Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 29, 1974 (1/2)
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 29, 1974 (1/2)
[00.13.00] The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. At the time the committee recessed, the committee was debating the Wiggins motion to strike paragraph 3, and those in opposition to the amendment had consumed 8 minutes, and those in support of the amendment had consumed 5 minutes. And I now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Wiggins, for such time as he May consume out of that time. Mr. WIGGINS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes of my time to The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Mayne. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Mayne is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. MAYNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Those of this panel who would impeach the President for setting up the special investigative unit would have us believe that there was just no national security involved in It at all. Well. then, why is it called the Plumbers unit? It was called the Plumbers because Its purpose was to plug leaks of secret information vital to the national security of the United States. There were many instances where, those leaks occurred. I mentioned several of them just before the recess. There was the secret Intelligence Board's report in which it estimated the Soviet Union's strategic strength and the Russians' first-strike capacity, a Matter of Great importance to our defense effort. Well, that was leaked by a Government official to a reporter who printed it in the press for the Russians' information. There was the disclosure by one of our senior officials, at least so the newspaper reporter said, of our Secret fallback position, our final offer in the SALT talks the strategic arms limitation negotiations, in Helsinki in 1971. Our negotiators there, our negotiating team, were trying to achieve as much security for the United States as possible from nuclear attack. The package which we had on the table therein dealing with the Russians -was asking them to stop the construction of all nuclear, missiles, both land and submarine based. But, according to another reporter, one of our senior officials con. confided in him that we were -willing to settle for less, that we did not really expect to get that much security from the Russians, and that if they turned us down we would be willing to settle for just a ban on construction of land-based missiles, and let go ahead -with the submarine based. Well, now, when that was printed in the newspaper, and the Russians read it, you can imagine what that did to our chances of getting the more secure arrangement the greater protection for our country. That was definitely, a security leak which needed to be plugged. Then there was the release of the he Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg also In June of 1971. Of course, Ellsberg had been identified so that' case is somewhat different, because the President highest national; security and foreign policy advisers had warned him that it Was extremely important that these officials, who were leaking this information, be identified and stopped. Well, Ellsberg had been identified, but it was by no means certain that he would not leak more information. Only part of the Pentagon Papers had been published at that time. It was not known whether he would go ahead with the rest, and there was also reason to believe that he had additional information. John Ehrlichman, in an affidavit, a sworn affidavit in April of this year, testified that in a week or 10 days of the days after the publication of the first Pentagon Papers, these papers were related to our decisionmaking in a war which was still going on, in which American troops were still in combat, which Kissinger was trying to settle in sensitive negotiations in Paris, and Ehrlichman said that Henry Kissinger met, with him and the President and hold them about Daniel Ellsberg, and told him that he was, and I quote; "In knowledge of very critical defense secrets of current validity, such as nuclear deterrent targeting" And I am reading from page 621 of book 7, part 2, and I continue the quote: "having never heard of Ellsberg before theft of the papers, my impression from Kissinger's description was that the Nation was presented with a very serious potential security problem beyond the theft of the larger historical Pentagon Papers. I later learned that the papers themselves were believed by defense experts to contain vital secrets. Dr. Kissinger told the President that the theft made very difficult our foreign relations with allies with whom we shared classified information. In these meetings, both the President and Dr. Kissinger were obviously deeply concerned." [00.19.15]