>> you mean haldeman and ehrlichman? >> i mean haldeman and ehrlichman indeed. >> yeah. but most of -- i didn't listen to all of the tapes but i listened to a lot of them. and haldeman and ehrlichman and the president all seemed to be on the same page. i would say the president was not going, oh, really? that's an interesting idea. he was right there with them. there's no question of parasite and host here. >> since you mentioned him, could you give us a word picture of james st. clair, since you were his partner later? >> later. jim came in, and, you know, even at that point, he was a coony, old trial lawyer and my one abiding memory of him is i was presenting the case for the committee on an article based on impoundment of funds. failure to spend funds that had been appropriated. i think a lot of them were clean air act. clean water act. so i said, well, here's the case for impoundment and then i said here's the arguments the other way. and bob mcclure from illinois, said, well, are there any other possible defenses that the president should raise? this was right in th

so, i think i read testimony of some of the key people, haldeman and ehrlichman, you know, john dean a number of times. and we also were working at the same time thinking about what was an impeachable offense. and joe woods did a lot of work on that topic. there was a memo written. i don't remember the name of it, but it was a fairly elaborate memo about what was a reason for impeachment. and so that sort of meshed into what i was doing. >> may i stop you there? bill weld and hillary rodham worked on that. did you participate at all in that process? >> i think it stayed in discussions. i did not participate in the research. i remember discussions about, for example, whether we were talking about, you know, obviously what high crimes and misdemeanors means in the constitution, that phrase. i remember talking about and my having a view, which i think others shared, of the need to read that phrase in connection with what the constitution says about the duties of the president, particularly to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. and so that high crime or misdemeanor i recall

my predecessor, john ehrlichman, who had been white house counsel, one of the things i said to him very early in the conversations after reporting what i knew is i said, john, we probably need a criminal lawyer here. he dismissed that. i realized if there was anything that was essential at that white house, it was that mr. nixon have the most talented criminal lawyer that was available. that didn't happen to be the case. so we proceed from there trying to gather the information as to what's going on. as i say, the die is cast that week. one of the more interesting bits that happened is that nixon calls john mitchell when he gets back to washington from the residence. not a recorded call, but the call has been recorded not on the eob phone where he later reports to haldeman what happened, but rather the room phone. it's a fascinating conversation where mitchell is told by the president that he thinks that the matter can be controlled, and he comes up with a plan to have a cuban committee in miami raise money and protect -- and support these people who have been arrested. richard, i don't

to keep the burglars private, but it wasn't coming from the personal bank account of haldeman, ehrlichman and mitchell. it's completely without foundation. this is one of the questions i had for woodward, what did he think about this, and then this is one of the cases where he turned the question around to me. well, did you find any evidence of that? no, i didn't, and nobody else did, not the watergate special prosecutor, not the senate committee, not the impeachment committee, it was just a falsehood. because felt really didn't care -- he really did have contempt to the media. all that mattered to him was there were stories, true or not, that would appear in the press and upset the white house. this story appeared if woodward was sloppy enough to write it up if he found confirmation, and the white house would know it wasn't true, but it would affect them. at least for one cycle, it would be something they would have to respond to. and felt was playing a very tricky game here, but the fact that watergate wasn't an election issue meant he could do this with relative impunity because it was

john ehrlichman, john mitchell, and ken par kkinson in the fron. when mardian resigned as the lawyer on thed nc civil case to go back to campaign work, mardian had been the goldwater 1964 western states campaign manager for barry goldwater from arizona, and in 1968 he was the western states campaign person for nixon in '68. so he was more -- he wanted to get voched with the campaign. he agreed -- mitchell agreed he could leave the case, the dnc civil suit, and he hired an outside lawyer, ken parkinson and the favor mardian did for hiring parkinson led him to also be indicted. there are some overt acts in the indictment involving mardian that do not relate to wall as a raur. i think ken parkinson only, only get with his role as a lawyer. he was found not guilty at the trial, all right? he was found not guilty at the trial. so the one person who was solely involved as a lawyer was found not guilty. mardian's defense was hifs solely voched as a lawyer and i should not be convicted. obviously the jury did not believe that in coming back with a guilty v

all of this by the law-and-order administration of richard nixon. >> john ehrlichman: is there a question in there somewhere? >> wallace: no. >> kroft: did you ask a follow- up? >> wallace: you didn't need to. what you've done is the bill of particulars about the law and order of richard nixon. >> kroft: and a plea of no contest. >> wallace: that's basically, that's correct. >> tina turner: you just remember one thing, in our first meeting. you must be good to me. >> wallace: why would i be otherwise? >> kroft: in many ways, tina turner's gentle plea to mike before their interview a dozen years ago spoke volumes about his talents and his reputation. he was nice to her. but soon, he went right back to his not-so-nice ways, here with charlton heston. >> wallace: it sounds to me a little bit like the language of the quintessential, forgive me, nut-case right wing zealot. >> kroft: in the spirit of fair play, we asked mike a final classic mike question: this is what some people say about you. >> wallace: uh-huh. >> kroft: that you're a grandstander. that you're the most important person in th

and you knew that haldeman and ehrlichman and the president had met to discuss this. but you couldn't prove that -- >> what was said. >> -- that the president had actual i hly said to them do th. >> and there was other circumstantial evidence going on and the reminiscence how the right plan what they did to contain it but you didn't know the exact words. you had a -- i would have said you had enough to be quite clearly and certainly sure, myself, but you didn't have what's called direct evidence. >> but, again, to probe, this is important, this is because you and mr. doar, you weren't alone in this, felt that someone of haldeman's stature would not be asking an agency to do this unless he had the support of the president. >> right. and more -- more than just that one fact. that the follow-up facts supported the notion of a policy and plan of containment of this problem directed by the white house over these following months and that that evidence suggested that at such an early-on meeting this plan would be form haulated and the presid would be in meetings with the pe

ehrlichman mr. colson mr. mitchell mr. dean and many others. i'm trying to focus on the president. >> i understand. >> what did the president know and when did he know it. >> here you can also listen to bob woodward talk about the role that deep throat played in their investigation. you can hear president nixon talking to colson about how they should handle the watergate investigation. they talk about their vulnerability because of the campaign activities described on this timeline wall. you can listen to detov christopherson who was judge sirica's law clerk. he is no longer alive. but his law clerk is very much alive and recalls vividly working with the judge on the trial and the watergate coverup trial. >> he had this sixth sense based on all that experience that someone or someones were lying in his courtroom. it drove him crazy. it infuriated him, really. >> he considered giving the watergate burglars very long sentences in order to encourage them to talk. this pressure certainly helped push james mccord over the edge and led to him breakin

and john's testimony was very effective, but haldeman and ehrli ehrlichman, they had a quandary position, and you had mitchell and you had everything in between. and so the american people are not willing -- i don't care who the president s they're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and they're very suspicious of his detractors. i think president clinton, for example, got the benefit of his enemies when he got in trouble. >> different trouble, though? >> a different kind of trouble. so when we found out about the taping system, you know, 100 things went through our mind at the same time. you know, is the old fox setting us up? was butterfield planted and sent over there? obviously not, because he didn't know he was going to be called as a witness or to be interviewed, i should say, to begin with. would they exonerate nixon? was he just waiting to spring this, you know. lots of different -- were they still present? were they still in existence? had they long since been destroyed? i think butterfield had not been there tofor four years, maybe. but anyway, they could have still g

so here the president is talking to john ehrlichman, his domestic adviser, about what jeb mcgruder is going to have to do to stop the investigation. at this point in july of 1972 it is assumed he is going to have to take the fall. the president suggests what he should say to investigators. >> i don't think so. because they'll convict him. >> oh, they'll convict him. >> no. he has to say i did this and it was a bad thing to do and i got carried away and i feel terrible about it. >> well, can't it state it a little better? he could say he did it, but state it slightly -- >> but it isn't going to change that. >> yeah. for instance, i didn't expect it to be this way. >> yeah. yeah. he could do that. >> i think it d

that would have been hall deman and ehrlichman, which he did talk to. what the rule today gives him that he didn't have back then, and if warranted, if those guys don't do the right thing, which they didn't, all the way to the president then, and then he gets to the president, the first week after the break-in, and, you know, we're not trying to say this would have happened, this is -- counter factuals are always difficult, but it's during that first week when positions are taken and the die is cast. so he needs to get all the way to nixon himself, not through a talking head, but himself and say, mr. president, what gordon liddy told me was they committed these past crimes, the ellsberg break- break-in, the watergate break n break-in, and they want to pay hush money in the future, and nixon has the ability to deal with the situation directly rather than eight months later when he has to go in and say there's a cancer on your presidency. by then it is a cancer. it's not yet a cancer in that first week, and he has the ability to get to him, say do somethi