Watergate Hearings - John Dean: Opening Statement
Watergate Hearings - John Dean: Opening Statement
(06:50:54) Opens to testimony of JOHN DEAN, former Presidential Counsel, who is reviewing with Committee Vice Chairman HOWARD BAKER memorandum he issued about the Committee to Re-elect the President's counter-suits against the Democratic National Committee, the intent of these counter-suits was to combat Democratic probing of the Whitewater break-in, Dean reveals in his memorandum that these suits contained smear tactics (06:54:24) Skip in footage (06:54:55) Skip in footage - Dean tells of praise he received from Nixon for keeping the Watergate affair contained during the campaign of 1972 (06:56:58) Skip in footage, image returns in hyper-color - Dean's opening statement (06:57:33) Skip in footage - Dean: "The Watergate matter was the inevitable out growth of a climate of excessive concern over the political impact of demonstators, excessive concern over leaks, an insatiable appetite for political intelligence all coupled with a do it yourself White House staff, regardless of the law" (06:58:55) Dean talks about Nixon and the White House staff's obsession with political demonstrators and goes on to explain how that led to calls for investigation of demonstrators to gather incriminating dirt on them, at this time the White House was authorizing government agencies to use information reconnaissence tactics such as break-ins and phone bugging (07:03:38) Dean says that the White House received reports on demonstators and demonstrations from the FBI and CIA, he gives a detailed desciption of what groups and activities the reports would cover (07:06:00) Dean tells the committee how Nixon personally requested he keep him abreast about an Anti-Vietnam war demonstration on the Capital mall (07:06:40) Dean tells the committee a good story about how he first came to realize Nixon's obsession with demonstrators, the story is about Nixon's request for the removal of a lone protestor and his critical sign from Lafeyette Park, a location in view of the White House residence, during the telling of the story Dean unintentionally gets a guffaw from the audience when he says a White House staffer said he could rustle up some thugs to have the man removed, Committee Chairman SAMUEL ERVIN reprimands the audience for this (unfortunately the image is glitchy during this story) (07:08:20) Image very warbly here - Dean tells the committee another story to illustrate Nixon's inability to handle demonstrators, Dean says that once when staying in a Hotel in Akron Ohio Nixon called for demonstators across the way from the hotel to be removed - (Image comes back to normal) Dean goes on to say that Presidential advisor H.R. HALDEMAN gave the order that any means, legal or not, was to be used to keep demonstrators out of Nixon's sight (07:09:50) Dean says that Nixon pushed hard for further intelligence reports on demonstrators with hope of proving a contention he held that the demonstrations were the products of Democratic operations to defeat Nixon