and j.t. smithas there, was there when richardson asked the head of the olc robert dixson to come up with an official justice department answer to the suddenly very pressing question about whether a sitting vice president could be indicted. and what j.t. smith told us in an interview for bagman is that robert dixson, that pressure packed fall of 1973, robert dixson really wasn't sure what the right answer was to that question. listen. >> he was asked by the attorney general as one should do to write an objective legal opinion on the amenability of the vice president to criminal process. >> right. >> and his office dug through 200 years of constitutional deliberations and opinions and ended up being in sort of a head scratching place where the opinion could come out either pro or con criminal process for the vice president and at that stage, one evening, i took a phone call from the late robert dickson who said do you have any idea how the attorney general wants this to turn out? >> do you have any i

what j.t. smithg man" is that robert dixon, that pressure-packed fall of 1973, robert dixon really wasn't sure what the right answer was to that question. listen. >> he was asked by the attorney general, as one should do, to write an objective legal opinion on the amenability of the vice president through criminal process. >> right. >> and his office got through 2 years of constitutional deliberations and opinions. i think they ended up being in sort of a head-scratching place where the opinion could come out either pro or con criminal process for the vice president. and at that stage, one evening i took a phone call from the late robert dixon who said, do you have any idea how the attorney general wants this to turn out? >> do you have any idea how the a.g. wants this to turn out? and honestly, who could blame robert dixon? it's not like you can just pull out the constitution and find an answer to the question of whether the vice president can be indicted. nobody had thoroughly grappled with this qu

over, i turned to one of elliott richardson's two senior administrative officials, a guy named j.t. smithand i said, could i have that? and j.t. said, well, i don't know. he took it and put it in an envelope. the next meeting, richardson given to me in an envelope, saying to ron liebman. i still have it. unfortunately, it has faded a bit. elliott richardson used magic markers. tim: sometimes, i guess he did not like his doodles, and he would crumple them up and throw it in a wastebasket. as soon as the meeting was over, we would all dive for the wastebasket to retrieve these doodles. brian: spiro agnew died in 1996. but 16 years earlier, he gave this interview. you have to listen closely as to what the accusation is. playing]ip >> i didn't know what general haig meant when he said anything may be in the offing. things may get nasty and dirty. on i knew was that he tried, five separate occasions, in two months to force my resignation. >> i think there were men around richard nixon, either in the white house staff or in the official mechanism of the cia, who were capable of killing a vice p