john dean did tell haldeman, nixon's chief of staff, and that's how nixon found out. now, the reason they didn't fire felt right away is because felt, they believe, knew too much. this is just before the election. and even after the election, watergate isn't going away, and they're worried that if felt were, let's say, transferred to butte, montana, which is hoover's favorite tactic, know that he might spill his guts on national television. so they try and tell pat gray he's not to be trusted. in fact, when nixon decides against all the odds to appoint pat gray as the permanent director, he says the first thing i want you to do is put mark felt on a lie detector, and if he fails, i want him fired. yes? >> you said about a third of the things mark told bernstein were incorrect? can you give an example, and did that have an effect on the coverage? >> at one point felt alleged that the reason john mitchell had resigned from the committee to reelect the president is because each of the top aides in the nixon white house, haldeman, ehrlichman, john mitchell, were having to

bob haldeman had asked the cia to do this. 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 mee

>> 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

the grand jurors and the prosecutors had never asked haldeman the question. that was the big mistake. >> and that was a real low moment. >> awful. >> because we did -- we wondered, were we wrong in substance? were we wrong in attribution? we fanned out and found out that, in fact, the story was true. when you look at the record now and the tapes and the trial of bob haldeman and even his own memoir, you see this was an operation. because he was the person closest to richard nixon. >> what was ben's reaction to this? >> bradley? >> stand by the boys. he sat there and he typed out his own nondenial denial. we called what the nixon white house did the nondenial denial. he said let's stand by the boys. he typed out this thing saying we stand by the story and, in fact, substantively, the story was right but we had made a serious error of attribution. >> when he did that statement, let's stand by the boys, he didn't come in and waterboard us or hold us upside down. he just said what happened? and we explained, as best we can. and, you know, goddamn it. >> there was

jim mcgruder, the deputy director of the reelection committee, calls bob haldeman who is in florida with the president who happens to be in the bahamas. gets an update very quickly as to what's going on, tells mcgruder that he's got to get back to washington immediately. does that. they put out a press release very quickly at the reection committee that is a totally bogus account, because one of the men arrested happened to be the head of security at the reelection committee, jim mccord. so it starts right at that moment and quickly unfolds that first week. what really cast the die, i happened to have been personally in manila giving a graduation speech. made my first mistake when i came home. but i did and went in the office on monday. i got a call from mcgruder, amongst others. mcgruder said, you've got to talk to gordon litty. i said, you talk to him. he said, i can't talk to him. he threatened to kill me. so i met with litty and learned from litty, who confesses the whole thing to me that not only has he been involved with watergate, but two of the men in the d.c. jail as part of his

bob haldeman, john erlichman, two of the finest public servants it has been my privilege to know.t to stress that in accepting these resignations, i mean to leave no implication whatever of personal wrongdoing on their part. and i leave no implication tonight, of implication on the part of others who have been charged in this matter. but in matters as sensitive as guarding the integrity of our democratic process, it is essential not only that rigorous legal and ethical standards be observed, but also that the public, you, have total confidence that they are both being observed and enforced by those in authority, and particularly by the president of the united states. they agreed with me that this move was necessary in order to restore that confidence. because attorney general east, though a publish distinguished servant, my personal friend for 20 years, with no personal involvement whatever in this matter, has been a close personal and professional associate of some of those who are involved in this case, he and i both felt that it was also necessary to name a new attorney general

we gave the memo to haldeman and his mouth dropped. didn't think we had it. hard to argue that it's not significant. you misinterpret when it said burn this memo at the bottom of it. irwin quoted the bible. here's what he didn't know. i told him this once. he said nothing is covered up that shall not be uncovered. what you whispered in private places will be shouted from the house tops. luke 12th chapter verses 2 to 3. then there's the last lesson of watergate. there will be a lot over the next two years, three years because we think of our anniversary as one of when the committee started. where are they now? well, a lot of them are in this room. and we say the system worked, the president resigned, a new president said our national nightmares are over. our constitution works. why did it work? the supreme court told the president you got to turn over the tapes. and he did that. the judiciary the framers called our weakest branch they don't have the power of the purse or the power of the sword. it enforces its orders by u.s. marshals. the marshals are appointe

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

the grand jurors and the prosecutors had never asked haldeman the question. that was the big mistake. >> and that was a real low moment. >> awful. >> because we did -- we wondered, were we wrong in substance? were we wrong in attribution? we fanned out and found out that, in fact, the story was true. when you look at the record now and the tapes and the trial of bob haldeman and even his own memoir, you see this was an operation.

we need to acknowledge and deal with the genuine emotions when we screwed up on the haldeman story, so on and so forth. we should have no objection to people saying how many deep throats there were. happily seven years ago, mark feld, on his own, decided to come out and unmask himself. that day, carl and i were in the newsroom and bradley and len downey are saying, you've got to confirm it. and we weren't worried that he's being taken advantage of. he's over 90, dementia. they're saying, looks this is reality. we need to confirm it and disclose it. we did. happily, then people started checking and felt wrote another book with his lawyer and so forth. all the details are laid out. so there's not a mystery about this. quite frankly, if he had died before that happened or we were able to write the book "the secret man" to tell about that story, you would have had more doubters. >> did you go to him at any point in the process before it was disclosed and he acknowledged that he was deep throat to ask him to consider coming forward? >> yes. when we were writing "all the president's men" i c

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

in them, had his antenna quivered, all these points, and had he then had the leverage to say to haldeman who blocked access to nixon, to everybody, not just john, you know what, i have got to get -- i have to report to the highest authority, and i have got to do it. and if you don't let me do it, then i think he could under the rule today report out. it's another big question that comes up, so it's a very interesting question in terms of watergate, what would have happened. >> and, laurel, did you have an opinion on this? >> i can't remember the original question. >> let's move on because i do have a specific -- i have a specific question for you which is, in your writing you talk about the third parties' interest, and i'd like you to talk about some of the pros and cons of putting a lawyer in the position of having to be responsible, not just for protecting their client, but for protecting the public which might be in contradiction to their interests of their own client. >> yeah. i was sort of reading a lot about watergate and thinking about some other contemporary cases -- >> and she w

you have haldeman on the left who grew his hair out. bob mardian who could not grow his hair out. 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. obvio

i mean, haldeman and ehrlich are these two reportersho have en sckinth sheav nidipcrry co thirisot d'tee n woodward and bernstein get there. this is an example of how complicated xon and obgatethe y .ent m ateth sge enhith s ognn he stngvelon coio tig cy achievements it had in the paris 1972. going to china and russia. the paris peace accords, ic'tke ime prdothan sof en hpes ce trip is in june of 1974. he goes to five different countries in the middle east. he suddenly looks to bethe stok. titnehe t o afhemibe tke ead acll of phlebitis while you're standing in the cr and waiting. and clearly his thinking, this is the greatest hail mary pass all time. if heca smhow broker a dl in mdlhyll th of cer atte ill t trick plus. but the clock runs out on him. >> well, as you can tell from a commentor, this sjs eremrryfcad io rey didn't care what reviewers have to say abou this book, although they've bee enormously aor ulllm m li t fr eot le i pwoh re tee,try i he end is greatly taken with a chacter whom i suspect most people herwho ven'adh l d gew t a tnd thooltw. ddel daughter who wa a friend of