself in front of this, but i will not talk to you. because the back, the president wants to see me, can i visit

with him you it is during that conversation i become convinced he is taping me. first of all, he is sitting in a chair not unlike the easy chair you are in, dressed with his jacket that he would sometimes whear, a sort of dressing robe, and i can tell he has been drinking wine or something. in fact, he offers me a drink and i say no, i'm not inclined. he has a yellow pad which has some questions, and he starts taking me through leading questions, which are not accurate leading questions and i do not give him the right answers. at one point, for example, he said, you know, of course when you told me to is a cancer on the presidency and i said there would be no problem to get $1 million a was joking, don't you, john? i said i was not sure of that mr. president. he was not getting the kind of answers he wanted. he gets up from the chair and walks over to the corner of his little eob office, and there is

literally a palm over there, and in a stage whisper, he says to me, john, i was foolish to talk to colson about hot, wasn't i? and i said yes, mr. president, you were. at that moment i said [snaps}] this man got away from the microphone, did not want that on record. how many times have you been taped? that is when it occurs to me. i am not sure, though, so when i prepare my testimony for the senate, this is the only thing i put in my testimony when i am speculative that i believed i was taped. i told sam dash when i first started dealing with him, sam, i believe there are tapes. i told people in the white house. i told lynne gorman at one point. i was very ambiguous. i said lynne there may be tapes with my conversations with the president also there is a

very hilarious tape of next and and haldeman -- nixon and haldeman that i was -- speculating that was carrying my own tape recorder because i was thin and i could carry on me and would not know. but so few people knew of the taping system, which i did not. and of course as they later learned from sam dash, after i testified, they were doing everything on the minority side to discredit any line of my testimony. at one point a fellow by the name of sanders, a junior staffer, said you know, dean made this comment and testified to the fact that he believed he was taped on one or more conversations. now, that is probably absurd isn't that, mr. butler terfield? and he said no, i do not think it is absurd at all. as to the actual april 15 tape am, which would have been one of

the great doozies of all tapes, according to the secret service, the reel ran out before i arrived, so that conversation was not recorded. moderator: oh, my. just please give us a little bit of color -- ah -- how did you prepare for that riveting testimony before the senate watergate committee? what did you do that morning? john: john: i was denied access to my files before i testified so i had a few documents, had taken when i left, charlie, my lawyer, wanted me to get a hold of what i can to refresh my recollections and so forth because we were talking about things when i first started saying these things, you know, that prosecutors and even sam

dash thought, you know, this is just unbelievable. i cannot even comprehend it. so any documentation would have been helpful. the -- i had little of that, though. to prepare, sort of do it in a chronological fashion, this was precomputer days, i did not have a laptop to work on, i do touch type, but my typewriter was broken so i could not even use that, so i decided to longhand it, and when i did it -- was to go through, i had a booklet of xeroxes that the reelection committee had just given me of all the watergate -- for their civil case, they had recorded this all of the watergate-related reporting from the "washington post" and elsewhere, i used that to trigger the sequence of things,

what was happening, where i knew from the public statements and what was happening publicly in different times, i could reconstruct as best i could internally. i was able to get a copy of the dates i had met -- at least one of the archivists, who was on site at the white house, got me a quick down and dirty -- i am not even sure of it was completed that point -- meetings i had had with the president, but it was just literally impossible to separate in my mind for certain what had happened on monday versus another day. i know an author is working right on a book, and there have been a couple of studies about using my testimony versus the actual tapes. one of the things i tried to make pretty clear during my testimony is that i did not believe -- first my head does not work like a tape recorder. all i could do is characterize. i could remember some lines you know like "a cancer on the

presidency," because i deliberately intended to say that before i went in to make sure i had his intention. he seems pretty relaxed and i was in there with a session. but the rest of it was just trying to generally characterize what had happened, because i believed i was taped, i was under testifying because i thought what a great way to hang a witness is on perjury if he is being held to things that are not. i, for example, and afterwards, realized i confused something that happened around the 21st with the 17th, but your mind cannot separate those sorts of things when they are all kind of unfolding. moderator: what didn't you testify to? you gave eight hours of testimony. john: in the greater scheme of things, i certainly highlighted everything. i had expected in doing it the way i did it was summarily suggesting -- measuring areas, do cross examination, but they never really got over the bullet points of eight hours of bullet

points. the testimony before -- during the senate -- excuse me, during the u.s. vs. mitchell, haldeman ehrlichman, atet al was a little more piercing and in depth than the senate testimony. as i say, i was just trying to generally draw the picture because i knew at that point -- i thought at that point it was going to be my word against haldeman ehrlichman, mitchell, colson the president and, you know, i had no motive to lie about any of these things, which would make it hard for me to them to accuse me of perjury because i was trained to help the government unravel all of this. moderator: did you anticipate we would one day have tapes to use

to judge your testimony? john: yes, i did, i believed i had been taped on some of the conversations because i could not remember them cold. i could just remember generally what had happened in each one. i could characterize them. i under testified a lot of them. while i remember to more than i testified to, i thought some days are taped, some are not. nixon actually had -- when i mentioned that, i mentioned this to the prosecutors, too. at one point peterson asked to send in one of the tapes, you know dean said he thinks he is has been taped, and nickxon said yes, i think that is what he is talking about when i made memos after the fact. moderator: tell me about -- the white house ran a press operation against you, colson did. john: colson did, colson ran that outside the white house. buchanan operated inside the white house and perhaps later.

i said you were doing what you expected because he knows he was being had now, too. as the clerk, who attacked me viciously as well, and later came out and a cop -- and apologize to me personally if said listen, john dean had the answers right, and we did not so that'll got straightened out. i had a not totally naïve believe -- the truth does ultimately come out. sooner or later, it does bubble up. sometimes it takes a long time but i was comfortable that not everybody could be counted on to lie. moderator: what mistry said you have about the whole -- what mysteries did you have about the watergate -- what did you want to figure out? john: i do not think there are any unanswered questions today

about watergate. they say well, we do not know why they went in there to break in the dnc, what the motive was for -- that has never been any mistry to me. it was pretty clear to me right away, right after the fact, they were suspicious, and they were trying to find anything they could to discredit o'brien that they could use against him. hunt in essence told the cuban-americans just go look for some numbers that might be interesting, contributions from people. he said in particular to see if there were any from castro in cuba because they want to use that to discredit him. looking for things that o'brien might be used to embarrass him. but it was so bungled. here's one of the interesting things about watergate -- so much credence is given to the fact that how could they be so stupid and foolish. well, they were just that stupid and foolish. it was readily apparent within

you know, immediately. first, you look at what they did with the ellsberg break-in. it was stupid and bungled as what happened at the watergate. it was james bond stuff. they thought they were -- how could you walk in with an army of people to do what cap burglars usually do if you were working toward a foreign espionage operation? moderator: when you discussed with mcgruder, before his grand jury testimony you talked to him, some people use the word coached him, did he know what had happened? john: oh, absolutely. i did not have to coach him. what he wanted to do with me which they at one point said was my supporting his perjury. which it wasn't. i said the only thing i will do, jeb, is tell you things that will be asked by the prosecutors.

i do not even care by your answers, i do not want to hear your answers, but that is what i did with him. i gave him sort of a drilling as to the sort of things he could anticipate he would be asked. moderator: and he told you that mitchell had ordered it. john: he told me that within several days after the break-in. moderator: and he did not say that haldeman had ordered it? john: no. he thought that strachan might be aware, but he did not know that haldeman had ordered it. moderator: and he did not know that strachan had ordered it? john: no. but he knew generally. moderator: mitchell ultimately owned up to it. john: late in the game, when i

went to the meeting with prosecutors in early april where i had my lawyer go down and start talking to them, say you have got a very unhappy witness, and it is my feeling that i can convince -- if the white house knows i am going to break rank i at this time -- for example take haldeman. i feel haldeman is the straight, honorable guy that rather than let the president go down, he will stand up and account for himself what he did right, what he did wrong. ehrlichman i am not so sure about, but i'm sure if the two of us go and mitchell goes, then it will pull it away from next ixon and nixon may survive. i am not out to nail nixon initially. it is only when they decided to go to war with me that i said you picked the wrong guy, and i'm willing to do battle. moderator: what is the line, what is the red line?

when you decided they have gone to war with you? john: when they put out a statement that intimates that. in fact, i think i can that back down. i never talked to the press, refused to, never did never did during my time as a witness either. i did learn later that one of my lawyers did so, much to my chagrin, which charlie, my principal lawyer and i suspected, but he did it without my authority, and i was able to justify to the senate. ice who was leaking this -- i suspect who was leaking this, but i cannot tell the prosecutor, my lawyer, what happened. -- what ahvehave you. while i was still in the white house, i said that the glare -- if

they think i will be there scapegoat they picked the wrong guy. moderator: when does mitchell talk to you about -- john: late april when i am dealing with the prosecutors and i have told mitchell that i'm going to, you know, anybody i had any respect for, eyeball to eyeball, here is what i'm going to do, here is why i'm going to do it, here is what i hope will happen. i know you're not going to like it, we can all account for ourselves because we made mistakes and it is time to clean this up. as a result of that, mitchell arranges a meeting with haldeman . actually, i am at camp david at the time this first comes up. i am at camp david and mitchell asked that i come down to camp

david and meet with him and magruder because my testimony is different. when jeb had talked to me on the telephone and said here is what mitchell and i told the grand jury, which i had no idea, that there is going to be one meeting in mitchell's office with liddy, and the other one had been canceled, it was not true. he said well, you knew it was going to happen. i did not know that was going to happen. i did not know what the testimony with one to become and i thought that was stupid, but anyway, they said well, how will you testify? i said if they say when did you meet on liddy's plans, i will tell them one i met. this created the first problem for mitchell. moderator: were they going to say that liddy did this all by himself and that there was never a second meeting that had never been authorized? john: yes, that is what they had done originally. mitchell and magruder both

testified in the first grand jury that resulted in the trial and the convention of liddy hunt and the americans in the accord, so my testimony differs with theirs. i went down over to haldeman's office, and he said that john wants to meet with you, and he said what are you guys go down and evennd meet in chapin's office which was empty, so i did. one of going to do, i said i was not going to lie to anybody, i said this is going to come out you had better clean this up sooner rather than later. whatever you tell them. i do not know. and mitchell was very unhappy with it. i said john, i have never asked you -- talking about the third meeting, which i learned about later, where he had actually approved where magruder has said

he approved liddy's plans, i said i never asked you if you had approved the ladies plans -- approved liddy's plans. and he said i didn't. he was trying to put more pressure on me to live for him. i testify that way about the meeting for the senate. haldeman denied it. haldeman did not necessarily add anything to it. when haldeman years later published his diaries, he had reported that before i met with mitchell, mitchell to his surprise after he had stonewalled him, right after the break in, is one haldeman -- w hen haldeman asked him again if he had indeed approved liddy's plans mitchell had acknowledged to haldeman that he had done so, which is pretty solid corroboration. moderator: you never saw richard nixon again. john: i never did. i would not have had any problem with a, but he would have. his personality, it would have

been difficult. in the memoirs are pretty curious. he at one point says how much he likes me and respects me in the memoirs, but then i lied before the senate and the problem is that he had lied more than i had. no. i do not know what he -- this is when they were nitpicking and using minor problems in my getting one thing on one date wrong with another date, which -- moderator: you and your blind ambition get the notion that the president's own knowledge of watergate is always shifting. he knows that there is a cover-up and is engaged in it, but that he is forgetting things. is it just to put it on the record that you have to remind him, or do you think somehow he is not fully processing everything that is going on? john: i think it is a little bit of both. i think there are times that he

clearly knows things that he is not telling me about. for example, in one conversation, i tell him about the firebombing of the brookings where i'd flown out to california and turned that break in off, and he absolutely says nothing about it. well, years later i discovered there was a recording of him literally counting on the -- pounding on the desk to manning that break in, so that is not something new to him at that point, so he just lets this passage is not react to it. he claims that the first time he learned about the ellsberg break-in is from me in one of my conversations. i think it is about the march 17 conversation. that is hard for me to believe that i am the first one i told him about that.

that is the real, true core of the reason that the cover-up is going on. i cannot believe he does not see that that implicates ehrlichman, if not haldeman and himself while the watergate only implicates mitchell. moderator: tell us about the data he wanted you to sign a resignation letter that basically was a confession. john: that was a curious morning. that was when, april 16 as i recall 1973. moderator: the day after -- john: he says -- he tells me that ehrlichman and haldeman had given him letters that he can just have and that he needs them , they are resignations so they are ready to resign, and he said he would like the same from me. well, i took one scan of the

letters, and they are, in essence, confessions. i said let me take these and look at them and i will come back with you with another draft of something for you. what i now know today is that ehrlichman had prepared the letters, and after my meeting with him, haldeman and ehrlichman come in the other door and said boy, i really socked it to dean, and it was just the opposite. in fact, i was surprised that the leader of the western world back down as quickly as i backed him down on that. moderator: when did you begin to view the president as an adversary? john: not until after the -- i broke rank with the prosecutors. when they -- when it was clear you could tell from the internal operations after i had -- he had the benefit of what i was testifying about.

there were growing efforts at that time, publicly discrediting him. moderator: this in early april. john: yeah. no. this was in early may at this time. by the time you get to may 22 when he made when he second statement, which to me was the last -- this is when he was going to lay out everything he knew when he knew it, while he does not directly attacked me, he makes claims like i was the first one who told him on the point second, and lays out a scenario of events that this makes it clear that he is going to go toe to toe with me on my version versus his version. moderator: because he has already asked for your resignation, you have resigned already. john: right. moderator: how long did you spend in prison? john: believe it or not, i never went to prison. i was one of the few who confessed, i pleaded guilty, i was initially sentenced to one year to four years, but i was in the witness protection program

and i was sent to a facility, a witness protection facility outside of washington at an old deserted army base, for holloman -- for holloman -- old deserted army base, fort holloman and prosecutor cox had spent some pretty good intelligence from the fbi that they were a good number of death threats out for me, and they asked me if i would go into the witness protection program because they wanted to keep the government's star witness alive, and sam dash, also, was aware of the threats and he counseled charlie. i really did not want. i think a summary is out to get you, they are going to get you but i agreed to it at that time and had them with me for a year almost, you know and when it

came time to start serving, the prosecutors wanted me to surrender just before the trial so i was there, but rather than go to a jail, i was in a witness protection facility. actually some of the other witnesses who were serving hard time, if you will, colson and magruder had gone up to this witness protection facility as well. i did 120 days there. most video survey into washington, wore a suit and jacket everyday, and the time in the prosecutors office, and in about a week before my testimony, i stopped going into the office to just sort of have a break before i testified so they could not say that they were influencing my testimony. after my testimony, jim neal wanted me right back in the courthouse in the room the special prosecutors were occupying because particularly as they prepared cross

examinations, they did not have computers then. i was there computer for information, reactions, so i was determined once i got started on this road to do everything i could in my power. moderator: how did you feel -- i mean, you had worked with these people. john: bad. it was not pleasant. but i told them, as i say, went to mitchell, went to haldeman others, i said this is very painful, but it is the only way this going to end. and it is the only way it did end. and actually, that is another thing, i should say nixo that was the conversation on the 15thn,, which is probably the most interesting of all of my taste, very long session. moderator: it sounds like you had personal conversations with most of these men, with the exception of president nixon after. john: afterwards.

you're as they come i ran into haldeman when he was working for a fellow by the name of murdochs, a developer in los angeles. and we were going to have lunch. we never did. we had a nice exchange in the hall. i was coming down an elevator, and he was coming on and i was seeing some real scum and we just had a brief reunion. we never did. i knew, he had stomach cancer and passed away. ehrlichman i first ran into and we shared the same publisher up in new york, and when i years later filed a lawsuit for some defamation over my role particularly dragging my wife into watergate, i deposed ehrlichman because he was helping that cause. colson -- colson and i buried the hatchet when he showed up at all the bergen i was there.

he sort of apologize for what he tried to do. he said you knew john more than i did about a lot of these things, and i said that is probably true, which was sort of the mechanics that he was up to his eyeballs, and he was going to be -- he was indicted for both the ellsberg break-in as well as for watergate and in looking at some of the memos in the prosecutors office, it is clear they were also considering a number of perjury charges against him in addition to that when he pleaded and they created a unique single count offense for him to plead to, sort of an obstruction of justice in relationship to the ellsberg case so he still claims to the state he really did not know as much as he did about watergate. but he and i i was surprised that some of the cheap shots he had taken, notwithstanding his

newfound, or now it is matured christian beliefs, and we have exchanged mail a couple of times on that. moderator: had you interacted with jeb before his recent illness? john: i had seen job,eb, yes. chatted with him, friendly, had a nice report. i was not particularly close to jeb. butterfield is who i see the most who i knew then. moderator: you do not agree with jeb's recent testimony that the president and haldeman ordered the break and. -- the break in. john: i was around when jeb first broke the story for a document or he was working on. i participated in the documentary as someone on camera as well. and i do not know how mitchell could have had the phone to his ear and jeb could hear the president approved to mitchell or tell him to go ahead with the

program. i just do not know how you do that. and i do not know why jeb and have never shared that with somebody along the way so as i say come i have always had difficulty. if he believes that, i do not doubt that he believes it, but i'm not sure whether it is a recovered memory that might have gotten destroyed. i have always been suspicious of memory my own included. while i was able to testify in great detail before the senate and repeat that testimony many times, it was refresh recollection just by the process of preparing testimony but who knows what influences shape our memories and so, eyewitness testimony is typically the worst. moderator: were you noted for having a good memory as a kid? john: i never had a -- i both had a -- i had always been a great crammer. i could read and retain. moderator: last question -- what do you remember of august 9, 1974? where were you? john: i had had two wisdom teeth

pulled that day, and i was like a chipmunk and watch those proceedings with a little extra throbbing. it was sad. it was a sad day. it was to me one of nixon's really most eloquent decisions because he saved the country a lot of agony. the decision, one to turn over the tapes when the court ordered because he theoretically could have said i regret that i have to deny the court. i am a constitutional code equal. i happen to have the army, they do not have anybody to enforce that action, but he did not. he willingly complied with it, and of course he was out a few days later. and that resignation spared the impeachment trial, which would have been, you know, i certainly was not looking forward to it. i would have been a key witness in the preceding again.

so that was one of his great -- obviously one of the most difficult decisions and one of his great decisions. >> to watch the first part of this interview or to watch this portion again, visit our website at c-span.org/history. this is american history tv on c-span3. all weekend long, american history tv is joining our media come cable partners to showcase the history of columbus georgia. to learn more about the cities on our 2015 turner, visit season.org/citiestour. we continue now with our look at the history of columbus. this is american history tv on c-span3. >> today we typically think of hybrids as the cars, the combination of electricity and gasoline, but if you ask somebody but hybrids in the mid-19th century, there went to talk about ships.

this is a hybrid. it is a combination of sale and steam power. it has got large masts that carry large sails on it, and it also has steam, and the chattahoochee of course is named after the river right here, any css chattahoochee was a regular, run of the mill gunboats and she was operating up and down the river here. as for as we know, the chattahoochee is the only gunboats, plane, fighting gunboat that has survived to this day, and we have only got the stern section maybe 1/3 of the section here in the museum. it is only a portion of the ship, and we try to incorporate what the ship represents in terms of entirety of the naval efforts of the confederacy, and of course it is something that was built right here on the chattahoochee river, and again steam engines, the propellers

things like this are all coming from columbus. this is what columbus is able to produce during the war. actually the chattahoochee was not the best built ship. she started out a south georgia plantation owner by the name of david johnson, decided he was going to build a ship and donated to the confederate navy for the war, and a place called saffold, basically a landing spot, he began construction on it he hired laborers, and that was the biggest problem, finding enough skilled laborers to actually work on a ship at this spot. eventually the confederate navy took over operation of the construction of it and they completed it and put it into operation in january, 1863. in june of 1863, she is just north of chattahoochee florida, florida,

and her boiler exploded. several sailors were killed and injured, and the injuriesed our products -- are brought back to columbus, and we ended up having 19 sailors killed because of that, and that is really the only real action that she saw, a boiler explosion. the confederate navy went down to the fight, razed her, brought her back to operation, which leads us to the battle of columbus, and they just sent her downstream and blooper of to prevent capture. there are three -- and blew her up to prevent capture. there are three captains of the chattahoochee, and the first is casey jones, and that may be familiar to some people. he was actually the captain of the ironclad virginia the day that she far at the battle

of hampton road. in late 1862 he is transferred to columbus, and he is the first official captain of the css chattahoochee. and he stays in command here for about a year, and then we have two more captains after that. the crew is a strange combination of individuals river rats from port cities, from columbus all the way to appalachia. it is very multinational. anytime you have the opportunity to preserve a ship, it is -- first of all -- a very expensive undertaking, and most people do not make the connection, especially the modern era. we can get in a car and drive almost anywhere, but in the earlier days, most people when they traveled far distances they have to travel by water. and this simply represents the

basic transportation need of an earlier period. we certainly hope that people understand the links, the extent that the confederates are actually going through to be able to conduct a war against an industrially superior opponent. this is the story of columbus the story of the south, and the story of the war, how the war developed and was eventually won by the north. we also want to get a sense of local history. this is a real aspect of local history. this is a ship that was built right here on the chattahoochee river, built by local people coming together for whatever reason but completing a project for a greater goal. >> throughout the weekend american history tv is featuring columbus, georgia. our cities tour staff recently

traveled there to learn about its rich history. learn more about columbus and other stops on our tour at c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. each week, american history tv's "reel america" brings you archival films that tell the story of the 20th century. seven years ago on march 7 1945, u.s. army forces captured ludendorff bridge. leading to the first allied bridgehead across the rhine river in germany. the bridge at remagen and is a two-part 1965 u.s. army film telling the story of the battle. the big picture episodes include interviews with president eisenhower, general omar bradley , a german commander and representative ken heckler, who witnessed the event as an army historian. [gunshots]

>> as we started across, the only thing those in my mind was to get off that rituals of the germans had attempted wants to blow it and had failed, and we felt sure, or i felt sure, that the next time the bridge would go therefore we try to move as fast as we possibly could fall stop however the elements were being shot at by snipers and people on the other side, and they were moving more cautiously. [explosion] >> hitler through in everything he had in an effort to destroy the remark in bridge -- the r emagen bridge. he mobilized a couple of big 17

centimeter railroad guns to fire in their big charges. most of all, he thought he could destroy the bridge through underwater swimmers. it was a special group of swimmers that had been trained in vienna, all under 29 years of age, in perfect physical condition. they went into the water several miles above the bridge and swam underneath water, armed with charges that they were going to put against the bridge. however, they were picked up by a real powerful american searchlights mounted on tanks that were sweeping the river during the night. these swimmers never did reach their objective, and they were captured by the americans a mile

or so below the bridge. >> the action of the people actually at the scene of the capture was beyond praise. every man in the whole command approaching that bridge new that it was mined. they knew that all the other bridges that they had seen were blown down into the water at that moment, and actually of course the ludendorff bridge was mined. not a moment hesitates in. -- not a moment's hesitation. india think general hoge, who had the entire, team, hesitated not a second full stop they rushed the bridge, went across and hence there was an attempt to blow it up while they were on it, but there was a faulty feud or something else of the kind, and that spoil back, but in the mean -- but the attack had been

so sudden, so unexpected on the part of the virginians, that the thing was a complete success. we had losses, true, but they were minor compared to the great pride that we won. ♪ >> next, a symposium on abraham lincoln recorded earlier today at fort's theater in washington dc when you're the 150 years ago on april 14, 1865, president lincoln was assassinated. this is cohosted by ford's theater and the abraham lincoln is stupid topics including lincoln streams of dust -- and the abraham lincoln institute. includes lincoln's dreams of