how bob haldaman, as professor rotunda mentioned when he got up here, could review the tapes, listen to them. more than once he went through several of my conversations. he made notes on them. he got up and told the senate exactly the opposite of what those conversations said. i mean, that's hut sba h. he thought these people have to be awfully dumb. they'll never get this information, and i can get away with it this. it was extremely dangerous. i read a passage just the other day in nixon's memoir where he truly believed he was not going to be forced to turn over the tapes. he thought he could successfully win and would not be forced that issue. in fact, he -- interestingly, he writes on april 10th in his diary of 1973 before they had been revealed that he -- he has told haldaman, he thinks he should destroy everything but the national security information, so -- and then later after alex reveals them he remorses that they hadn't destroyed them. the reason he didn't destroy them, i think i have a more complete answer than alex does, is it got too late. there were multiple subpoenas

one of the most important elements of the cover-up and what was driving certainly my superiors bob haldaman and john ehrlichman was the fact that there had been a break-in by daniel -- into daniel elsberg's psychiatrist office by gordon liddy and howard hunt for the white house. some of the same men who were used in that break-in were now in the d.c. jail after watergate having participated in both. this is what brought the white house's concern. the cover-up might have been cut loose at the re-election committee level had there not been a link back to the white house. that's what's concerning everybody. nobody knows if it's so-called national security. nobody really knows all of the details of it. we do, of course, today. we didn't early on. so finding out what nixon knew and how he deals with the facts he is being told and also figuring out why he is not being told things and being manufactured of other things has been a fascinating process. i'm very early in it. i have to get this bed of basic information completed first where i listen to what my transcribers had prepared because i hear