Watergate Hearings, June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean
Watergate Hearings, June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean. Interest in political intelligence.
Watergate Hearings, June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean
John Dean. I shall turn now, pursuant to the committee's request, from leaks to the matter of political intelligence, with the hope, that my voice will hold up through this entire statement. The pre-reelection White House thrived on political gossip and political intelligence. I knew of the type of information they sought even before I joined the White House staff. During the summer of 1969, while I was working at the Justice Department, the then Deputy Attorney General, Richard Kleindienst, called me into his office and told me that the White House wanted some very important information. Mr. Kleindienst instructed me to call Mr. DeLoach, then Deputy Director of the FBI, and obtain from him information regarding the foreign travels of Mary Jo Kopechne. I was told that Mr. DeLoach would be expecting a call from me and once I had the information in hand I was to give it to Jack Caulfield at the White House. The incident stuck in my mind because of the rather sensitive nature of the information being obtained from the FBI and the fact that I was made the courier of the information. To this day I can only speculate that I was asked to convey the information so that others could deny they had done so should the matter become known. It was not until I joined the White House staff and Caulfield was placed on my staff that I learned that Caulfield was assigned to develop political intelligence on Senator Edward Kennedy. Mr. Caulfield told me that within some 6 hours of the accident at Chappaquiddick on July 18, 1969, he had a friend named Tony on the scene who remained on the scene conducting a private investigation of the matter and reporting pertinent information back to him. It was not until this spring that I knew or could remember Tony's full name, Anthony Ulasewicz. Caulfield told me that Mr. Ulasewicz posed as a newspaper reporter and always asked the most embarrassing questions at any press gathering related to the Chappaquiddick incident. Caulfield also informed me that his instructions were to continue surveillance on Senator Kennedy and that he was doing so on a selected basis. I was told by Caulfield that although he had been assigned to my staff that he would continue to perform various intelligence gathering functions assigned to him by Mr. Ehrlichman and Mr. Haldeman.
Watergate Hearings, June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean
John Dean. I recall only once becoming involved in Mr. Caulfield's activities relating to Senator Kennedy. That occurred in the fall of 1971 when I received a call from Larry Higby, who later and I should say later that that later these talks were followed up with Mr. Strachan, who told me that Haldeman wanted 24 hour surveillance of Senator Kennedy and regular reports on his activities. I passed this on to Caulfield and we discussed it. He told me that he thought that this was most unwise because it would require several men and could also uncover his activities in that Senator Kennedy was bound to realize he was under surveillance and given the fact that it could easily be, misinterpreted as someone who was planning an attack on his life, and the police or the FBI might be called in to investigate. I agreed fully with Caulfield and after some initial resistance, I convinced Higby that it was a bad idea to have a day-in-and-day-out surveillance concept and it was called off. Instead, Caulfield was to keep a, general overview of Senator Kennedy's activities and pursue special investigations of activities that might be of interest. Caulfield seldom informed me of his findings, but occasionally he would bring matters to my attention. For example, Caulfield was instructed to investigate Senator Kennedy's visit to Honolulu in August 1971. I have submitted to the committee, exhibit no. 4, a copy of his report, which he passed on for me to see along with several follow-up memorandums relating to the visit.
Watergate Hearings, June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean
John Dean. Political intelligence often came from unexpected sources. For example, during this last spring of 1972, a top man at the Secret Service brought me information regarding Senator McGovern. I asked Mr. Colson if he were interested. He was very interested and had the information published. The persons on the White House staff who were most interested in Political intelligence were Ehrlichman, Haldeman, and Colson. As the reelection Campaign drew closer, I would have to say that it was principally Colson and sometimes Haldeman who sought information from my office that had political implications to it. While I have been unable to make a complete review of my office files to document the many types of inquiries, I do have some documents that evidence a fair sampling of the type of requests that were frequently made of me and how they were handled my office. The documents are extremely sensitive and could he injurious to innocent people, whose names are mentioned in them. Accordingly, I have submitted them for the committee's use, exhibit no. 5, and prepared to answer any questions the committee may have regarding these documents.
Watergate Hearings, June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean
John Dean. In addition to the rather wide ranging types of inquiries evidenced by the documents I have just referred to, and in addition to the extensive efforts to obtain politically embarrassing information on Senator Kennedy, there were also frequent efforts to obtain In politically embarrassing information on Mr. Lawrence O'Brien the Democratic National Committee Chairman, Senator Muskie, and Senator McGovern. While the involvement of my office in seeking such information was peripheral, I have submitted to the committee, exhibits no. 6, 7, and 8, records and documents which show the efforts of the White House to politically embarrass those individuals. Again, because of the very sensitive, nature of information contained in these documents and the problems that information might unfairly cause those individuals, I shall not discuss the documents further other than to point out to the committee that the interest in Mr. Larry O'Brien dates back, from my records, to the time, I first joined the White House staff in July 1970. While the interest in Senators Muskie and McGovern developed as the reelection campaign developed.