10 minutes. prof. dean: discovering the taping system -- is it lucky or inevitable? that is what we are looking at in this lecture. 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 theyoosevelt, 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.

let me go back. pres. roosevelt: [indiscernible] prof. dean: you get a sample there.

let me give you -- 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, nixon got the idea of taping from lyndon johnson predecessor, 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 does 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 and a few others 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 first. then went to the president. 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. that talking 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 problem. there is the letter. bud takes him into the oval office.

elvis starts showing him pictures. much of the meeting was recorded. that is bud there. this is one of the most requested pictures of the nixon administration. excuse me. you will notice his belt, which was solid gold. bud was not the normal notetaker of meetings and prepared a fairly detailed account of what had happened. after the meeting, this actually runs several pages. clipped 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. a said this sounds like 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 of 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. so elvis cannot go out and say president hates the beatles, because that was an untrue statement. you wanted to protect himself. to deal with this problem and the breakdown of this recording system, nixon discussed putting in the same system that lyndon johnson had, keeping an audio record of it. or something similar. 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.

other than older men. -- he had more face 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. or none of the white house lines were being bugged. so they 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. so he knew exactly what it was. was different is that they put what was different however in a voice activated system. isn't that annoying video? [laughter] what does it mean to have a voice activated system? is that 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 sent out a being. 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. and nixon was there. and say the cleaning crew is there at midnight, it won't activate. it's very clear that nixon forgets about the recording system.

there are 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. one of the reasons it is very difficult to hear nixon. i attended to sit in this seat here. my voice must have been right beside the microphone because it's very clearly picked up. m4, ehrlichman tended to take that seat. m3 for kissinger. it's bizarre how people would go back to the same places in repeated fashion.

those were where the mics were located. .nd there were two over here to my knowledge, i cannot hear anything from those near the lamps. but that is the key system. 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. most every telephone the president used, except some in the residence, they all were more often used by the family. and they were wired through the

switchboard. they were very good. this is the one recording device in the lincoln sitting room. in the residence in the sitting room. this phone up here is wired because it goes through the central switch. he had actually 3 tapes in camp david. 2 different telephones. there was one that was on the sofa. one via his deck. the room was recorded. they were put in in stages, not all at once. the 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. alex left, 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. the system starts in february 16, 1971. that date for some reason is not easily remembered by most people that write about this. that is when it happened. the first conversation, other than a general one, is somebody that walked into the office before alex did. and the only really number to 450-1 is the first first 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? had no control. sometimes he knows they are being recorded, other times he has clearly forgotten. this was shortly explained to nixon. 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? and of course larry and butterfield. 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.

and it played at the slowest speed possible, 16 inch per second on 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 activated creates what they call tape whip. where machines starts, jerks at the start, leaving a blurry kind of audio sound that sometimes starts at the beginning of a conversation. so technically it's not very sophisticated. but it lasted for many years until people got serious about listening to them. ironically, by april 9, 1973, nixon is talking about taking the system out.

there is a taped conversation i have in the text in the nixon defense. if you look at april 9, what he he says, "you 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. but what he comes down on is, he says what i like to do is destroy them, in essence, take them all out. take what we have got and get rid of them. as the conversation goes on, halderman argues there could be value there, particularly in foreign affairs. but he does not disagree with it.

what i found, that was known before i did the nixon defense. but i found another conversation where this comes up on april 18. now let's listen to this. >> i asked you to get rid of all these tapes. prof. dean: haldeman never did do that. as best as i can figure is that he becomes so consumed by watergate is that he never has time. he never on record reports back to nixon. it has not been done. so they will stay in place and continue playing until they revealed by butterfield. as we have discussed earlier. and that happens on june 18 when

the system is shut down. there are approximately 4000 hours, many classified. i think that the official number by the archives is 3700 hours. here is an eye-twisting sheet that i used on the time of the book. it was released in october of 2010. but it just shows how, you know, it is interesting to see where the conversations were. this is the white house telephone. this is the camp david telephone. this is the second camp david telephone. this is caused the office. themval office, most of take place there.

the cabinet room, there are a number of tapes, but the quality is so bad they are barely discernible. but that is just kind of an, the interesting part is that 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? i think that it really starts here. >> is a tape exist and is a transcript of a conversation in the president's office, i think this committee should have that tape. because i believe it would corroborate many of the things this committee has asked me to testify on.

chairman, 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 of people who raised the fact that they thought they had been taped in cross examination. dash, why i was-m 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. the whole word gets out and 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? >> i raised with my lawyer, and 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. that is fred thompson, who 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. scott armstrong, who did work for sam dash was probably the most aggressive. not knowing exactly what he is looking for. but i am convinced would ultimately run into it one way or another. the person that asks the direct question is don sanders, who works for the minority of lawyers. and they well 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. there was a document prepared 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. this is what makes scott armstrong wonder, where could this information have come from? i 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? we went to the president, of 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's recollections? no, 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. i finished up 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 about the clemency questions, 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. the way it affected me, i 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. it had a p for president, d for dean. 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. in a panic, i threw it back down.

i threw it back down on this conference table. 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. fred thompson, i said if they ask me 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? 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. prof. dean: 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. this is on the 13th, friday the 13th. sam says the next morning, he has all his staff in, we have to get to john dean, our key witness. they built -- what they had built the case on, was a setup. he finally revealed this rather astounding piece of information. rather than 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. they said hugh have to return, 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. the next sunday i would meet 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. when sam came out, he would be accompanied by jim hamilton, one of his key lawyers. in assembling this program, i got a hold of jim haldeman to

ask if he had covered this issue. he said, as a matter of fact, at the howard baker room at the university of tennessee. i would be happy to send you a transcript, a video of it. so here is a little clip from what happened, jim hamilton's recollection of these events. >> when sam called me early saturday morning, july 14, he said, lets go tell john dean what we just learned. a little later, sam picked me up. we drove to 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. after preliminary conversation, sam sat down to the left. i stood before them by the mantelpiece, where i could look directly at john. i wanted to 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 confirm his damning testimony about president nixon. as he noted in his book, he said sam, you know what this means if you get those conversations? it would mean my ass is not 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. on monday morning, the next monday morning, july 16, irwin bakerdash and erwin thompson 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. his famous eyebrows cavorted, and he said jim, you tell mr. butterfield that if he is not here this afternoon, i will send 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 neatly coiffed [laughter] now arrived to serve his testimony. it hangs in my office. prof. dean: the interesting and

clever distinction that the democrats made, was it had been 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. in the clip that follows, i believe you can see howard baker on the far side of the screen. he looks like he is ill after 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 made 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 you wearing -- were you aware of any devices installed

in the office? yes -- >> 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. it was just myself, and i left this soon as the meeting ended. the taping system had been uncovered, and was quickly conveyed to the white house. fred thompson called another to let him know. i think he had figured it out by then, that there was such a system. he had made the memo that so

closely have the notes of my conversation. today i know 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. he said his defense on the no 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. it is clear today, we know that

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. buzzhard 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. it showed if somebody destroyed 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, within days, al hague, now the chief of staff, he gives permission to stop the taping system. july 18 is the last day the system is in. hague also -- he knew there was a something. but he thought it was controllable by nixon. that is why there were tapes -- nixon had the foresight to tape

those he thought he needed information from. he was on the tapes, too, at that point. he was unhappy. the senate committee immediately sends a subpoena to the tapes, 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 to rule on this, said the senate does not have the standing to sue. it is a pivotal question, and he passes on it. but the special prosecutor, who 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. so cox wins his argument that the grand jury should get them. by october of 1973, although there are earlier indications, nixon initially, when cox was appointed special prosecutor, thought it was a great idea. he thought cox was weak and would not pursue him all the way. so he was happy about him getting the appointment. as cox keeps pushing for the tapes, he makes noises that they

should get rid of them. he has an idea after they say cox is entitled to the tapes. he says i will make arrangements for the senator, someone who no one would -- senator stennis, he can make transcripts of the tapes and give them to cox. and that is what he wants cox to 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. they were a version of what

stennis had occurred or not heard and passed on. not admissible in evidence. as a result, cox decides to hold a press conference. at the press club on a saturday. 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 orders to fire cox, that he is a 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. he pledges to 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. so nixon, through al hague, says let's call the deputy,

ruckelhaus. ruckelhaus says i will resign to, i will not do it on a matter of principle. the next one in line is the solicitor general, robert burk. he will carry out the order and fire cox. he is forever labeled for doing it. what they have missed in bork's action, 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. he did it, and it cost him a seat on the supreme court, later, when reagan nominated him. because 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 prosecution office as a result

of prosecutor cox being discharged, attorney general elliot richardson has resigned his post as attorney general. and when deputy attorney general william 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 had 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. repeating, deputy attorney general 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. prof. dean: all of the announcements were pretty breathless, like that. you could tell everyone was shocked, surprised, gasping. and it was really a stunning event. the next day's 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. as a result, on monday, everything really changed. 44 watergate 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 points 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 jerarski. i had alluded to this. that conversation would so change 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 of news editors at all places, disney world. there is a clip that is most memorable. nixon: 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 justice. and i think, too, i 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? they have to go to the judge on november 21 and tell them there is a 18.5 minute gap in the june 20 conversation. this is a whole new round of headlines, disclosing the gap.

block, aat herb 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 judiciary committee, which it by then gotten very serious about impeachment proceedings, and undertaken them, and sent a subpoena, that they did have jurisdiction. if anybody at all had jurisdiction to get these tapes that nixon had no defense against, to investigate wrongdoing -- potential wrongdoing by a president, it was the judicial committee. this was a very staged event. some of these only had two or three conversations. you can get a peek inside there. this was done for the theater to give the impression that

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. here was nixon's statement. pres. nixon: 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 at last, 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 mystery of watergate and caused increased suspicions of the presidency. the basic question issue today, is whether the president personally acted improperly in the watergate matter. months after months, the charges and 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. john 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.