. >> 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 people that implemented the containment plan would be aware of or direct the formulation of the plan of containment. >> the assumption was that this kind of plan of containment could not have happened without the president's involvement. >> particularly since there were these meetings right at this time and then immediately after, various things began to happen and then other things happened. so, again, it's a picture -- i remember one of the things i did towards the end was i prepared a lis

. >> do you at a certain point say to mr. doar, once he's hired, now it's up to you to recruit the rest of the staff? or do you participate? >> well, i had to sign off as the chairman. i had to sign off. there's a back story. there was a time -- because that's all i did. i was chief of staff, but i didn't do any of this rather house work. you know, a lot of thing, committee meetings were taking place, and, you know, normal business was taking place, but i was only doing this. so a number of times i asked him, did he not think i should go on the committee staff? because there are certain things where only members of the committees or staff of the committee could participate in certain meetings, and he always, he said, no. he said, i don't think -- i'd rather keep you here. and it was -- it was difficult a lot of times, because, of course, it sort of restrained my activities, but then it became clear later that no committee member could get to me, because if you're on a committee staff, a ranking member could have you fired or, you

. >> tell us a little bit about how mr. doar took advice when you were having this discussion with him, and i'm sure it happened more than once. was joe woods also part of the discussion whether or not to continue the investigation started by the senate? >> yes, no. joe woods was a very sensible person. doar surrounded himself with good people. you know, he used them, different people in different ways. and he consulted with them. he was, you know, fairly close to the vest at times. he didn't really know me before, and we as i said, we had a good relationship but a rocky relationship to begin with, but you know, it had ups and downs but over time i think it became pretty good and pretty close and which i think exists today. we were different personalities. he was more of a midwestern type. i was sort of an aggressive east coast prosecutor i guess. but he relied on other people, too. he relied on woods, who is a good example who is a very common sense guy. also a cautious person. he relied on dick cates who was more of a trial la