Good Afternoon and welcome to the William G. McGowan Theater that's located here at the National Archives in Washington DC. And also
would like to extend a special welcome to those of you watching online on our
YouTube channel. My name is Maria Marable Bunch and I am
the director of education of public programs here at the National Archives. Before we get started on today's program, a lecture that's being presented by Geoff Shepard, based on his recent book The Real Watergate Scandal, I would like to share
with you some upcoming book lectures that we have planned at some future dates.
Actually tomorrow at noon we were expecting the historian Jay Winik will be
here to discuss his book 1944 FDR and the year that changed history and on Thursday
October 29 we're expecting Kevin Lippert who will be here to discuss his book War
Plan Red United States' Secret Plan to Invade Canada and Canada's Secret Plan to
Invade The United States. Both of these events will be followed by a book
signings that will take place after the program. To find out more about these and
all of our public programs, please consult our monthly calendar events that are
located in the theater lobby or you can visit us on www.archives.gov That is our
website. Our today's speaker, Mr Geoff Shephard, he holds a degree from Whittier College
and the Harvard Law School. He was selected as a White House Fellow in
1969 and assigned to the Treasury Department where he worked under Paul
Volcker, then Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs. Following his fellowship years, Mr Shepherd
joined John Ehrlichman, Domestic Council Staff at the at the
Nixon White House where he served for five years, first as a staff assistant
and ultimately as associate director. After today's lecture by Mr. Shepard,
there will be a book signing of his book he's going to share with you today for
book signings that you will find just outside our National Archives
bookstore when the way let's welcome to Mr. Shepard. Thank you, it's good to be here with you to talk about my book. My book is a very threatening book. It's threatening to the
people who were victorious in the Watergate scandal because it documents
judicial and prosecutorial wrong-doing and we'll get into that during the
during the course of today's discussion but it's also a love story. The subplot
of my book is a love story between me and the National Archives because the
National Archives has all the records to helped with the documentation of my book. This is my first book presentation here but this is not the first time that I've
spoken in McGown Theater. I've been here 10 times before. Let me tell you how that happened as Maria said I
graduated from Harvard Law School and upon graduation was selected to be a
white house fellow and then after my fellowship year, I joined john erlichman's
domestic counsel at the white house so at the ripe age of 24 I became the
youngest lawyer on president nixon's white house staff and I stayed five years
on the domestic Council it's the counterpart of the National Security
Council and its staff's the president on domestic initiatives just like the NSE
staffs him on foreign initiatives and my focus was a Department of Justice so I
knew everybody involved in watergate I'd worked with them some I like someone
didn't like but they weren't names in the newspaper these were people that were known to me
and then as the tide of watergate rose I demanded a seat at the defense table and
I became principal deputy to Fred Buzhardt who was the president's principal watergate
defense lawyer. I don't want you to think that I was in charge I joined and left
the white house in my twenties but I was in the room when the decisions
were made and most of the other people who knew what was going on on the inside
have passed away and Here I am and I would submit I know more about what went on
inside the nixon white house with regard to watergate to do the endgame of
watergate than anyone else who's still alive. I did one other thing though after
leaving the white house. I've run the reunion group for the Nixon White House staff
for the past 40 years and these are not the campaigners these are the
policymakers the staff of the NSC the domestic council and presidential
appointees to OMB we meet every November after the election and we talk over
government government issues and challenges particularly from the
republican point of view then starting in 2010 5 years ago I started producing
what are called nixon legacy forms and what you would do is get 4-5 of these
people who worked on a particular initiative and get them to reminisce
about what they were trying to do and whether they accomplished it and
what the documents show and we co sponsor these with the National Archives
because as David Ferriero the Archivist says: these people make the documents
come alive. So over the past five years we've produced 35 nixon legacy forums 10
of which were done here in McGowan theater the other thing that I do because I'm a
sore loser is I spend an awful lot of time researching watergate documents.
About 12 years ago, I made a very happy discovery and that's what was that
the National Archives had the documents and what is so intriguing is that the
special prosecutors were government employees so all of their documents
should've ended up at National Archives and and and most of them did and
we'll get into that too but I have spent an awful lot of time researching these
documents and the documents form the basis of the book. You may not know this
but in general and the great scheme of things white house documents are out in each of
the presidential libraries so for president nixon those are out at Yorba
Linda 42 million pages of documents. Here at Archives 1 on the mall they not only
have the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence the bill
rights but they tend to have all the legislative and court documents so you
come here and you can see the briefs that the people in the watergate
cover-up trial filed in their effort to achieve due process and then out of the
building called Archives 2 in College Park Maryland they have all the rest of the
executive branch documents not the white house but everything else and they have
1 unit out there called the special access section and the special access
section contains the documents from the Kennedy assassination, the Nixon
Watergate documents,the President Clinton impeachment and those are kept in a
special unit and you can't just go traipsing through them because you'd
like to because they're investigatory documents
archivists have to read and redact the names of the innocent before they let
you see the documents so it's it it's a hassle you do it you do it with FOIA
requests and it takes a while to get the request cuz they have to be a review the
documents before you get to see them and I've made a general pest out of myself
over twelve years and I have lots of FOIA requests filed and it's something
like what's called a closed stack research library. Suppose you have a
library about all bunch biotech documents they won't let you go look
through the stacks and pick off any book you want you have to work out of the
card catalog if there is today a card catalog this the same thing with special
access section you request what you'd like and then they go decide what's
responsive to your door your quest so you're you're never quite sure that
you're asking the right way and that you're getting the document so you keep
going back again and again and I and that takes a while so based on my view
the real Watergate scandal turns out to be the trashing of our Constitution and
Bill of Rights in the successful effort to drive Nixon from office to imprison
his senior aids and to realign political power without the inconvenience of an
election if you were around at the time you remember the mantra was that no
man is above the law and it's true we are a nation of laws and not men no man is
above the law but these people were the law the people who were called upon and
given the extraordinary powers to investigate and prosecute him preside
over the watergate trials and it turns out to be the same age old question that
we struggled with since time immemorial who will protect us from our protectors
because these people were given extraordinary authority and then in my
view it went to their head in the the abused the authority to correct political
items that they wanted to change what so unique is it it may have started or
in my view come to the surface in watergate, but it's going on today. Just
today the lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal bemoans that Wisconsin's
John Doe investigation of Governor Scott Walker and the news in the editorial is
that they have discovered that during this secret investigation of funding for
conservative support of Scott Walker they didn't the investigators democratic
investigators did not limit themselves to people in Wisconsin they were
targeting nationally prominent conservatives and their record shows
that and and and it is in my humble view the same exact situation that you get
with watergate now our founding fathers had experienced a concentration of power
and abuse and they develop this Constitution which is copies of which
are downstairs which is as revolutionary today is it was hundreds of years ago it
divided power governmental power between three co-equal branches and then because
they didn't even trust that it set up a bill of rights which guarantees
individual rights vis a vis the government and and as we go through this I think you'll
notice that what I believe happened is all of that was swept aside in the
political eagerness to to get back at richard nixon so with that we start
through so what is the thesis of my book with the thesis is much of what you've
been told about watergate turns out to be untrue president nixon was driven
from office largely by false representations of highly partisan
democratic prosecutors its age were denied any semblance of a fair trial in
brief the pics were saying that I swear loaded the deck was stacked and we'll go
through each of those as we get into it why forty years later do I stand before you
talk about my book that came out two months ago and the answer is that the
three top prosecutors took their records with them now they're not supposed to do
that these are government documents that's understood from the outset and
it's kind of a cover-up because these were the most sensitive documents and
they took them and what turned out to be among the most sensitive were taken by leon jaworski the second
special prosecutor he took them back to Texas when he left he had a legal career
died gave his documents to his alma mater to lessen you should learn your
documents go to a non governmental documents go to your alma mater Baylor took its sweet time making them
available to the public and then somebody was down there looking at them
at these are grand jury transcripts these shouldn't be out archives was
notified they went down they looked, Baylor cooperated and the files came back. I had
one of my innumerable FOIA requests pending and I was among the very first
to see these newly uncovered documents and and I i photocopied photographs
scanned and took my set home and then I start reading through them and I
discovered just incredible stuff that forms the basis of the book to other
special prosecutors archibald cox and his top assistant James Vorenberg took
their documents back to the Harvard Law School and they still sit there and I
pointed out to archives this summer that there is in one instance in Cox's filed
the original grand jury transcript of a significant event that that is just
sitting up there in Cox's files and what happened in james vorenberg's files he
was Cox's top assistant and he appointed himself very early on the
responsibility of writing the report when it was all over so from day one
he's keeping a chronology in his own handwriting in a
notebook of what's happening and when. He took it with him and then he had a
full career became dean of the Harvard Law School he passed away in the year
two thousand it took them at least a dozen years to get around to organizing
an opening his files and I believe I was among the very first this past summer to
go look at his files and they're just shocking they're not in my book but
they're just shocking because if you know what you're looking for it gets
confirmed time and time again in in Prof Vorenberg's notes and and those shouldn't be
there those those should be down at archives. I was that was enthusing with a
former attorney general earlier this summer about my find and he said
what makes you think those records are gonna be there when you go back and I
thought about that I scanned my set but I went back and
looked at that they're not even though they order they're all confused people
are not people but but Ford Bergen others have went through it before it
was given to the library and arranged by day and there's four months missing me
does it every two weeks of what happened the two weeks before but there's a
four-month gap that's why archives have these records they ought to be available
now and in the future 22 future researchers so just to remind
you of the players in case you weren't around for the unpleasantness the folks
across the bottom are the ones who did the day they're the real criminals they
got their hands dirty so gordon Liddy orchestrated the break-in jet magruder
was his boss he sent them in and he lied to a grand jury about it in the cover-up
and John Deere and the cover his own admission he was chief desk officer of
the cover of the three people across the top are nixon's top aides met with
attorney general and then head of the re-election committee bob haldeman was
his chief of staff and Jon Erlichman my boss was head of domestic affairs but
he'd been counsel to the president before that and the issue then and today
is whether the folks at the top orchestrating the coverup by the folks
at the bottom and it's not a situation where we're talking about innocence or
exoneration those words don't come out in a scandal like watergate the question
is because these three were sent to jail the question is was the case made in a
court of law before a jury of their peers beyond a reasonable doubt that
they were orchestrating the coverup and that's the issue and that that's the
issue that explore in my book I don't think the case was made and I think
because the case was rather flimsy they did blamed in the paper they'd been
tried and convicted before the urban committee legislative trial but the case
could be made in court so the judges in the prosecutor's cheated cheated to
secure the convictions and that's that's what the book is about how did we get to
this well these are the pictures of the Attorney General and is professor on
your left is elliot richardson elliot richardson was brought in to be attorney
general after the collapse of the cover-up because he was claimed he just
wasn't involved at all but he didn't want to be attorney general just been
confirmed the sector defense and he was very happy there as it turns out he
harbored his own ambitions of someday becoming president and he didn't want to
be involved in watergate because to make the tough choices in watergate was too
upset one side of the other hand and be matched in this controversy so he wanted
nothing to do with I call him the pontius pilate of watergate because he
washed his hands up and remove the entire department of justice from the
fret and what you did to do that was rather happily delegate all of the
prosecution authority to his former professor archibald cox archibald cox
was in in treating choice to be special prosecutor
he was the Triple Crown winner of the Kennedy political dynasty he had worked
with jack kennedy since 1953 it traveled on the campaign plane with the candidate
in 1961 when President when candidate kennedy was running for office he
assembled in led the academic brain trust for kennedy during the campaign
his reward for being a loyal and partisan advocate was that he was
appointed solicitor general of the department of justice when robert
kennedy was Attorney General he was a great solicitor general but he was
highly partisan he swam with the chart and then after he went back to Harvard
he became the principal staffer for senator Ted Kennedy in his opposition to
president nixon Supreme Court appointments so if you go through the
wreckage you get this exchange of letters where he's he's explaining to
senator kennedy how they go opposing about opposing individually and and and
in turn the the people that president nixon nominated for the Supreme Court
interesting choice to lead the investigation he then decided to appoint
his friends to assemble the special prosecutor's office and and he brought
first two professors with him from Harvard Law School and they appointed
people they know people they had worked with that was that way they didn't have
time for FBI investigations so they wanted people that they already knew and
you ended up with somewhat of a bias selection during the investigation the
bias was they all hated richard nixon and the republican administration this
next slide and lecture at law schools I tell them this is going to be on the
exam and I know you can't read the names but you can see the colors and this is
the kennedy johnson Department of Justice the previous administration to
president nixon's and the names in a red did and there are seventeen of them all
ended up on the special prosecutor's staff so the entire leadership and the
top 17 most senior members of a special prosecution force had all work together
in the previous administration these are the people who were thrown out of office
by President Nixon's 1968 election and they had total and under review
authority to investigate the nixon administration and the next
administration had no authority to investigate any democrats because elliot
richardson thoughtfully gave that to archibald cox to the fact that they
didn't investigate prevented us from saying well get all these other people
did so we were the only ones being investigated by people who didn't like
us now the next slide and I know you can't see these phases but they'll be on
the exam to this is the prosecution staff on the courthouse steps there's a
hundred people they're they're not all lawyers if you can't turn over there
were about 60 lawyers on the special prosecutor's staff but this doesn't
count the FBI and the IRS agents they could direct in their investigation and
what they announced that their first press conference was they would
investigate not just wanna get but every single allegation made against the next
administration since he took office and they set up task forces and they decided
who they were gonna go after and and the result is what we call the Watergate
scandal no institution no business charity not your church could withstand
it determined investigation by a hundred people who didn't like you with all the
time and budget they had to go after people in in its own way this is a
criminal bill of a tender we target we we know who we don't like we're just
gonna go find what we can charge them with so we scream bloody murder ron
ziegler the president's press secretary said this is a bunch of zealots they're
out to get us don't believe what they're telling you what they're leaking to you
and what the special prosecution step dad was decide to write a public letter
to sigler saying you know how to quit complaining about this we're objective
we're just enforcing the law and and we're doing this in a proper manner and
I'm going to read you the key paragraph in this public letter this is from leon
jaworski when I first to send the task I've been forewarned based on rumored to
be sure that there were those in the special prosecutor's office determined
to achieve their own and regardless of truth I'm now prepared to assure you
after a month plus association with the staff the suspicion is totally unfounded
I've worked daily with my principal subordinates reviewing data being
assembled additional sources to explore recommendations to consider an action to
be taken in my experience that the body found no group as a whole are more
objective more fair-minded more dedicated to search for truth in this
unusual group of talented lawyers very find any among them who do not meet the
qualifications of fairness and objectivity I would not hesitate to
dismiss them at this we call a ringing endorsement of his step you're scared
been their own month he didn't draft this letter it was drafted for him by
the staff and they said look are you with us or you're not with us we're
under attack and here's what we want you to to say and he signed the letter and
the press jumped on it and we were told you know Ziegler's wrong these are
objective people so we ask ourselves what did leon really and one of the
records recovered from what it took to Baylor that came back and I looked at is
an exchange of memos between leon jaworski and his deputy group wants him
to do certain things because they're fearful the house judiciary committee
isn't up to the impeachment task force be right back and says that's just not
our business we're supposed to investigate and bring criminal charges
against people in the in the administration and Ruth right
back and says yes but they but but but they're gonna mess it up on the hill and
we have to help them solely on writes back and he should get on I'm not sure
this is worth are continuing to write memos and then and then he gets to the
key paragraph which of course I'm going to read to you so this is from its
confidential memo to his deputy six weeks after this public letter now let
me address myself to the general tenor of your memorandum which reflects an
attitude I discussed with you before the subjective conviction that the president
must be reached at all costs it's also reflecting their references to
Sinclair's later he was one of nixon's lawyers he stated noting that you should
not expect in all fairness of some concern to me are the discussions plans
in understanding how to reach between staff members prior to any discussion
with me this result in convictions already formed and frankly these
circumstances the meeting to have no help liane memo doesn't have the rather
put the Red in there to help you understand the key part what are you
saying is you guys are getting together and it green on your point of view
before you come in to talk to me so what I'm getting is a uniform failings of of
one's one point of view and not input and and the meetings are useless because
you're having three meetings and then it concludes the stubborn fact remains we
must be alert not to give support to white house charges that have been
leveled against the step perhaps it's too late to get objective opinions from
other so after the best I can in making decisions for which I will be held
responsible he's saying to his deputy that it can't
trust his own staff that they really are bunches out now this didn't become
public this is an internal memo and it was
taken by what if there was another copy in the archives it didn't make it into
the final files but George he took kids and I found it and I put it in my book
so what did they mean that the effort was to reach next at all costs and what I've uncovered and
and and it's in the book for the first time that this is what the documents
show is that watergate prosecutors concluded nixon had personally approved
the payment of howard hunt blackmailed demands and they secretly ensured both
the courts and the congress of their conclusion but difficult years they were
wrong but they did it in secret so we are president nixon's defense chain
didn't even know the accusation was being made but they went into the grand
jury and the documents show this and they said we we can prove we concluded
and we can prove nixon himself approved the payment and the grand jury promptly
named nixon as a co conspirator in the watergate cover-up indictments and they
secretly assured the staff of the House Judiciary Committee of this same fact
and of course they promptly recommended nixon's impeachment it when you get into
it and it is all in the book they're doing this in secret so they can't be
refuted but then after nixon resigned his aides come to trial and well nixon
wasn't on trial by name he was on trial because the prosecutors wanted to prove
their case they didn't have a chance to bring nixon to trial so they announced
at the beginning of the trial they're gonna prove this and then their
witnesses don't go there their own government witnesses won't testify the
way they'd hoped so at the end of the trial in their summarizing that they
just skip it and you're left with this situation and and and this gets complex
and nixon resigned because of the smoking gun tape that's not in my book
in any detail but that's why he was on tape is released in August 50 resigns on
August 8 but nobody knew that tape the whole time
they were investigated president next so why what was the basis for getting the
grand jury to act against president nixon and it's this representation that
nixon had personally approved the pale but didn't personally approved the
payout in fact it if nixon had known that that's what they were saying he
wouldn't have resigned because he would have known I didn't do that I'm not
resigning under that cloud but nobody knew about this they didn't have to
prove it because the smoking gun came out so that's that's nixon now we're
gonna slide fairly quickly so I have time to do books really into parts they're so what
they did to next and he never came to trial so it's a different case than what
they did to the top aides because they came to trial and I i mean tender
documents show that she did so the fifth and sixth amendment or about all you
have on your side when the government accuses you of criminal activity you get
a lawyer and you got the sixth amendment that says no person's life liberty or
property without due process of law and the sixth addresses itself specifically
to your right to make criminal trial including being confronted by York users
I maintain and I devote a chapter to each of these things in my book that the
rudiments of due process include a judge is fair and impartial non-partisan
prosecutors who are enforcing the law equally they're not just in portion it
against you or dusting off old statutes that have been in force since 1934 just
to get you that you get a jury of your peers thats not tainted by adverse
pretrial publicity or biased against do politically and every federal court you
get an automatic right of appeal to the circuit court so there's a review to
make sure you got a fair deal in the trial below none of these things
existed for the watergate cover-up trial just go through just a couple of them
but the judge me as well upset at the prosecution table he was so eager for
convictions the parsing the prosecutors as I've already mentioned we're all are
democrats and they were identifying the people they wanted to get in and
deciding what laws they could name against them but the jury which was in
within the district was both tainted in bias to the eighteen months of
unrelenting adverse publicity and the district is a unique political entity
there's no entity like the district anyplace else in the nation consistently returns eighty percent
democratic majorities election after election after election these the the
jury pool from which the jury was chosen consisted mainly cuz its registered
voters of people who didn't like republican and you get a free month
trial with five people each having a lawyer reach cross-examining someone and
and the jury get so confused by about the third day they don't know what's
going on and it comes down to do they like you and this is a jury pool that's
predisposed not to like you and then you get a right of appeal to the Dec circuit
and what the what the book disclosures which is just astounding is that
archibald cox was so concerned with judge directors bias in favor of the
prosecution but he got worried that he would get reversed on appeal judge
record was the most reverse judge in the Dec circuit anyway and mainly on the
basis of not respecting defendant's rights so Cox became very worried that
they'd win at trial and would be reversed on appeal so he held a secret
meeting with the chief judge of the Appellate Panel where he explained to
the chief judge of the Appellate Panel in secret how they could stack the deck
on appeal and have enough liberal justices willing to hold their
nose and uphold surrenders antics and thats all detailed in the book but every
level where you expect due process there was no there was no due process that was
flagrant judicial and prosecutorial wrong-doing so let's just explore a
little bit of it this is one of my favorite flies judge directors in the
middle a disgrace to the federal judiciary it
he met the book documents over a dozen secret meetings with prosecutors and
other people interested in the trials interest adverse to the defendant three
of these people are prosecutors center bottom row silver pearl silver is one of
the unsung heroes of watergate Earl didn't do anything wrong decides that he's he's inexperienced so
she says in his own book I like to release a young lawyer but I wasn't sure
he was up to this trial the break-in trial so it takes him aside and kills
in-house director thinks the trial ought to be conducted that's not supposed to
happen the judge isn't supposed to lecture the prosecutor in secret and
push books in here go read this go see what I did when I was a young man archibald cox who was at about eight
o'clock on the clock down we know we met at least three times in secret with
judge sirica we don't know what was set up at the top leon jaworski who replaced
archibald cox we know of at least four meetings we know the date and we know
the place and delusions too many others but we know about the four because when
it came back to the office he dictated memos that memorialize the secret
agreements they were making and we have the memos and conveniently their
reproduced in the appendix of my book absolutely unbelievable you don't know
which is more shocking that they were made him or that he was making a record
up and then the three others are people with interest adverse to the defendant
sam dash at ten o'clock he was chief counsel the urban committee they needed
witnesses and what they decided to do he was he was a
friend of Sir records they they taught together georgetown law school she goes
to see him and he said you know what you could do judge you can throw the book at
these defendants and then tell them you'll consider reducing their sentence
if they testified before my committee so in a in a constitutional inversion you
get the judicial branch conspiring with a legislative branch to Fort the the use
of of real trials never before or since he in any court in america has a judge
said I'll consider reducing your sentence not if you cooperate with
prosecutors but if you testify before a legislative hearing and had 2 o'clock as
Edward Bennett Williams had been with one of the greatest trial lawyers of all
time he was counsel to the democratic national committee they took our break
in badly and they were suing over the break in their lawyer and his counsel
but washington Post went Woodward and Bernstein were ripping into a new era
every day well they got Woodward and Bernstein got a little aggressive during
a lull in the report in and they decided well why don't we go interview grand
jurors to go interview grand jurors but they did and one of the grand jurors
complained to Earl sober who informs the records records said you know you can't
do this so they send edward bennett williams in to see the judge on the side
to work this out now they'll tell you see records Republican he was appointed
by President Eisenhower 1957 that's true they won't tell you that edward bennett
williams was his career mentors that they were so close that mr. and mrs.
William for godparents of selectors daughter that's right you wouldn't let
Williams practice in front of them because they were so tight they went to
the Redskins football games all that up to together all the time so Williams
goes in secretly made with soya reckon that you know it's ok that the grand
jurors didn't talk to him so no harm no foul its just aggressive reporters they
won't do it again and then Woodward and Bernstein wrote about this in their book
and William said we can't put that in the book my god it will make me look sleazy and they didn't take it out so we
went to the publisher did you get this out of the book and the publisher
wouldn't do it so Williams who knew this could lead to have an ethics charge in
the bar didn't talk to a full year and there's two books about edward bennett
williams that described the sentence into them than two years ago we learn
they were successful in talking to at least one grand choeur because in a
separate book about ben bradlee they they find in his files a six page
typewritten memo about the results of this interview with a grand jury and
when they were making the movie over presidents manage distinguished in the
book the producer of the movie in his note says Berenstain said another law is
going to go back to the grand jury and see what else the grand jury has to say
so you get in this situation where Woodward and Bernstein and the senior
staff of The Washington Post you must have known about all bit have been lying
for almost 40 years about the interview in a grand juror and you don't know
whether Williams knew you only know he slipped in on the side blue in the
judges here and worked out their problem and then finally you have Park moment
you probably don't know clark before Woodward and Bernstein he was the Dean
of the washington reporters he was they didn't use the term investigative
reporter think they called them breakers but but Clark was the best he
had talked his way into being nixon's ombudsman when they first came to office
in 1968 was talking about the cleanest administration they all say this
administration industry and Clark went in and said look what you need is an
ombudsman at canary in the mine shaft to alert you to misfeasance in your own
administration and you need somebody like me and but then he tired of Clark's
desire to studio shoot the breeze with him every day and it froze him out and
the two guys who were responsible for freezing Clark out
where bob haldeman and john looked so Clark quit in disgust after 10 hunt
takes over the washington bureau of the demand register and becomes mix and
Severus critic and has all the credibility in the world because he
worked there he was also a really good friend of judge sirica and in Clark
right to his own book betty was worried thats erect really wasn't gonna be
aggressive enough in his presiding over the break in trial so he had a series of
long intense conversations with Soraka about the importance of using the trial
to discover the truth not to preside over guilt or innocence use in the trial
to uncover the truth of the break-in and that's what surrogates named Man of the
Year by Time Magazine for his aggressive conduct of the break-in trial and Clark
is saying I get credit for doing this I met with in my good friend I met with
the most serious of times and I convinced him to do this Clarke and Clarke wrote a book about it
called game plan for disaster and they wrote another book which would text book
for investigative reporting and he put the two together in in his tax book he
says I knew there was a cover-up and I knew who was orchestrating the coverup
they were the guys who froze me out from nixon I'm interpolated a little bit but
I couldn't tell anybody because my interview that led me to conclude that
was off the record but I'm willing to bet we don't have a record that's what
he was telling judge syrup in secret now you're supposed to get your accuser
under oath controlling you and trial but when the accusers blowing in the judges
hear bad things about you you can't cross examine you can't refute it you're
not there that's why the rules are so clear judges can't have ex parte but just can't do it because it violates
the six the men but judge sirica was above the law so that leaves us with my
conclusion questions I i'm I'm for truth justice and the American Way what we had
was a hostile takeover of our government without an election if no one's held
responsible even forty years later then it's likely to happen again this is not
a democrat or republican issue this is a situation where our Constitution and
Bill of Rights failed in a time of intense political conflict so i'm saying
let's get the truth I've raised all kinds of red flags but there's many many
document that remain sealed the urban committee in the House impeachment
committee sealed their records which is traditional for fifty years they won't
be released till 2024 and nobody who's alive will know anything when they go
through them let's release them now look at what I've uncovered in my book let's
get the truth out let's go take a look at those records did the special
prosecutor staff the urban committee did they staff the House impeachment
committee in the record on the latter is absolutely replace that they were
fearful the house judiciary committee wasn't up to the task so they took
information obtained from the grand jury in from prosecutorial efforts and
related in secret to the House Judiciary Committee co-equal branch that couldn't
get that directly they were given through the back door the senate created the special
prosecution step to have total unreviewed independence from the
Department of Justice the founding fathers would have told you if you give
them that kind of power to lead to corruption because there's no checks and
balances I'm advocating that the Senate Judiciary Committee today in light of my
disclosures go take another look at the reasons and rationale for that demand
forty years ago and see what they could investigate a whole lot more
easily than I and i'm saying the port whose record is just besmirch with
wrongdoing three different judges in secret meetings with prosecutors the
courtroom launched its own investigation and and determine what really happened
and they should release the grand jury testimony that led to next in being
named a co conspirator one of the grand jurors told the newspapers that they
took a strong hope take strong same grand juror told the newspapers a
prosecutor was in the room when they took the struggle prosecutors not
supposed to begin the room when the grand jury vote we need to see i mean i
i maintain the documents also show they're telling the grand jurors nixon
himself a prude but the records there we can unseal that and see what they say
let's let's get the truth out secondly justice these convictions of
these three guys met you and all of them are hopelessly flawed but the due
process violations just compound on each other the challenge to those convictions can
only be brought by their descendants so family members have to come forward I'm not sure they want to but for the
court to take another look they've gotta come forward and file a petition and
finally I humbly stand before you went in light of everything I've disclosed in
my book I tell you america owes richard nixon an apology
this system Bernstein said when it was all over the system work the American
system or but you look at my book and you'll see it precisely the opposite
nothing worked as it was intended this was all extra-constitutional people were
cutting corners and cheating because they were so eager to nail richard nixon
with that we go to questions their microphones at each side please don't
throw anything happening I appreciate your coming you can walk out if you'd
like no one no one was saying anything but take your names top of stairs yes sir ok let's assume for a moment mr Shepherd
that everything he said was true to my question is you worked in the white
house that time you fall through do you believe personally that richard
nixon did not think to be impeached and then would you also say that Mitchell
haldeman and ehrlichman did nothing to warrant their conviction or simply that
the process was tainted and I understand legal that could move it but there's
really two questions of law and the question of reality so I they would
that's why we drafted gonna do a follow-up question this is this is why
I'm I know the questions coming this is the great wiesel answer ok let me let me
analogize if I could to a sporting event if you discover later that in this
football contest one side was paying off the referees you could argue for ever weather but for that weather once the
other one but it doesn't matter because once you've established cheating you
don't inquire further we don't do it that way now we we we can't do that here
so the first answers beat the heck out of me but I will add member when I said
innocents in exoneration are not not on the table you could say nixon mishandled
stuff without question there is in the legal on you but you know it's it's a
refuge of scoundrels and criminal law it's guilty beyond a reasonable down but
in tort law where you're seeking to recover money for wrongdoing it really
comes down to knew or should have known I think all four could be held liable
for knew or should have known I work on this every night my wife of 42 years ago
there's two hundred edges off at highway to disaster if they had just this summer nice things if they had just not hire John Dean or
gordon Liddy nixon had pushed a little harder in the beginning if I believe he
came back from Key Biscayne he demanded the truth he was told it's not I don't
taste but I think he was told if the path were followed carefully it might
lead to John Mitchell's doorstep and John Mitchell departed within two weeks
of the breaking we thought it was over his wife mark but you look inside the
record and they're saying you know John it might be a good time to leave this
this this could get message if nixon had destroyed the tape when you could say
politicians today have learned that no record is a better record he he could
have survived two presidents get down to the three people cuz I worry about this
to there's nothing that's come out in 40 years but the white house knew of the
break-in in advance but all the man or john erlichman or or the president
talked about John Mitchell now we're talking about these two guys so you
could argue they had nothing to cover up what they did you pay trusted John Dean
their lawyer to go handle the problem you know the real action committee is
kitty cornered from the white house itself it's legally and and
geographically separate the break-in people are caught it becomes very clear
very soon that the people at the re-election committee you're in deep
doo-doo john was sent as the president's lawyer over there to make sure the
problem stays over their bad as it gets it won't be the white house that they
were worried it was chuck Colson he assured them it was they were greatly
relieved they said ok Bible it up over there but John Dean new two ladies campaign intelligence plan
he'd recruited him he's the one that promised him all the money he said the
two key meetings in Mitchell's office when liddy describes this unbelievable
campaign intelligence plan that involves kidnapping and prostitution unbelievable
so when the people get arrested and and liddy says my team you know he is at
risk of prosecution himself I believe that's why he orchestrated the cover-up
now every day all over america lawyers defend guilty klein's found guilty by
jury but they didn't they did it wrong without they themselves committing
criminal acts I think ehrlichman haldeman believed that's what John Dean
was doing that he was trying to keep the problem bottled up over there hit come back and meet with him we don't
have there's no tapes at his meetings with ehrlichman haldeman and I know he
would say I'm having trouble containing the problem you know it's going to get
worse before it gets better but I tell you as sincerely as I can he didn't say
did I mention it was rehearsing jeb magruder for his perjured grand jury
testimony did I tell you I was taking prosecutorial information that came to
me in my position as counsel and I gave it to defense lawyers did I tell you
that I destroyed evidence from howard hunt's safe that implicated me did I
tell you that I that I borrowed $4,000 of campaign funds to pay for my
honeymoon he wasn't he wasn't saying what he was doing even even in the
famous cancer on the presidency speech of March 21st when he comes in and tells
the president he's in real trouble John Dean doesn't say what he's been doing in
all of the books in all the speeches that John may you never hear about what
his role was but you go back to the prosecutors note in particular the
beginning prosecutor they wouldn't give him the news because they concluded that he was
intimately involved in the break-in and then there's a there's a point in his
book where his lawyer says the first book you know john they think you're
guilty and you better start talkin cover-up to make yourself a witness to
go get the other people and two paragraphs later he says in his own book
this cover-up by this pretty good and when you go back through the note and
everything of the prosecutors they're interviewing
John Dean think there are 12 telephone calls or extensive meetings with beaners
lawyer during the month of April his testimony changes he says when it first
comes in I can give you Mitchell and I can give you magruder they were the
re-election committee and then about halfway through he starts to focus on
erlichman and haldeman and then notes from the lady who's interviewing these
original prosecutors says before that time he created the impression that
haldeman was clean and erlichman involvement was restrained now in the
long way up its case called something P Maryland begins with a be it'll come to
me in the middle of talking blakey whatever it is and it requires
prosecutors to turn over possibly exculpatory information to defense they
don't do it this way if this would have enabled the the defense lawyers to cut
into ribbons I mean you you change your story halfway through to accuse these
people but those records never became public until until I uncovered you had a
follow-up obviously you were there if if they got a fair trial and it to me a
fair trial is either enrichment or Baltimore would one or more of them have been
acquitted where everything came out about john Payne they didn't have a bias
judge they had a fair right of appeal I don't know any
jury trials are all of the values but I can do believe one or more would have
been acquitted but it's the event we just don't know yet if the other thing
is you spent time with in the next administration and have been following
as you say for 42 years I became a reporter during that time and I've been
following this closely as you but this is just my theory and checking on you
that richard nixon is almost like a shakespearean tragic hero that many of
the same feelings were in himself and what he didn't have rather than what he
was able to do if I were to broach that to you would you agree or disagree with
that statement Haiti's damaged psyche but I'm gonna use
it not the wrong choice he was elected as
the president but some of these insecurities set up his own downfall do
you think that's how false or not I'm not important worry about these things every night I
have an unpublished had peace watergate is tragedy and I take Aristotle's
definition of tragedy which is that a prominent individual not necessarily a
pious 1 commit some insignificant and the reaction of the gods way out of
proportion to that act and then in Greek tragedy for the audience is to watch the
hero the protagonist struggle valiantly against this reaction and ultimately
fail because the hero must die and I think that's a fair characterization of
nixon I think he was the most talented man to become president in our lifetime
mean his his prowess in foreign affairs is it is really very very very
surprising he was very innovative in its domestic affairs told you that I do
these legacy forms i dont 35 of them we go every single thing that he did but he
was flawed he he had taken down alger hiss early on
he made a lifelong enemy the elite eastern establishment and they just load
and to some extent he relished it because he thought he was representing
you know the people but you know even paranoid have enemies he was absolutely
paranoid about Ted Kennedy emerging and running against him in 1972 Nixon had
barely 168 barely want and and he thought the presidency was stolen from
him in nineteen sixty and it's on the tapes he would rant in front of his
aides as they were going into the 72 election that senator kennedy was
skipping the primaries but would emerge at the convention and they didn't
understand the kind of cheating and skulduggery that went on and and he's
pushin his staff pushing the campaign to be more
aggressive I mean you know it's it's almost impossible to defeat an incumbent
running for re-election as they got all their side and they were trying with
everything they could to ensure his re-election and and and again without
supervision they stepped over the line there all these books about next so
intriguing and and and and we we have to change you know you can find those tapes
forever I have my signal must be must be one of its past one o'clock thank you
for coming thank you for not trying things
