Alexander Butterfield: The 60 Minutes Watergate Interview (1975)

60 minutes rewind colonel alexander butterfield was commander of the u.s air force's tactical reconnaissance force in vietnam in the 1960s later he served as military assistant to secretary of defense robert mcnamara during the lyndon johnson administration he retired from the air force to take a job as a deputy assistant and secretary to the cabinet of president richard nixon shortly after mr nixon's re-election he was elevated by the president to head the federal aviation administration he served with distinction in each of those jobs though his name was hardly a household word and then in july of 1973 alexander butterfield stunned this country when he told the watergate committee that richard nixon had tape recorded conversations in the oval office and elsewhere in the white house it was that revelation that eventually led to richard nixon's fall from power last friday alexander butterfield was back in the news when a retired air force colonel fletcher prouty asserted that butterfield had been in effect the cia's man in the white house prouty said he had been told that by watergate conspirator howard hunt since prouty's allegation butterfield has been unavailable to the press tonight for the first time butterfield with his wife at his side replies to those prouty charges the fact of the matter is i never was assigned i never was attached i never have been their designated contact man that is absolutely false all right he says that you were the cia's contact man in the white house and that he was told that you were the cia's contact man in the white house by howard hunt a former cia agent also one of the white house plumbers he quotes hunt as saying my contact there in the white house is butterfield question did you know howard hunt i have never met howard hunt in my life and i have never seen howard hunt in my lifetime you mean up to and including now up to and including today and as a matter of fact mr that's right mr hunt's presence on the white house staff was kept from me he was purposely kept off the rolls and i had the official role of all members of the white house staff in my capacity as head of administration kept from you by whom for what reason well by mr haldeman who had a jurisdiction over that and for what reason i have no idea but i've never seen howard hunt i don't know him at all and i did not know that he was on the white house staff and i was really supposed to be aware of all members of the white house staff i talked to fletcher proudly this morning he told me that he had not won but two luncheons with him and on both of those occasions he told punt told probably that you were the guy in the white house if i was their contact man i was a hell of a poor one because i had no contact whatsoever with the cia he led reporters to at least discern a spy motive or you know the word infiltration was used yes and i resent that because that that is as much as to say that i was at the white house to do at least a few things other than the things mr nixon knew about are expected of me and i think that's irresponsible i think it's false it's defamatory and yes you are damn right i'm you know i am upset by that and it comes a personal note here it comes at a particularly bad time right in the middle of a six-month period that i've set aside for myself to look for a position in the private sector you're out of a job you're out of a job at this moment well yes i'm out of it well i'm working as a consultant a part-time consultant as an interim measure but you know the damage is done when those things are first set is it your intention to sue fletcher and prouty for libel i think the grounds are there uh he's he's made a very serious allegation he was careless in doing so very careless with regard to his facts did you have cia clearance in the white house i had cia clearance i worked outside the president's office i was in charge of administration i read everything that went to the president's desk so i had to have a clearance for handling cia material which is not a big deal it honestly isn't thousands of people have cia clearance i have i've had one in many of the of the air force jobs i've had you and alexander hague were both simultaneously on robert mcnamara's staff in the pentagon at the time that president johnson was president of the united for a short period yes yeah i sort of overlapped with al haig i was mr mcnamara's white house liaison officer replacing general al hay army i was an air force officer i see i came into that immediate office to work with the white house and were you ever assigned by controlled by employed by the cia in any capacity during that time no very definitely not no did you ever do anything perform any chore not on assignment from the cia but in air force support you were an air force colonel but in air force support of a cia undertaking mr butterfield well i was you know i was in the intelligence gathering business when i commanded a reconnaissance unit in southeast asia i commanded on three different occasions all the low level and medium level reconnaissance activities u.s air force reconnaissance activities in southeast asia flying flying squad to the extent that the the cia may have used some of the films and used some of that data then the cia had something to do with that activity but not not to my knowledge i never did deal with the cia in any way you were in charge of installing the taping system for president nixon at the white house the one that eventually brought him down right i would i gave i was the intermediary who told the secret service to install it and that was the end of my that tapings system was installed by the secret service and one of the men in charge was secret service agent al wong he was the man in charge okay did you know james mccord at any time never never have met him or seen him to this day james mccord was one of the men convicted in the watergate episode i don't know al wong who is in charge of putting in the taping system in the white house that's right is a close friend of james mccord did you know that i've read it since i didn't know it it's time and mccord at the time that the white house tapes were put in was still a member of the c i a it is our information that the chances are very good that mccord was consulted by wong who doesn't have that technical capability or technical understanding about the equipment and about the installation of the taping capability in the nixon white house that's possible but but long was the chief of the technical security division of the secret service i would think that he had the capability but if he didn't i a united states senator has told me mr butterfield that it's his belief that the cia had has copies of at least some of the white house tapes and that indeed one of the reasons for president nixon's failure not to destroy those tapes was that he knew that the cia had copies that there was somehow a feed from those white house tapes i think that's i don't i don't believe that's the case you know anything could be the case but i just you know there's so many everyone's trying to make this thing appear so mysterious and it wasn't at all there was no facet of it that was mysterious at least to my way of thinking are you sorry or happy that you blew the whistle on the tapes well i don't like the term blow the whistle because uh that that you're told or one who sort of did something in a sneaky fashion i did nothing in a sneaky fashion i feel very good about my role i've never had any i've never had any regrets about my role you were fired from your job as head of the federal aviation administration by president ford when in march 31st of 1975 i was there two years and two two weeks we've heard varying stories as to why you were fired there are those who will even say that there was a vendetta against you in the ford administration because you were the guy who forgive me blew the whistle on the tapes if president ford wanted alex out that's his right and i think alex should have gone out it was the method it was the treatment yeah from the white house from the white house yes i felt that it was not straightforward it was not uh i i felt it was abusive i know the language that was used i know what language was used well we can't use it here why well now that's that you know doesn't serve any purpose anyway language used by whom to whom just the treatment to alex i mean uh well naturally she's i'm yeah i'm mad we were called and told that there was a meeting the message was dump butterfield in the nixon white house or the ford white house well in the nixon white house before the impeachment but i it was it definitely intimated to me by my friends at the white house whom i have many uh after mr ford came in that this you know it was the move was still there the the same people were and there are many of course that believe the whole thing was san clemente directed which i do i honestly do i in fact of course it is uh that's come on let's let's let's be direct about what you i am very direct i don't hold back on that at all all right you believe that that for some reason mr nixon out in san clemente was saying to jerry ford look get rid of butterfield well i think may have may have relayed the message but uh what i say al haig may have been the one to relay the mess but i think there were certain understandings there that uh including the pardon and including some other things and i well i'm sure of this mr butterfield you were satisfied in your own mind that president nixon knew about the watergate break-in ahead of time i said before the judiciary that nothing happened at that white house and i do mean nothing without the president's knowledge and i think for something of that magnitude to have been scheduled as a break-in of the democratic headquarters of course the president had to know about it you mean the way the white house operated it simply would not have happened unless richard nixon had known about it fantastically out of character or deviating from the modus operandi i knew of for him not to have known about it before now that's you know that is speculative i've got to say that i'm not you know that's the way i feel about it the story will continue after this bob holderman once said to me over at the hey adams hotel that richard nixon was the weirdest man ever to sit in the white house you knew him well well let me let me preface my what my comment on that was something too there was a there there was a greatness to mr richard nixon beyond the shadow of a doubt he did a number of things that that will show down in history and i too like bob haldeman uh admire him for some of those things i think i respect him less than bob bob said i respected mine but he was and he was he was he is strange but that's his his manner he doesn't uh tolerate small talk and but he's a he's a you know a very fine man in many ways he's very nice to me and my family very nice to my daughter when when she was in a very serious automobile accident and not for any personal gain on his part right and uh but i must say that yes having said that i must say it made me sick at heart really when i learned about the the corruption of principle that existed in the pinnacle of government and there's a lot of it i'm there is a surprising lack of real honest to god personal integrity in the higher levels of government and i say that while recognizing there are good many senators and representatives who you know who serve admirably well and who who do have personal integrity and people in the administration too but there's a surprising lack of it and i don't know when the country is going to wake up to it what's your feeling about all of this uh mrs butterfield well i'm uh i'm a very private person mike you know i have never spoken in public never spoken to press people and but this last few days i just i am really sick and tired of rolling over and playing dead in the name of public service and i have watched my husband who i know and have known for 35 years just dedicate his life to serving this country and these the people of this country with courage and honor and integrity and i have watched this abuse of him over the last three years and i am have finally had it and i think that the in the end it's not just personal it's the american people are being shortchanged he never thought of power he never thought of money he had never sought recognition he wanted simply the satisfaction of serving his country you know i've finally reached the breaking point i'd like to talk as i i'd like to let the american people know that maybe no simply devoted public servant can last in political washington

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 38,090

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Richard Nixon, Watergate, Alexander Butterfield

Id: ss9AkLUmM4g

Length: 13min 56sec (836 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 15 2022