officials, including himself in the watergate cover-up. mr. dean later pled guilty of obstruction of justice for his role in watergate and served 4 months in prison. this class is about an hour and 10 minutes. prof. dean: discovering the taping system -- is it lucky or inevitable? that is the discussion of these lectures. the whole story of the nixon tapes has been only partially told. it has taken me years together and find out what happened. it's one of the most important factors in the watergate story. i think it's important to get that history straight. we will try and do that in a very summary fashion today. before i start, i'd like to remind you that other persons did -- other presidents did take, starting with roosevelt.

when they first went to talkie movies and they had a soundtrack, he had a system put in the oval office that recorded. i am going to try a very quick sample. oops, let me go back. a quick sample of roosevelt taping. >> [indiscernible]

prof. dean: you get a sample there. that is amazing when you think of somebody today, that we have cell phones, just talking about the breakthrough in that presidency of a walkie-talkie that was so heavy they had to carry it on their back. anyway, and got the idea of taping from lyndon johnson -- nixon got the idea of taping from lyndon johnson during the transition between the two presidencies. he said, i have several of the offices wired for recording, including several telephones. he said, i strongly recommend you do the same. nixon had exactly the opposite reaction and had them all taken out. but this is the first time he had heard of presidents recording. so what were the reasons that he doesn't install>?

back in the nixon white house, as we have discussed in prior lectures, there was a pretty efficient management system, except in the instances like watergate where the management system did not come into play. but the management system on a daily basis was there. when somebody had a meeting with the president, and they brought a guest in, they prepared a talking paper that went into the president, was approved fir st.then after the meeting , they prepared a summary of the meeting. i will give you for example, in this particular memo, elvis presley shows up at the northwest gate. i happen to know this because bud called me and said, elvis at the gate, and he wants to present the president with a gun. it's a silver gun with ivory handles, but he also wants to talk about law enforcement. what should i do?

i said have the secret service handle it, which they did. memo went into the president mentioned why elvis was there and laid it out in detail. i kind of like this letter. if you see it, elvis starts "dear mr. president, i would like to introduce myself. i am elvis presley" as if anybody in that era would have any trouble knowing who this was. "i admire you and respect the office. i talked to vice president agnew in palm springs three weeks ago and expressed concern for the country." so this is why elvis is coming in. what he really wants to do is be deputized as a law enforcement officer to deal with the drug p roblem. there is the letter.

bu takes him into the oval officed. -- bud takes him into the oval office. elvis starts showing him pictures. much of the meeting was recorded. this is one of the most requested pictures of the nixon administration. belt, whichice his was solid gold. normal notetaker of meetings and prepared a fairly detailed account of what had happened. this actually runs several pages. i took just one paragraph here that notes that a list presley indicated that he thought the beatles had been a real force for anti-american spirit. the sounds and little bit like

competition. he said that the beatles came to the country, made their money, and returned to england, where they promoted and anti-american theme. the president nodded in agreement and expressed some surprise. this is a good host meeting memo. this became the exception to the rule. no greater offender than henry kissinger, who fell way behind on his meetings and recording it. this was noticed and something had to be done about it. he decided, we are not keeping a good record of this presidency. what nixon wanted was two things. one, he wanted the historical record of what had happened during his presidency to have a real sense of history. secondly, he wanted to know if he had said something or given some indication to a guest, like nodding at the beatles

doing something. he wanted a record of that. so somebody couldn't leave the office and say that he had said something that he in fact have not said. he did not fully agree with elvis in this, you just nodded and showed surprise. -- he just nodded and showed surprise. he could not go out and say president hates the beatles, because that was an untrue statement. he wanted to ask himself. -- to protect himself. to deal with this problem and the breakdown of this recording nixon discussed putting in the same system that lyndon johnson had, keeping an audio record of it. he calls an aide you can trust,

because this would become one of most guarded secrets of the presidency. he calls alex butterfield, the deputy assistant to the president, the person dealing with the president more than anybody else. time because he is the person that takes documents in and out. butterfield in term goals the secret service the technical services division. there are the people that made sure that nobody outside the white house was bugging the white house. had the capability and understanding. butterfield told me over the years that when he went to the head of the technical service division, wong said, oh, here we go again. that he had been there and this happened in prior presidencies. he knew exactly what it was. was different is that they put

in a voice activated system. isn't that annoying video? [laughter] what does it mean to have a voice activated system? anytime nixon spoke, it triggered the recording. and the way it worked was nixon carried a small device on his belt or in his pocket that indicated his location. it was a locator so the secret service knew if he was in the barbershop or in the oval office, or if he'd gone to the residents. they keyed the taping system to the locator so that when he was in the room where the taping system was employed, it would trigger the taping system. in other words, installing it in the oval office. say the cleaning crew is there at midnight, it won't activate.

clear that nixon forgets about the recording system. other times they clearly remember the recording system. as somebody that has gone through as many as i have, you can hear him when he is trying to make a record. even with outsiders, as opposed to insiders. they start in the oval office. here are the locations of the microphones in the oval office. this is actually done by the president's feet. you've seen a couple pictures where the president has his feet up on the desk. the fact that he would often be talking through his legs distorted the sound. seatended to sit in this here. my voice must have been right beside the microphone because it's very clearly picked up.

ehrlichman tended to take that seat. m3 for kissinger. it's bizarre how people would go back to the same places in repeated fashion. were where -- those the mics were located. to my knowledge, i cannot hear anything from those near htthe lamps. they tended to make the room sound rather hollow when they get picked up. the next place they put them were in the eob office. same thing in the desk. the problem that i alluded to earlier, nobody sat by the desk. a seating arrangement on the far corner. these are some of the most difficult to understand. some of the best recordings are those on the telephone. every telephone the president

used, except some in the residence, they all were wired through the switchboard. they were very good. this is the one recording device in the residence in the sitting room. wiredhone up here is because it goes through the central switch. he had actually 3 tapes in camp david. 2 different telephones. one via his deck. the room was recorded. they were put in in stages, not only once. ,he final place that was wired and some of the most difficult sound, because the wiring did not work -- was the cabinet room. this was controlled outside the

cabinet room by alex butterfield , whose telephone had a button that would result in his turning on. it went over to steve. if alex knew he would be in the meeting himself, he would have one of the secretaries turn it on. februarym starts in 16, 1971. the date, percent recent, is not easily remembered by most people that write about this. that is when it happened. conversation, other somebodyneral one, is that won't into the office -- that walked into the office before alex did. firstrst 450-1 is the

oval office test. yes? [indiscernible] prof. dean: they had no control over them. they are all voice activated. the question, was the only way to turn them on, nixon had no control? he had to control. -- had no control. sometimes he knows they are being recorded, other times he has clearly forgotten. he tells the operation and purpose of it, the fact that the cabinet room is controlled by butterfield. the fact that it is being monitored. and who knows the president and secret service? the recordings were being made on a sony recording system.

that is what the system looks like. at one point they had up to nine of these machines gathering information. they were gathered on very thin tape, a half millimeter. is played at the slowest speed per second onnch a six inch reel.this translated into about six hours per reel. one of the reasons the sound quality is so bad because it was played so slowly. in addition, the fact that it was voice actated creates what they call tape whip. jerks at thets, start, leaving a blurry audio sound that sometimes starts at the beginning of a conversation. so technically it's not very sophisticated. t lasted for many years

until people got serious about listening to them. 1973,ally, by april 9, nixon is talking about taking the system out. there is a taped conversation i have in the text in the nixon defense. you look at april 9, what he know, with regarding to the recording of the room, i feel uneasy about that. not uneasy in terms of anybody else seeing it, because we will control it. but uneasy because of the fact that it is even being done." this results in a 20 minute conversation, which i have seriously summarized here. what he comes down on is, what i like to do is destroy them, in essence, take them all out.

on,he conversation goes halderman argues there could be value there, particularly in foreign affairs. but he does not disagree with it. that was known before i did the nixon defense. but i found another conversation where this comes up on april 18. to this. let's listen >> i asked you to get rid of all these tapes. prof. dean: haldeman never did that. as best as i can figure is that it becomes so consumed -- he becomes so consumed by watergate is that he never has time. he never on record reports back

to nixon. they will stay in place and continue playing until they revealed by butterfield. that happens on june 18 when the system is shut down. there are approximately 4000 hours, many classified. the official number by the archives is 3700 hours. eye-twisting sheet that i used on the time of the book. it was released in october of 2010. this is the white house telephone. this is the camp david telephone.

the cabinet room, there are a number of tapes, but the quality is so bad they are barely discernible. that is kind of the gray part that were not released by the time i had started on the project. resulted in finding 1000 conversations, 600 of which had never been previously released. how was this system uncovered? how did we learn about the system? it starts here. exist and is a transcript of a conversation in the president's office, i think

this committee should have that tape. i believe it would corroborate many of the things this committee has asked me to testify on. this concludes my rather lengthy statement. i apologized for its length, but i still have to comply to provide the committee with my broad overview of this matter. prof. dean: there were a number factople who raised the that they thought they had been taped in cross examination. why i was focusing on people 15th, so this is slightly repeated -- nixon had said after we met on april 15, that he had a tape of me claiming i had immunity. he clearly misunderstood what i was saying when i said i could be formally immunized by prosecutors to talk about the

record. i was open with my colleagues about all these things. he just misunderstands it and tells peterson in a phone call that he thinks, he said i'm claiming that i have been immunized. i never made such a claim. i think it was a fundamental misunderstanding. andwhole word gets out peterson starts raising it with my lawyer. that dean thinks he has immunity. charlie, my lawyer says, he doesn't think he has immunity. he was given informal amenity to discuss this on a off the record basis with prosecutors. curious that point in cross examination. -- here is that point in cross examination. >> you believe that april 15 meeting with the president was taped, and that you are being asked leading questions. have you ever asked the white house if you were taped?

lawyer, andwith my i don't know whether he race this with prosecutors or not. after i was told that i had been taped-- >> who told you? >> my lawyer told me he received word from the prosecutors that i had been taped. i only thought there was occasion -- was one occasion where that could have occurred. all the circumstances seemed to indicate that. that was on this april 15 meeting. i don't know whether a fact whether i was or was not. i suggest that the government might want to listen. if they listen, they might have some idea the dimensions of what was involved. prof. dean: the people who got on this issue were sam -- and fred thompson. fred thompson representing the minority, being at the request of howard baker. the minority was somewhat more

aggressive than the majority. who is fred thompson, passed away recently. if you didn't recognize him in his earlier incarnation as a staffer in the senate, then later u.s. senator, would have sold you a reverse mortgage. armstrong, who did work for sam dash was probably the most aggressive. not knowing exactly what he is looking for. but the person that asks the direct question is don sanders, who works for the minority of lawyers. they ask alex butterfield. to give you background of how that happened, there was a memo sent to fred thompson. buzhardt being one half of my

replacement as white house counsel, who handled nothing but watergate after i departed the white house. prepared a document that was pretty close to a transcript in a summary of all my conversations with nixon that was given to fred thompson by buzhardt. it was remarkably accurate. it goes on for several pages. makes scott armstrong wonder, where could this information have come from? think there is a confluence in watergate, they result in the senate watergate committee uncovering the taping system. here is a recap of that in a summary form. i was a systems analyst, among other things. i made an organization chart for

the white house. we already knew from john's testimony that he did not have notes. there was not any paper documentation. we needed to figure out, who else would know? we made a simply charge of all those in touch with nixon and in touch with dean. in the middle of this, literally is dean here, and you look at his flowchart. there is the office of the councils of the president, and this guy who controlled everything in and out of the president's office, alexander butterfield. >> one of you get alex in there, what happens? >> it's friday the 13th, and we met in the air-conditioned basement of the office building. alexander butterfield walks in, and he is not accompanied by counsel, which is very rare. at the end of it, i took out this bizarre memo. i took off the front part that

indicated what it was and gave him the part that described the meetings, a summary of a transcript. but in the sense, everything had a twist. it was prepared before dean's testimony. but it always had this twisted that dean was responsible for the evil act at the end if he was afraid it would come out. i handed it to alex and i said, can you explain how this would be reconstructed? , ofent to the president the different things. outlooks took it and look at it -- alex took it and looked at it. i asked him a couple questions, could this have come from the president' recollectionss? no, to details for that. -- too detailed for that.

could this from somebody else at the meetings? no. so where does this come from? alex took it very deliberately and set it down in front of himself. said, let me think about that for a minute. the questioning don sanders, very skilled agent. i went back later and look at the stenographer's notes. this is what she has down. memory is what it is. she was just taking notes. sanders asks a number of questions about different things. questions jumped around a little. then he asks the questions, when dean testified, he said that at one point in one of the meetings, nixon went to the corner of his eob office and lowered his voice when talking questions,lemency

under the impression that it may have been recorded. at any rate, dean thought that the president lowered his voice. and dean speculated that the conversations might have been recorded. did dean know what he was talking about? i forget the exact line which, but it was close to that. alex's answer was no, dean wouldn't have known. there were very few of us that knew. that is where this came from. me, iy it affected thought he was answering my question rather than sanders' question until i looked at the transcript later.as soon as we heard that, ah, a recording. we then asking the nature of the system.

>> the only thing i remember differently from what scott just said, i remember getting the piece of paper early on after 2:00 in that four hour session with staff. scott was a lead investigator. i remember only one sheet of paper. when they said, where might have this come from? i looked at this thing, and it looked exactly like a transcript, a verbatim transcript. forad a p for president, d dean. did make sense. -- it made sense. i did not follow the discussion, but i thought to myself, this has to come from the tapes. that everything i am worrying so much about.

i said gee, this looks very detailed. [laughter] the president had great retentive powers, but this is too detailed for that. i said, let me think about that for a while. to my great relief, they went on to other items, until sanders, until scott turned it over to sanders, representing rep. representing fred ask men, i said if they a direct question, i know i will have to answer. or it would be the end of my career. the question became, how do we get to the material quickly?

class he told us how it was organized and run. we had to get to it before it was destroyed, and do something to nail it down. anyway, that is about 40 minutes boil down to eight. what happens next, after he has his full attention, he says i cannot do it tonight. but we will do a little in the morning. 13th, friday the 13th. morning, he next has all his staff in, we have to get to john dean, our key witness. what they had built the case on, was a setup. revealed this rather astounding piece of information. calling my lawyer, called me directly.

he was able to get in touch with me because he knew i was in the witness protection program. he tracked me down to marathon, florida where i was staying at a friends house on a deserted beach. i was lowering my profile as much as possible after 80 million americans were watching the testimony. to return,ugh have and the marshals will get you back your house. i need to meet with you on sunday at the latest. it is on something i cannot tell you about. i thought that was mysterious. but i had known sam for many years, long before watergate, and i trusted him. would meetnday i with him and my house in old town. the marshals would have no trouble arranging the travel, as they were able to do for people in the witness protection program.

out, he would be accompanied by jim hamilton, one of his key lawyers. in assembling this program, i jim haldeman to ask if he had covered this issue. fact, atas a matter of the university of tennessee. i would be happy to send you a transcript, a video of it. so here is a little clip from hamilton'sed, jim recollection of these events. me earlyam called saturday morning, july 14, he said, lets go tell john dean what we just learned. a little later, sam picked me up. dean's townhouse in

alexandria, virginia. his glamorous life, always well put together. john had a quizzical look on his face because he did not yet know what the purpose of the vision was. so we went upstairs to the living room. they sat on a couch. conversation,ary sam sat down to the left. them by there mantelpiece, where i could look wanted tot john. i see john's reaction when sam told him what we now knew about the taping system. when sam finally did, john broke into a wide smile. he knew the tapes were going to ng testimonydamni

about president nixon. book, he said his sam, you know what this means if you get those conversations? is notd mean my ass hanging out there all alone. you can clarify my testimony. and you will find that i under testified rather than over testified, just to be careful. the next morning, monday morning, july 16, irwin thompson and erwin met. and when on the stand that afternoon. i was supposed to summon butterfield to the hearings. when i told butterfield that his presence was required that afternoon, he was not happy.

indeed, he refused to appear. he said he was preparing for a trip to russia the next day on faa business and was too busy to attend the hearings during i relate butterfield's response to senator irving. he grew agitated. cavorted, eyebrows and he said jim, you tell mr. butterfield that if he is not i will sendternoon, the senate sergeant at arms out to fetch him and bring him to the hearing. having located him in a barber chair, i did. this message changed his mind. later that afternoon, butterfield, now contrite and coiffedely -- neatly

[laughter] hisarrived to serve testimony. it hangs in my office. the interesting and clever distinction that the it had beende, was uncovered by don sanders who worked for the minority and the republicans. they would have him ask butterfield. to have fred thompson raised the questions. this gave it a little different feel, with the republicans uncovering it. follows, i that believe you can see howard baker on the far side of the screen.

afterks like he is ill having found this information out. >> 1969, continued to be employed until march 16 of this year. is that correct? >> yes. i was aware of listening devices, yes sir. >> when windows devices placed in the oval office? approximately the summer of 1970. i cannot begin to recall the precise eight. my guess, the installation was between, and this is a very rough guess, april or may of 1970, and perhaps the end of the summer or early fall 1970.

-- were youwearing aware of any devices installed in the office? >> yes. >> where they installed at the same time? >> yes. prof. dean: the dates were wrong, 71 was where -- when it was installed. on jim hamilton's recollection of his meeting with me, he has nailed it. showing the kind of tricks that memory can play. he vividly remembers my wife being there. she was not there. she remained in marathon, florida. that is what memory can do. myself, and i left this soon as the meeting ended.

the taping system had been uncovered, and was quickly conveyed to the white house. another toon called let him know. figured it out by then, that there was such a system. the memo that so closely have the notes of my conversation. that what happened is, nixon himself listened to his conversations with me, most of them. he doesn't listen until years after the fact, but listens to the earlier conversations. on the nos defense information before march 21 cover-up.

so he listens to the earlier conversations to see if there was anything in their for his defense. it is marginal. you could argue either way on some of the conversations. we know thatoday, he knew about the cover-up before i came into telling. but then, it was not quite so clear. is confronted with the question of what to do with the tapes once they have been revealed. two members of the counsel handled some of the watergate and non-watergate matters.

this happened when he was still in private practice, before elected. had come from capitol hill, where he worked for a number of prominent senators. addressing the question of whether nixon should destroy his tapes, he sent one of his assistants to the law library. destroyedif somebody evidence, they would likely be subpoenaed. buzzheart, when they went to visit nixon at the naval hospital, he argues to the contrary. he says that since they have not been subpoenaed, there is no

obstruction of justice. in over four decades, i have not found that case. i am not sure what he was referring to. i have found gorman's case. this start the fight for the tapes. this is where the nixon defense ends, and the rest of the summary. once the tapes are discovered, hague, now the chief of staff, he gives permission to stop the taping system. july 18 is the last day the system is in. also -- he knew there was

a something. but he thought it was controllable by nixon. tapes --hy there were nixon had the foresight to tape those he thought he needed information from. tapes, too, at that point. he was unhappy. the senate committee immediately tapes, subpoena to the and it becomes the focus of watergate for the rest of the story. it is really about the fight for the tapes. ironically, the judge, the first the senatethis, said does not have the standing to sue. it is a pivotal question, and he

passes on it. , whohe special prosecutor it also filed a subpoena, said he was entitled in behalf of the grand jury. it is an interesting breakdown, where the judge is clearly protecting the system. it is under the jurisdiction of the chief judge, which he was. he said i will not give those tapes to the senate committee, we will take this through the judicial process on behalf of the courts and the grand jury. cox wins his argument that the grand jury should get them. by october of 1973, although there are earlier indications, wasn initially, when cox appointed special prosecutor, thought it was a great idea. was weak andx

would not pursue him all the way. so he was happy about him getting the appointment. keeps pushing for the tapes, he makes noises that they should get rid of them. sayas an idea after they cox is entitled to the tapes. arrangementsl make , someone who no stennis, he senator can make transcripts of the tapes and give them to cox. to that is what he wants cox accept. there are flaws to this plan. first of all, it was well known that john stennis was almost

deaf. very hard to listen to the tapes. and to make a record of them and pass them onto a special prosecutor, they were useless to the prosecutor because they were hearsay at that point. they were not the tapes, themselves. a version of what stennis had occurred or not heard and passed on. not admissible in evidence. decides to hold a press conference. a saturday. club on in october. he says to the press, i am going to not accept the senate compromise, it is unacceptable. and he explains the reasons why he could not accept it. cox was a mild-mannered, retiring personality, and became

a national figure as a result of this. when nixon hears this, he gives , that he is a cox part of the executive branch, he has been appointed by the department of justice under the authority of the attorney general. what is happened, the reason we even have a special prosecutor is because when the other ones left, there was a vacancy. and yet elliott richardson appointed attorney general, he had to make a deal that he would appoint a special prosecutor. he lays out all the criteria when he becomes attorney general. them he will honor the agreement if he becomes attorney general. when elliott is told to fire cox, he says i cannot do it. i will resign.

through al hague, says let's call the deputy, ruckelhaus. says i will resign to, i will not do it on a matter of principle. the next one in line is the burk.tor genal, robert he will carry out the order and fire cox. he is forever labeled for doing it. in bork'shave missed only chaos could ensue if he did not act. because after you leave the third man in charge of the department of justice, it is any man's guess who has the authority. the janitor might be able to say he is the acting attorney general. it was a very unclear situation.

they put a lot of pressure on bork to do it. cost him aand it seat on the supreme court, later, when reagan nominated him. of the hard feelings which would continue among democrats for decades about bork's action in firing cox. here is a clip what happened the night cox was fired. all the networks -- i happen to be watching television, and learned about it that night. i had just pled guilty a few days earlier, thinking that cox was going to do this right, and i had agreed to cooperate with him, and proceed accordingly. i was somewhat stunned when this interruption occurred. i was able to locate that clip.

>> at the white house, president nixon has disbarred archibald cox and abolished the special resulttion office as a of prosecutor cox being discharged, attorney general elliot richardson has resigned his post as attorney general. and when deputy attorney general ruckelhaus refused to carry out orders from the president, he was discharged as deputy attorney general. the acting attorney general now will be solicitor general bork who informs a special prosecutor cox that he had been discharged. all this happened after a day in which special prosecutor cox said he could not carry out the provisions of a new position that the president took on the watergate tapes which prosecutor cox was trying to get for the

watergate grand jury, and which the senate watergate committee wanted to get for its hearings. william ruckelhaus has been discharged by the president, the president, attorney general richardson has resigned. all of this following the discharge of special prosecutor archibald cox. this is nelson benton at the white house, this has been a bulletin from cbs news. all of the announcements were pretty breathless, like that. you could tell everyone was shocked, surprised, gasping. it was really a stunning event. headlines, were the lead that nixon had forced the firing of cox. this is why it was called the saturday night massacre. it became the moniker for the events of that weekend.

monday,ult, on everything really changed. resolutions and bills were sent. also, impeachment proceedings. 12 called for the appointment of a special prosecutor. the congress had done nothing on impeachment until this moment. this was one of those pivot point in the story. as a result of all this, the white house is pretty shocked that they did not foresee -- why, i do not know, it was predictable. nixon decides on monday, the 23rd, that he is going to give him nine of the subpoenaed tapes, eight of them with me, and the other, the june

conversation that had the fate -- famous 18.5 minute gap. he also signed a new special prosecutor, leon drummer skate -- jerarski. i had alluded to this. that conversation would so .hange his view on november 17, nixon decided the press was getting so out of hand, he had to control the situation. he was agreeing to hand the tapes over, and lower the temperature by explaining what he was doing. so he meant with an association at all places, disney world. there is a clip that is most memorable. plaques i want to say this to

the television audience. i made my mistakes, but in all my years of public life, i have never profited from public service. i earned everything. and in all my years in public life, i have never obstructed ,too, i area and i think can say, i welcome the examination. people want to know whether or not the president is a crook. i am not a crook. i have earned everything i have done. prof. dean: very interesting body language there. [laughter] he was really setting up the fact that he would start releasing tapes. what happens when it comes time to release the tapes? ony have to go to the judge november 21 and tell them there

is a 18.5 minute gap in the conversation. this is a whole new round of headlines, disclosing the gap. i think a constant -- a cartoonist from the washington post, captured a lot of the mood of the moment, in this particular cartoon. again, nixon thought for a while until he realized that the house byiciary committee, which it then gotten very serious about impeachment proceedings, and undertaken them, and sent a subpoena, that they did have jurisdiction. anybody at all had jurisdiction to get these tapes that nixon had no defense investigate wrongdoing -- potential wrongdoing by a president, it was the judicial committee. this was a very staged events.

some of these only had two or three conversations. you can get a peek inside there. this was done for the theater to thatthe impression literally stacks of books of tapes were being released. it was only really two and a half or three inches when printed on both sides and released. statement.xon's >> good evening, i will announce my answer for the subpoena for additional watergate tapes, and to tell you something about the actions. these actions will alas, once and for all, show what i knew and what i did, with regards to the watergate break-in and cover-up, were just as i described you, from the very beginning.

the fbi and the justice department were used to investigate the incident thoroughly. from nine months, until march 1973, i was assured by those charged with conducting and monitoring the investigations, but no one in the white house was involved. as far as what the president personally did with regards to watergate and the cover-up concerned, these materials will tell it all. ever since the existence of a taping system made known last summer, i have tried vigorously to guard the privacy of the tapes. i have been well aware that my protecting of the confidentiality of presidential conversations has heightened the caused of watergate and increased suspicions of the presidency. today,ic question issue

is whether the president personally acted improperly in the watergate matter. months, the charges and instant -- insinuations by one witness, john dean, suggested that the president did act improperly. this upped the demands for an impeachment inquiry. this is a question that must be answered, and this is the question that will be answered by these transcripts that i have ordered published tomorrow. despite the confusions and contradictions, what comes through clearly is this. dean charged in sworn senate testimony that i was fully aware of the cover-up at the time of our first meeting on september 15, 1972. these transcripts show clearly that i first learned of it when mr. dean himself told me of it on march 21, some six months

later. well, it did not quite work out that way. what happened, juwarski was not going to take a pass on what he is right on the tapes. the transcripts were less than accurate, and the house judiciary committee had a very interesting approach to have them prepared. they called in people who are blind and use them to make transcripts because they had more sensitive hearing, and came up with many improvements in the tapes. so they put out a document that in whatremendous gaps

nixon had actually put in his transcripts. case that juwarski went on to additional conversation that would really .ause the problems for nixon there was that case on -- the and where they intervened cut off the fbi. after 25 months of cover-up, it ended. it ended when nixon was told by 8-0 that hecourt had to release the tapes. than 9-00 rather because ryan quit refused himself because of his

relationship with john mitchell, king himself too close to it. result within days of nixon's resignation. republicans on the committee had not voted for impeachment. did the impeachment. and theators goldwater other leaders of the republican party and the senate went down to advise the president of what the temperature was in the senate, goldwater said he could not find one vote for nixon, including his one -- own. ninth.esigns on the staffk when he called his the next morning, he got it.

least astood for at fleeting moment, what had gone wrong. and this clip captures it. [applause] >> it is only a beginning, always. the young must know it, the old must know it. they must always sustain us. the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes when you are really tested. knocks, some some disappointments. when sadness comes.

because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever to beow magnificent it is on the highest mountain. and so i say to you on this leave proud of the people who have stood by us and worked for us and served this country. we want you to be proud of what you have done. we want you to continue to serve in government, if that is your wish. best, never get discouraged. never be petty. remember, others may hate you. winthose who hate you don't unless you hate them.

-- youn, use story destroy your self. hopes,we leave with high in good spirits, and with deep humility. thank you very much. [applause] that, however, was not the end of the story. month, haldeman, ehrlichman, mitchell, and others would go on trial for the cover-up. that would continue into january 1 of the next year. they convicted haldeman, ehrlichman, mitchell, and

parkinson. role ins played a major the conviction of haldeman andichman,, mitchell, parkinson. the tapes were inevitable to answer the questions. too many people knew about it. sooner or later, they would stumble into it. it would one way or the other certainly end watergate. note, let's end this class. thank you. [applause] >> join us every saturday anding at 8:00 p.m.

midnight eastern, as we hear lectures ranging from the american revolution to 9/11. these are also available as podcasts. website, or download them from itunes. this weekend, we go to tuscaloosa, alabama to explore this southern city, home to the university of alabama. on american history tv, we will visit the archaeological site and learn how the native american culture lived. city westthe largest of mexico. 30 -- we areout

standing at mound b, the largest in alabama. 120,000 squareut yards of dirt. where the highest ranking clan would have been. originally, scientists thought they were completely built by one basket load of dirt at a time. recent research indicates that the base of the mound was initially built with saud -- sod blocks. this would give stability to the structure as they were building it. periodically, it would be capped over with layers of clay, sliced into the mount. it would resemble a layer cake. tourtch the c-span cities on american history tv on c-span3. working with affiliates across

the country. >> he had a couple of meals and a steam shovel. again, that is one of the other ironies to be so rapidly and o yourent, entire fortune to the governments largess. >> sally denton talks about her book, "the profiteers." it takes a look at one of the largest construction companies in the world. >> who else is the united states government going to give these projects throughout the world. it to bet is fine for them, that it is the american taxpayers paying for it. the american taxpayer should have some access to information

for the contracts, the amount of , the, the worker safety political relationships. bands -- mazer -- masur speaks on lincoln's legacy. this lecture took place at ford's theatre in washington, d.c. and is about 15 minutes. on a rainy night of april 11 1865, president lincoln addressed a crowd for the last time. this speech was remarkable less for its oratorical qualities, stylistically, it was far from his best.