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look for all of our programming every weekend on c-span 3. john dean, former white house counsel to president nixon and now barry goldwater chair of american institutions at arizona state university teaches a class on watergate and the discovery of the nixon white house taping system. in june, 1973, during testimony before the senate watergate committee, mr. dean implicated president nixon and administration officials, including himself, in the watergate cover-up. mr. dean later pleaded guilty of obstruction of justice for his role in watergate and served four months in prison. this class is about an hour and ten minutes. discovering the taping system, was it lucky or inefitiable, is what we're

looking at this in next lecture. the nixon taping, the whole story of the nixon tapes has been only partially told. it has taken me years to gather and find out what happened. and since it is one of the most important factors in the watergate story, i think it is important to get that history straight. and we're going to try to do that in a summary fashion today. before i start, would you like to remind you that other presidents did tape, starting with franklin roosevelt, who used a -- when they first went to talking movies and they had a soundtrack, he had had a system put in the oval office that recorded. i'm going to try a very, very quick sample -- oops, let me go back. a quick sample of roosevelt taping. let me go back.

>> [ inaudible ]. [ inaudible ]. >> you get a sample there. let me give you -- that is amazing. when you think he is somebody today, when we have cell phones, talking about the break-through in that presidency of a walkie-talkie that was so heavy they had to carry it on their back. any way, nixon got the idea of taping from lyndon johnson, his

immediate predecessor. during the recess -- or the transition between the two presidencies, nixon and johnson met and he said, i have several of the offices wired for recording. including several of the telephones. and 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, there was -- as we have discussed in prior lectures, there is a pretty efficient management system except for those 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, when they brought a guest in, they prepared a talking paper that went into the president, was approved by

haldman and then went into the president and then after the meeting they prepared a summary of the meeting. i'll give you a for example. in this particular memo from bud croag, elvis presley shows up at the northwest gate. i happen to know of this because bud called me and said, elvis is 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 -- that talking memo -- or that memo that went into the president mentioned that -- why elvis was there and laid it out in some detail that elvis sent a letter. i kind of like this letter. if you read it, you'll see elvis stars, dear, mr. president, i would like to introduce myself. i am elvis presley.

as if anybody in that era would have had any trouble knowing who this was. and i admire you and the office and respect the office. have great respect for your office. i talk to vice president agnew in palm springs a few 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 in to the oval office, they agree he should come in. and elvis -- this is the greeting and elvis starts showing him pictures and it's -- much of the meeting was recorded. that is bud croag in the picture there. this is one of the most requested pictures of the nixon administration. excuse me. and you'll notice here this

belt, which is solid gold. he was also showing the president his gold cuff links. but croag was not the normal note-taker of meetings. and he prepared a fairly detailed account of what had happened after the meeting. this actually runs several pages. i've clipped just one paragraph here that notes that pressley indicated that he thought the beatles had been a real source for anti-american spirit. he said -- this sounds a little bit like competition. he said that the beatles came to the country, made their money and returned to england where they promoted an anti-american theme. the president nodded in agreement and expressed some surprise. this is more -- as i say, this is a good post-meeting memo. this is -- became the exception to the rule. know greater offender than henry

kissinger who fell way behind on his meetings and the record of it. haldeman noticed this and decided he had to do something about it. he decided that, we're not keeping a good record of this presidency. what nixon wanted, was two things. one, he wanted the historical record of what happened during his presidency. he had a real sense of history. secondly, he wanted to know if he had said something or given some indication to the guests like nodding at the beatles were 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, had not said. he did not -- he did not fully agree with elvis. he just sort of nodded and showed some surprise. so elvis could not, with bud there, taking notes, go out and say the president hates the beatles because that would have

been an untrue statement. so nixon wants to protect himself. that is the one of the reasons he has somebody in there taking notes, particularly with outsiders. to deal with this problem and the breakdown of this recording system, the paper recording system, haldeman and nixon discuss let's put the same sort of system in that lyndon johnson had or something similar and keep a audio record of it. haldeman calls an aide he can trust because this would become one of the most closely-guarded secrets of this presidency. he called alex butterfield. who is the deputy assistant to the president who is the person who is dealing with the president more than anybody else, other than haldeman, and actually more face-time than haldeman because he is the person who takes documents in and out. and haldeman -- excuse me, butterfield in turn calls the secret service, the technical

services division. they are the people who made sure that nobody outside of the white house was bugging the white house or none of the white house lines were being bugged. so they had the capability and the understanding. butterfield told me over the years when he went to al wong, the head of the technical services division, wong said, oh, here we go again. that he had been there -- how this had happened in prior presidencies. so he knew exactly what it was. what was different, however, is that they put in a voice-activated system. isn't that annoying video? what it means to have have a voice-activated system is that any time nixon spoke, it triggered the recording. and the way it worked is nixon carried a small device on his belt or in his pocket that indicated his location, it sent

out a beam. it was a locator so the secret service knew if he was in the barbershop or in the oval office or if he had gone up to the residence and taken it off. they keyed the taping system to this, to the locator, so that when he was in the room where the taping system was employed and installed, it would trigger the taping system. in other words, installing it in the oval office and unless nixon was there, and say the cleaning crew is in there at midnight, it won't activate the system unless nixon happened to be there with his locator. so that's -- and it is very clear that nixon and haldeman -- haldeman less, forget about the recording system. there are other times they clearly remember the recording system. as some that have gone through as many as these as i have, you could hear it when he's trying to make a record.

even outsiders as opposed to justin cidjustin siders. and here is this one down by the president's feet and you could see where the president has his feet up on the desk. the fact that he was talking through the legs distorted the sounds and one of the reasons it is difficult to hear nixon. i tended to sit in this seat right here on five and my voice must have been right beside the microphone because it is clearly picked up. m-4, ehrlichman took that seat. haldeman m 2 and m 3 for kissinger. it is bizarre how people go back to the same places and repeated fashion. so those were the -- where the mics were located. and then there were two over here by the fireplace in the lamps that -- to my knowledge, i cannot hear anything from those.

they tend to make the room sound rather hollow when they got picked up. but that's the key system. the next place they put them were in the eob office. the same thing, in the desk. the problem that i alluded today is nobody sat by the desk. there is a seating arrangement over here in the far corner and so 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 when he summoned the residents that he occasionally would use but more often used by the family, they all were wired through the switchboard. and they are very good. this is the one recording device in the residence in the lincoln sitting room, and this little princess phone up here is -- it wired because it goes through the -- the central switchboard

system. he also had -- he had actually three tapes up in camp david. two different telephones. there was one that was by a sofa, another on his desk and then the room was recorded. so there were three up there. they were put in in stages, not all at one. the final place that was wired, and some of the most difficult sound, because it was -- the wiring just didn't work the way it was set up, it was the cabinet room. this was actually controlled outside of the cabinet room by alex butterfield, who had his telephone that had a button that would result in his turning on. and when alex left, it went over to steve bull. if alex knew he was going to be in the cabinet meeting himself for some reason, as the staff secretary, he would have one of the secretaries turn it on. the system started in february

16 of 1971. that date, for some reason, is not easily remembered by most people who write about this. but that is when it happened. the first conversation, other than the very general one here -- let me go back. it is actually somebody who just walked in the office before alex did. and they don't even really number it to speak of. and the first 450-1 is the first oval office test. yes? >> so besides the button for turning on the one in the cabinet room, did nixon not have a way to turn them on and off. >> no control over them. they are all voice-activated. you'll hear the question up there, it was the only way to turn them on -- where nixon had no control over them. nixon had no control over them. and as i say, at times he is very aware they are being recorded and other times he has

clearly forgotten. any way, the first conversation, this was surely explained to nixon. he tells the operation of it, the purpose of it. the fact that the cabinet room is controlled by butterfield. the fact that it is being monitored and who knows -- haldeman, the president and secret service. under haldeman, also larry hig by and butterfield were the other two. higby because he carried messages back and forth. the recordings were being made on a sony recording system. this -- that is what the system looked like. at one point they had unto nine of the machines that were gathering information. they were gathered on very thin tape. half a millimeter. and it played at the slowest speed possible, 15, 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 is because of the fact it was played so slowly. in addition, the fact it was voice activated created what they call tape -- tape whip, where the machine starts and it jerks at the start and that leaves kind of a blurry sound -- audio sound that sometimes starts at the beginning of a conversation. so technically, it is not very sophisticated. but it lasted for many, many years, until anybody really got serious wi serious listening to them. ironically, by april 9 of 1973, nixon is talking about taking the system out. there is a taped conversation that i have in the text, the nixon defense. if you look at april 9, what he

says in there, he says, you know, with regard to the recording, what is going on here in the room, i feel uneasy about that. not uneasy in terms of anybody else seeing it, because we'll control it. but uneasy because of the fact it is even been done. this is results in a 20-minute conversation which i seriously summarized here. but what he comes down on is, he said i would like to do -- is destroy them, in essence and take them all out and take what we've got and get rid of them. as the conversation goes on, haldeman argues with him. there might be valuable material in here, particularly in the area of foreign affairs but doesn't disagree with him. what i found, that was known before i did the nixon defense. but i found another conversation where this comes up. and it is on april 18th.

let's listen to this. >> [ inaudible ]. >> haldeman never did do that. as best i could figure the reason he doesn't do anything is that he becomes so consumed by watergate, he doesn't have time to do it and he never reports back to nixon it hasn't been done so they will stay in place and continue playing until they're revealed by butterfield, as we've discussed earlier. and that happens on june 18th, is when they -- the system is shut down. there are approximately 4,000 hours, many of them are classified, i think that the official number by the archives

is 3700 hours. here is -- an eye-twisting sheet that i used at the time i was working on the book. it was released in october of 2010. but it just shows how -- it's interesting to see where the conversations were. this is the white house television. this is the cabinet room. this is camp david telephone. this is the second camp david telephone. this is called the hard-wire, which covered the room in camp david at laurel lodge. this is the eob office. this is the oval office. you could see most of the conversations take place in the oval office and the eob and the telephone. the cabinet room, there are a number of tapes, but the quality is so bad, they're barely discernible. but that is just kind of -- the gray part are those that were

not released yet by the time i had started on the project. it resulted in finding a thousand conversations, 600 of which had never been previously released. so how was this system uncovered? how did we learn about this system? i think that the -- it really starts right here -- >> i do not, in fact, know that such a tape exists but if it does exist and has not been tampered with and is a complete transcription of what took place in the president's office, this committee should have that tape because i believe it would corroborate many of the things this committee has asked me to testify to. mr. chairman, this concludes my rather lengthy statement. i apologize with its leng but i sought to provide the committee with a broad overview of this matter. >> also during -- there were a number of people who raised the

fact, i thought i had been taped in cross-examination. including sam dash in this clip right here. why i was focusing on april 15th, some of this is slightly repeated, just to make the point, is that nixon had said after we met on april 15th, that he a tape of me claiming i had immunity. he clearly misunderstood what i was saying when i said i would informally been immunized by the prosecutors to talk to them off the record about what was going on. it -- i was very open with my colleagues about all of these things. and he just misunderstands it and tells peterson in a phone call that he thinks that -- that he says i'm claiming i have been immuni immunized. i never made such a claim. it is just a fundamental misunderstanding. but the whole word and buzz gets out and peterson starts raising it with my lawyer, that dean

said he thinks he was -- he has immunity, he doesn't have it. and charlie, my lawyer said he doesn't think he has immunity. he has exactly what he was given, which was informal immunity to discuss this on the off the record basis with the prosecutors. so here is the point coming up in cross-examination. >> i think you testified and you may have given us information on this, that you believe that that april 15th meeting with the president was taped and that you were being asked leading questions. have you ever asked the white house if you were taped or any official in the white house? >> i raised it with my lawyer and don't know what he -- whether he raised this with the prosecutors or not. but after i was told that i had been taped -- >> who told you, mr. dean? it. >> mr. -- my lawyer told me he had received word from the prosecutors that hi been taped and i thought there was only one occasion where that could have occurred where i was aware of that i had a direct conversation

with the president because all of the circumstances seemed to indicate that and in a that was -- and that was on the april 15k meeting. i don't know whether i was or was not taped but suggested the government might want to list taupe that dap because if they listened to that tape they would have an idea of the dimensions that was involved. >> the people that got on this issue were sam dash and fred thompson. fred thompson representing the minority and really being their -- at the request of howard baker. in fact, the minority was somewhat more aggressive in one aspect than the majority. but yet, that is fred thompson who passed away recently, who, if you didn't recognize him in his early incarnation as a -- a staffer in the senate and later a u.s. senator, would have sold you a reverse mortgage, for many years. scott armstrong, who did work for sam dash was probably the

most aggressive -- not knowing exactly what he was looking for, but i'm convinced would have ultimately run into it one way or the other. the person who asked the direct question is don sanders who works for the minority, a lawyer. and they will ask alex butterfield. to give you a little background of how that all happened, there was a memo sent to fred thompson from buzz hart, buzz hart being the -- the 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 of my conversations with nixon that was given to fred thompson by buzz hart and it was remarkably accurate. it goes offer for several pages.

this is what makes -- this is what makes scott armstrong wonder where could this information have come from? so this will, i think, a combination of things, there is sort of a confluence in watergate constantly, resulting in the watergate committee uncovering the taping system. here is a recap of that in a summary form being recalled -- >> can i read an ordinance. i was a systems analyst and i made an organization chart of the white house and the question was, here is nixon and here is dean. we already knew from john's testimony that john didn't have notes. so there wasn't paper documentation. so we had to figure out who else would know. so we made a satellite chart of all of the people that were in touch with nixon and all of the people in touch with dean. and in the middle of this, literally, if -- hear is dean up here and you look at this flow chart of where information flowed and there was the office of the counsel to the president

and there was this guy who controlled everything in and out of the -- the president's office named alexander budderfield. >> once you get alex in there, what happens? >> it is friday the 13th and we met in -- in the air-conditioned basement of the -- the dirkson office building. alexander butterfield walks in and not accompanied by counsel which was very rare. and then at the end of it, i took out this bizarre to thompson memo and gave him the part that described the meetings between -- >> it was like a summary of a transcript but it was -- it was in the sense -- and everything had a twist that was tracked what dean's testimony had been and it was prepared before dean's testimony. but it always had the twist that dean was the one responsible for whatever the evil act was at the end, if it was something that they were afraid would come out. so this document, i handed it to

alex and i said, can you explain, given the systems you just described, how this would be reconstructed? what is it from? and we went through the president's -- the different things that and -- and my recollection is that alex took it and looked at it and he had been very straightforward. but he continued and said -- well, this is -- and i said could this have come from the president's recollections? no. no detailed for that. could this have come from someone else being present at the meetings. no. john was the note taker and john didn't have notes. and so where did this come from? and alex took it and very -- deliberately took it and set it down in front of himself, and said, well, let me think about that for a minute. and the questioning went off in a different -- i finished up. the questioning on sanders, very skilled fbi agent -- >> all right. >> there is one other aspect, i

went back later and looked at the -- the stenographer's notes and this is what she has down. memory is what it is. but she was just taking notes. the sanders asked a number of different questions about different things and it was -- and he asked the question that jumped around a little and then he asked the question, when dean testified, he said that at one point in one of the meetings nixon went over to the corner of his eob office and lowered his voice when he was talking about the clemency questions or -- or i had the impression it might have been some money conversations. but at any rate, sanders said, dean thought that the president lowered his voice and wondered -- and dean speculated that the president -- that the conversations might have been recorded. did dean -- did dean know what he was talking about? i forgot the exact language, but it was close to that.

and alex's answer was -- no. dean wouldn't have known. there were very few of us that knew. but that is where this came from. and picked up the thing -- as a continuation. that -- the way it affected me was i thought he was answering my question, rather than sanders' question. until i looked at the -- the transcript later. as soon as we heard that, this little tingle went up your spine and said, recordings of all -- because then we ask him the nature of the system. >> the only thing i remember differently from what scott just said, i remember getting that piece of paper early on in the -- shortly after 2:00 in that four-hour session with the staff. and scott was the lead investigator. and i remember it as only one sheet of paper. and when i -- they said where

might this have come from? i looked at this thing and it -- it was, in fact, it looked exactly like a -- a transcript, a verbatim transcript. it had a p. for president and d. for dean and it made sense. it was -- i mean, i didn't -- i didn't follow the discussion, but i thought to myself, god, it is out. this had to come from the tapes. and the very thing i'm worrying so much about. and so i just -- i hemmed and hawed and said, just, this looks very detailed. the president had great retentative powers but this is too detailed for that. but any way, i said, finally, i started to panic and i threw it back down and it slid out to the center of this little conference table and i said, let me think about that for a while. and to my great relief, they went on to other items.

until sanders was -- until scott turned it over to sanders, representing fred thompson. he was the minority deputy counsel. as i had said to my wife at breakfast that morning, i guess if they ask me a direct question, i will just have to answer. and i know it would be the end of my career. >> the question then became how do we get to this material quickly. he told us who else knew about it and how it was organized and run and we had to get to it, from my point of view, before it was destroyed. we had to do something to nail it down. >> anyway, that is about 40 minutes boiled down to eight. what happens next is that after he has sam's full attention, they say, i can't deal with it tonight but we'll deal with it in the morning. this is friday afternoon and friday evening, the 13th, friday

the 13th. and sam said the next morning, he has all of the staff in, we have to get ahold of john dean because he's our key witness. what if everything he's told us and we built this whole case on is wrong. and this is all a set-up. and that is why butterfield is up here and actually finally revealed this astounding piece of information. so sam dash, rather than -- he would normally call my lawyer, called me directly. he was able to get in touch with me because he knew i was in the witness protection program and so through the marshals he tracked me down to marathon, florida, where i was staying in a friend's house on a rather deserted beach with lowering my profile as much as possible after 80 million americans watching a week of the testimony. so sam says, you have to return. the marshals will get you back up to your house.

and i need to meet with you on sunday at the latest, on something i can't tell you about. i thought, that was mysterious. but he said, well, if it is that important, sam, i had known for many years long before were the and i trusted -- long before watergate and i said we would work it out. the next sunday i meet with him at my house in old town and the marshalls have no trouble arranging travel as they were able to do with the people in the witness protection program and accompanied me out there and got me. and when sam came out he would be accompanied by jim hamilton who was one of his key lawyers. so in assembling this program, i got a hold of jim hamilton to ask him if he had ever really discussed this issue. he said, as a matter of fact, i had a video i did in the howard baker room of the university of tennessee and i'll be happy to

send you up a transcript of it or a video of it. so here is a little clip from what happened from jim hamilton's recollection of these events. >> when sam dash called me early saturday morning, july 14th, he said, let's go tell john dean what we just learned. and a little later sam picked me up and we drove to dean's townhouse in alexander, virginia. john and his -- and his glamorous wife, the always well-put together met us at the front door. and john had a quiz cal look on his face because he didn't yet know what the purpose of the visit was. so we went upstairs to their living room. and john and beau sat on a couch and after some preliminary

conversation sam sat down to the left. and i stood before john by the mantel piece where i could look directly at john because i wanted to see john's reaction when sam told him what we may have knew about the taping system. when sam finally did, john broke into a wide smile. for he knew that the tapes essentially were going to confirm his damning testimony about president nixon. as john recounts it in his book "blind ambition", he then said to sam, sam, do you know what this means if you get those conversations? it would mean my ass is not hanging out there all alone. it means that you can verify my testimony. and i'll tell you this, you'll find out that i've undertestified wrong than

over-testified just to be careful. on monday morning, the next monday morning, july 16th, irwin baker and dash and thompson met and they decided to put butterfield on the stand that afternoon. i was dispatched 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 that he was preparing for a trip to russia the next day on faa business and was just too busy to attend the hearings. i relayed butterfield's response to senator irwin. he grew agitated. his famous eyebrows cav orted, his jaw turned and finally he

said to me, jim, you tell mr. butterfield that if he's not here this afternoon, i will send the senate sergeant at arms out to fetch him and bring him to the hearing. which, having located him in a barber chair, i did faithfully. this message changed his mind, and later that afternoon butterfield now quite contrite and neatly quaffed arrived at the senate -- at the senate to give his electrifying testimony. the subpoena that i served on butterfield still hangs in my office. >> the interesting and i think very clever decision that the democrats made was rather than -- for sam dash to ask this question to butterfield, because

it had been uncovered by don sanders who worked for the minority and the republicans, they would have the republicans ask butterfield the question, since don sanders had discovered this. in other words, to have fred thompson raise the questions. this gave it a little different feel with the republicans uncovering this incredible bit of information. in the clip that follows, i believe you can see howard baker on the far side of the screen. he looks like he's ill after having found this information out. >> january 21st, 1969 and continue to be employed until march 14 of this year, is that correct. >> that's correct. >> mr. butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the oval office of the president? >> i was aware of listening

devices. yes, sir. >> when there those devices placed in the oval office? >> approximately the summer of 1970. i cannot begin to recall the precise date. my guess, mr. thompson, is that the installation was made between -- and this is a very rough guess, between april or may of 1970 and perhaps the end of the summer or early fall of 1970. >> are you aware of any devices installed in the executive office building office of the president? >> yes, sir. at that time. >> were they installed at the same time? >> they were installed at the same time. >> actually, the dates are a little bit wrong. if you recall, i showed you february 16th of '71 is when the system was put in the oval office. and the next was the cabinet room and later after that the

eob office. on jim hamilton's recollection of his meeting with me, he's nailed it. he's right on. except in 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. but that is the sort of thing a memory can do. it was just -- myself and then i actually returned to marathon as soon as the -- the meeting with sam dash ended. and needless to say, the fact the taping system had been uncovered was quickly conveyed to the white house. fred thompson called fred buzz hart to let him know and found him not overly concerned. i think buzz hart had figured it out by then, that there was such a system because he made the memo sent to thompson that so

closely had the notes of my conversati conversations. today i know and you know from reading the book, what happened is nixon himself listened to his conversations with me. most of them. he never listens to until years after the fact to the march 21st conversation. but he listened to the earlier conversations. because he said his defense on being no information before march 21 about a cover-up. so he listened to the earlier conversations to hear if there was anything in there that put the lie to his defense. well, it is marginal. you could argue either way on some of the conversations. it's clear today, we know that he knew of the conversations -- of the cover-up before i came in to tell him. but then it wasn't quite so clear. so he's confronted with the question of what to do with the tapes once they have been

revealed. lend garment is his -- is one of the people who became white house counsel and the other was fred buzz hart. the two of them had the job together. garment tended to handle the non-watergate matters with buzz hart handles the watergate matters. garment was a former law partner of nixon and had a long relationship to him and is the man who prepared him when he gave his one argument before the supreme court when he was still in private practice and before he had been elected. len was a good trial lawyer. bus hart had been the general counsel of the defense department and had come from capitol hill where he had worked for a number of prominent and powerful senators. when -- addressing the question of whether nixon should destroy his tapes, len garment had sent one of his assistance --

assistants to the law library and found a case pretty much on point that showed if somebody destroyed evidence, that they knew would likely be subpoenaed, it was obstruction of justice. buzz hart, however, when they went out to visit nixon, who is in the naval hospital, which this is the picture of, he argues to the contrary. he says he has a case that shows that since they have not been subpoenaed, there is no obstruction of justice. and over four decades i've never found buzz hart's case so i'm not sure what he was referring to. i have found garments case. nixon decides he doesn't want to hear about it and sends them both away without making a decision. but this starts the fight for the tapes. this is really where the nixon

defense ends and the rest is summary. because once the tapes are discovered, within days al hague, now the chief of staff replacing haldeman, he literally gives an order without even the president's consent to stop the taping system. so it is -- the plug is pulled on july 18th and that's the last conversation -- or that's the last day the system is in. hague also -- he knew there was something -- but he thought it was controllable by nixon and that is why he had tapes of me that nixon had the foresight to somehow record the people he thought he should and not the other. when he learned it was -- it was voice-activated, he was dumbfounded because he knew he was on the tapes too at that point, which made him very unhappy. i think that is when the plug was pulled, when he learned he

was voice-activated. the senate committee immediately sends a subpoena for the tapes and they want them. and it becomes the focus of watergate for the rest of the story, it is really the fight for the tapes. ironically, judge sirica, who was the first to rule on this, denies the senate the tapes. says they don't have the standing to sue. it is a political question. and he passes on it. however, archie bald cox, the special prosecutor who also filed a subpoena, he said he is entitled on behalf of the grand jury. it is an interesting breakdown where the judge is clearly protecting the court system. a grand jury is a part of the court system. it is under the jurisdiction of the chief judge which sirrica was. so he said, i will hunt those tapes, but i'm not going to give

them to the senate committee. we're going to take this through the judicial process on behalf of the courts and the grand jury. so that -- so cox wins his argument that the grand jury should get them. by october of -- of '73, although there are earlier indications, nixon initially, when cox was appointed special prosecutor, thought it was a great idea because he thinks in thought, cox was weak and would never really pursue him all the way. so he was happy to hear that cox got this appointment. however, by -- as cox keeps pushing for the tapes, he keeps making noises that they might have to get rid of him. and he comes up with an idea after sirrica says cox is entitled to the tapes, that would be sort of a meddling deal. he said, i will make arrangem t

arrangements for senator john stenis, a former judge, someone in the senate who nobody would question his integrity, that he can listen to the tapes, make transcripts of the tapes, and give them to cox. and that is what he wants cox to accept. there is a real flaw -- a couple of flaws in this plan. first of all, it was well-known that john stenis was almost deaf. a little problem to listen to these very difficult-to-hear tapes. and more important, for stenis to make a record of them and then pass them -- the special prosecutor, they were useful to the prosecutor because they were hearsay at that point. they were not -- they were not the tapes themself. they were a -- a version of what stenis had heard or not heard and passed on and really not

admissible in evidence, probably. as a result, cox decides -- excuse me -- cox decides to hold a press conference. at the press club on says to the press, i'm going to not accept the compromise. it's unacceptable, and he explained the reasons why he couldn't accept it. it was really kind of cox's who was a very mild mannered, sort of retiring personality 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 as a special prosecutorer, he's been appointed by the department of justice under the authority of the attorney general. and what has happened, the reason we have a special prosecutor is that when four

people left, there was a vacancy. he had to make an agreement for a special prosecutor. he pledges to them that he will honor this agreement if he becomes attorney general. so when elliott is told to fire cox, he says, i can't do it, i am going to resign. nixon through hague said, let's call bill ruckle's house and have him do it. ruckles says he will not do it either.next person in line is the solicitor general, who is robert bourke. bourke will carry out the order

and fire cox and will forever be labelled by doing it. what a lot of people have miss ed is the argument that bork and rickles made to him. after you leave the third man in charge of the department of justice, it's any man's bet who has the authority to say he could be the acting attorney general. they put pressure on bork to do it. it would cost him a seat on the supreme court later that would nominate him. the hard feelings that would continue among democrats for decades. here is a clip of what happened

the night that cox was fired. all the networks learned about it that night, and i had just plead guilty a few days earlier thinking that cox was going to do this right. i had agreed to cooperate with him and proceed accordingly, i was somewhat stunned when this interruption occurred and i was able to locate that clip. >> president nixon has discharged archibald cox as watergate special prosecutor and has abolished the special prosecution's office as a result of the prosecutor being discharged. attorney general elliott richardson has resigned his post as attorney general and when

deputy attorney general william ruckleshouse refused to carry out the orders, he was discharged. the acting attorney general will be solicitor general bork who informed cox that he had been discharged. all of this happened after a day in which special prosecutor cox had said that he could not carry out the provisions of a new provision that president nixon took on the watergate tapes which prosecutor cox was trying to get for its hearings. repeating deputy attorney general william ruckles does house has been discharged. all of this following the discharge of special prosecutor

cox. >> 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, you can see were the lead that nixon had forced the firing of cox. this is why it was called the saturday night massacre which came the monday kerr for the events that weekend. as a result, on monday everything really changed. 44 watergate resolutions and bills were introduced on monday the 23rd. 32 of them called for impeachment proceeds. 12 of them called for the appointment of a special prosecutor. the congress had really done nothing on impeachment until this moment. this was one of those pivot

points in this story. as a result of all this, the white house is pretty shocked. they did not foresee why i don't know, it was pretty predictable. but nixon decides on monday the 23rd that he's going to give siricka nine of the subpoenaed tapes, 8 of which are with me and the other is the june 20th conversation which had the 18 1/2 minute gap. he also decides that he will select a new special prosecutor, leon jaworski. i think he felt a safe selection as i had alluded to before we listened to the march 21st conversation, because that conversation would so change jaworski's view.

on november 17th nixon decided that he -- the press was getting so out of hand that he had to try to calm this situation, that he was agreeing now to turn the tapes over. and he was going to turn a new leaf and lower the temperature by explaining what he was doing. so he met with an association of news editors at all places, disney world. here's the clip that is most memorab memorable. >> i want to say this to the television audience. i made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, i have never profited, never profited from public service. i've earned every cent. and in all of my years of public life, i have never obstructed justice. and i think too that i can say that in my years of public life that i welcome this kind of

examination. people have got to know whether or not their president's a crook. i'm not a crook, i've earned everything i got. >> mr. president. >> fairy interesting body language there. anyway, the plan is -- the next day, he was really setting up the fact that he was going to start releasing tapes. so what happens when it comes time to release the tapes? they have to go to judge siricca and tell the judge there's an 18 1/2 minute gap in the conversation. a whole new round of headlines. disclosing the gap. i think that herb block, who was not richard nixon's favorite cartoonist captured a lot of the mood at the moment in this particular cartoon. again, nixon fought for a while, until he realized when the house

judiciary committee which had then, by then gotten very serious about impeachment proceedings and undertaken them and sent a subpoena, they did have jurisdiction. if anybody at all had jurisdiction to get these tapes, that nixon had no defense against. it was the body who had exclusive jurisdiction to investigate potential wrongdoing by the president in the house judiciary committee. he decides to release the tapes. this is a staged event. this was done for the theater to give the impression that literally stacks of books of tapes were being released. the actual book itself was about 2 1/2, maybe even 3 inches when they were all printed on both sides and released. here's nixon's statement.

>> good evening, i have asked for this time tonight in order to announce my answer to the house judiciary committee subpoena for additional watergate tapes. and to tell you something about the actions i shall be taking tomorrow. these actions will at last once and for all, show that what i knew and what i did with regard to the watergate break in and cover-up, were just as i have described them to you, from the beginning. the full resources of the fbi and the justice department were used to investigate the incident thoroughly. for nine months until march 1973 i was assured by those charged with conducting and monitoring the investigations that no one in the white house was involved. as far as what the president personally knew an did with regard to watergate, and the cover-up is concerned. these materials, together with

those already made available will tell it all. >> ever since the existence of the white house taping system was first made known last summer. i have tried vigorously to guard the privacy of the tapes. i've been well aware that my effort to protect the confidentiality has heightened the sense of mystery about waterga watergate. and in fact has caused increased suspicions of the president. the basic question at issue today is whether the president personally acted improperly in the watergate manner. >> month after month of rumor, insinuation and charges by just one watergate witness john dean suggested that the president did act improperly. this sparked the die manneds for an impeachment inquiry. this is the question that must be answered, and this is the question that will be answered

by the transcripts tomorrow. what does come 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 about it in this office on march 21st, some six months later. >> well, it didn't quite work out that way, fortunately. what happened is, jaworski was not going to take a pass on his ability to get the tapes. he not only read what he read, including the fact that the

transcripts were less than accurate, the house judiciary committee in addition had a very interesting approach to have the transcripts prepared. they called in people who were blind and used them to make transcripts because they had more sensitive hearing and came up with many, many improvements in the tapes. so they put out a document that showed tremendous gaps in what nixon had actually put in his transcripts. but it was the jaworski case that went on to the supreme court for 64 additional taped conversations that would really cause the problems for nixon. because that would reach for tapes like the tape on june 25th where nixon orders the cia

intervene and cut off the fbi. indeed that tape alone would put the lie to nixon's defense. after 25 months of cover-up, it ended when nixon was told by the supreme court 8 to 0 that he had to release the tapes. it was 8-0 rather than 9-0 because rehnquist was the judge -- justice who recused himself, because of his relationship with john mitchell. thinking he was too close to it. that would result in nixon's resignation. he would lose the support of the handful of the republicans on the impeachment committee who had not voted for impeachment, it would become unanimous of the house impeachment committee to recommend at the house there would be impeachment. when senators goldwater and the

other leaders of the republican party in the senate went down to advise the senate, the president of what the temperature was in the senate, goldwater said he could not find one vote for nixon, including his own if it went over to the senate. nixon resigns on the 9th, and i think when he called his staff in the next morning, as he was leaving. he got it. he understood for at least a fleeting moment, what had gone wrong. and i think this clip kind of captures it.

>> it's only a beginning, always, the young must know it, the old must know it. it must always sustain us. because the greatness comes, not when things go always good for you. but the greatness comes when you're really tested, and you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes. because only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain. and so i say to you on this occasion, we leave -- we 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've done. we want you to continue to serve in government if that is your wish. always give your best. never get discouraged. never be petty. always remember, others may hate you. those who hate you don't win unless you hate them and then you destroy yourself. and so we leave with high hopes, in good spirit and with deep humility. thank you very much. >> that, however, was not the

end of the story. the next month, haldeman, mitchell and several others would go on trial for the cover-up. that would last until january 1 of last year, when the jury would return its verdict. it was a brilliant defense of just not saying anything, and staying in a corner of the courtroom, where almost he was overlooked. but like in nixon's resignations the tapes played a major role in the conviction of haldeman irlickman and mitchell. >> the discovery of the tapes to me was inevitable. too many people knew about it

that sooner or later they were going to stumble into it. it would have one way or the other, certainly ended waterg e watergate. >> on that note, let's end this class. thank you. this year marks the 40th anniversary of the church committee's final report on cia, fbi, irs and nsa intelligence activities. the report unveiled major domestic surveillance operations under the ford and nixon administrations thursday, on american history tv in prime time, a spotlight on the church committee and its work. we'll see the 1975 testimony of william colby, former senators walter mondale and gary hart,

and rex bradford. tune in thursday at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span3. tonight you've been watching some of our american history tv programming in prime time. we'll take you live to conferences, symposiums and historical sites. on american artifacts, go behind the scenes with us to museums and archives, and travel with us to the nation's classrooms, where you'll hear from college and university professors on lectures in history. watch past presidential campaigns on road to the white house rewind. and journey with us through the 20th century on real america, which showcases documentaries and other archival films. over the next few weeks, watch for our airings of portions from the