. >> you talked to a nixon aide chuck colson. >> he was very nice. he was a very repentant pro- nixon person. he was embarrassed when i read to him transcripts of white house tapes about walter cronkite. he was the pit bull of richard nixon. colson was on to the idea that they had to bring down the power of the big three. they liked cronkite. nixon personally liked walter cronkite personally. it really spoke for the entire state. if you can get walter cronkite, it was the liberal media. it became quite a square off between cronkite and the nixon administration, particularly chuck colson. as i quote in the book, he was interested in bringing cronkite down. >> here's a piece of video from a 1997 video with cronkite. >> in the middle of an explanation, what was coming down from the floor when a producer would come in and say go to mike wallace. he has the delegation. the carolina delegation did not have anything to do with that story at the moment. he made a very good story but it did not fit with the flow of what we were doing. i was saying "later, lat

i must contact that to chat colson. -- chuck colson. they went after cbs. >> cronkite did cbs radio. they forget that because his nightly news was such a ritual. he also did radio reports. the cbs radio, the script writing -- the reports were much more left tilting. one thing they noticed was that cronkite had a mr. center feel, but if you listen to him in the afternoon, his radio reports, johnson listened oto cronkite and he said that they would see that cronkite was on their side. colson honed in on that. he was not a fool but he cannot sell that to the american people. if they did not want to hear about it. he gave them the news. they did not feel like picking on him. he cannot get traction, and the nixon white house, when they were aiming at cronkite. cronkite would give a speech on the defender against the nixon white house. of the reporters would cheer -- all the reporters would cheer. cronkite would work with the french reporters all the time -- print reporters all the time in the wire service guys. all the other reporters like w

and can they link hunt to the operations that a president ordered chuck colson to undertake, and colson used hunt for some of them. that's the challenge for the white house. and that's why, as we lay out for here -- lay out for you here, that's why the white house undertakes a cover-up. we quote from president nixon's memoirs where he writes, "if the cia could deflect the fbi from hunt, they would thereby protect us from the only white house vulnerability involving watergate that i was worried about exposing. not the break-in but the political activities hunt had undertaken for colson. this time line lays out for you what the president meant and the vulnerability that existed for him as a result of the failed second break-in of the watergate facility. again, you can follow the evolution of the cover-up on the wall where the white house attempted to limit. what they would say limit the damage so that the fbi only, you know, stopped their investigation with the five burglars. as it became clear that the fbi was discovering other links, the white house then had to say, well, maybe we can m

. >> the president is concerned -- this doesn't happen -- although the president and chuck colson discuss this in a second conversation, colson-- this is one of those ideas that colson would tell us later in an interview, the kind of idea that he did not implement. it wasn't a good idea at all. in august of 1972, as it appears that macgruder and mitchell are not going to be indicted, the white house is relieved. but they're still not concerned that the five burglars, that these guys would start talking. the great concern was that they would start talking. and so the president talks with halderman. and they talk about the fact that they're being paid. and we put on the wall here the president's quote from that discussion on august 1st, 1972. "well, they took a risk, and they have to be paid." and the president has an idea what he'd like to do is to pardon them. and the question is, how do you pardon these political operatives without there being huge political damage? one is that you wait until after the '72 election, which is in november of that year. but the other thing in the president'

chuck colson was a lawyer. president nixon, obviously, was a lawyer, but, you know, all of these people are lawyers, and, yet, none of them had been trained in legal ethics. it was not mandatory. it was not required by the aba for a law school to be accredited, and the words that resonated is how in god's name did so many lawyers get involved in something like this? for the public it was -- the reaction was, you know, really how did so many lawyers get involved in crime? you know, the highest levels, the presidency. her big question was can lawyers just sit back and know that crimes are going to happen like paying hush money and that they can't do anything about it? you know, the defense of confidentiality, is that true? is that really our system? that gives rise to all these reforms, you know -- you all have to take ethics, you take a bar exam, cle that we're doing, and the change in the model rules. that happened as a result. it was an outgrowth of all of this. yet, here we are 40 years later, and if i read t

the mob some of the mob mexicans money and cash well yes there was cash it was from las vegas chuck colson got one of the payments by the way didn't let the december nine hundred seventy one bribe was confirmed by the f.b.i. confirmed by time magazine it was in two installments and the other thing nixon always tried to present himself as a very plain spoken regular folks kind of guy who grew up poor didn't grow up poor he grew up for the depression not bad his family on the grocery store the house that was pretty good in the depression but it turns out nixon had a lot he had a lot of secret money he had swiss bank accounts he had a friend his best friend bebe rebozo he was tied into business with bros while nixon was president rebozo made the money for both of them but they're illegal deals with nixon going back to his first race in the forty's. business is he only in cuba business is he own with bozo a huge amounts of money so a lot of this money wasn't even going to his campaign because he had a lot of illegal money flowing in his campaign that resulted in a lot of convictions others but

and then the nixon crowd, i've listened to all the nixon tapes with people like chuck colson and otherser cronkite. cronkite had become so popular he was seen as the patriarch of liberal media. the american people decided long ago they liked uncle walter p so he survived all of that on nixon. more than that, alter woodward and bernstein's "washington post," nobody took back page story about a third rate burglary at watergate seriously. cronkite did. he sent out reporters to investigate. cronkite's half an hour broadcast, which with commercials was 23 minutes, he ran a 17-minute piece backing up woodward and bernstein. that's what turned water gagate into baa ba big story. in a way cronkite outlast and out drew nixon and johnson. at the time, cronkite was a bigger star, celebrity, more respected than even the presidents of the united states of that era. his last time he did a big election was 1980. reagan won. again, cronkite was a buddy with reagan. they shared the same sense of humor and they both began doing sports broadcasting in the midwest. cronkite had different personal friends,

great pressure on us, chuck coal son went to new york, right to bill who owned the company in those days base you cannily said we're going to put you out of business. >> and colsonne of nixon's closest aides. and the first broadcast was 15 minutes, it was based on our story and of course we didn't know about the tapes at the time. and you go back and look at the tapes during this period and nixon is in there in a rage, he said the "washington post" is going to have damnable problems. he is saying -- he is saying things about people and again, everyone was an opponent, was an enemy and the language -- not only -- you put the headphones on and listened to some of that stuff you say, that's going on in the white house? what is going on? >> bob: i tell you the thing that struck me as i read this piece that you put in the "washington post" today, it is fine piece of work. it really reminds us and brings home and puts it in one place what this is all about. but the paranoia of that white house and of nixon in particular, the thing that really struck me was how much he hated jews. >> the elsberg break in, after the pentagon papers were leaked to the "new york times" an

colson. we have no interest, you know what i mean, in getting his ass up there, you know, on a perjury charge. >> nothing he's said that's consistent with anything that chuck has said. >> oh? >> you could be right. i thought the lady project was -- >> that's what he does say. >> he does. >> as i said in questioning a certain thing that he said that he didn't get into the -- any specifics on it and they had nothing that hits him on any specifics and i think he's probably clear on it. >> i think he believes that, bob. i know. >> he does. >> i think he believes that. but -- >> felt that all along. >> james rosen put that conversation into perspective. it's important to note that shortly thereafter, they had left the white house and they were forced out. guest: right, bob halderman was the white house chief of staff. he deserves a good book to be written about him. i'm not sure what the title would be but the subtitle should be h.r. halderman and making of the modern presidency. he revolutionized the communications era of the white house. and he was brilliantly efficient. he described halderman as a precomputer organizational genius and so he deserves a good b