Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean.
Title "SENATE HEARINGS ON CAMPAIGN ACTIVITIES"
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean.
Robert MacNeil in studio reintroduces John Dean's testimony.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean.
To the best of my recollection, it was the spring of 1971 that Mr. Haldeman discussed with me what my office should do during the forthcoming campaign year. He told me that we should take maximum advantage of the President's incumbency and the focus of everyone in the White House should be on reelecting the President. It was decided that the principal area of concern for my office should be keeping the White House in compliance with the election laws and improving our intelligence regarding demonstrations. I was also told that I should provide legal assistance in establishing the reelection committee and insuring that they had their own capacity to deal with the potential threats of demonstrations during the campaign and particularly security at the convention. I advised Haldeman that Jack Caulfield was developing security plan and that he wanted to discuss his plan with Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Ehrlichman. I also told him I would seek to get the Interagency Evaluation Committee working on the potential for demonstrations during the campaign and subsequently called Mr. Bernie Wells, the head of the IEC, to my office and told him of the concern of the White House for good intelligence during the coming campaign.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean.
During the months that followed. I devoted most of my time to regular office functions, keeping abreast of the new campaign legislation and familiarizing myself with existing election laws, the Hatch Act, and related laws. It was not until after the proposed Operation Sandwedge had been shelved and Magruder had left the White House to from the reelection committee that I began receiving calls from Strachan and Magruder that I was expected to suggest a lawyer to head up the demonstration intelligence operation at the reelection committee and to also serve as general counsel.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean.
On several occasions Magruder told me that he would like to have Fred Fielding, my principal assistant, for this job. Fred Fielding and I discussed it but rejected it for several reasons. First, Fielding was aware of the fact that I was considering leaving the White House at that time. I was actually interviewing for jobs outside of Government. And he knew that I would recommend that he succeed me as counsel. Secondly, if I stayed, I would need his assistance during the months ahead. I might add parenthetically, that as I look back, if I had accepted the job I was interviewing for at that time, I would not be sitting here today.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Testimony of John Dean.
After I informed Mr. Magruder that Mr. Fielding was not available, he requested that I suggest someone else because he was desperately in need of an in-house lawyer. Accordingly, I next went to Mr. Krogh and asked him if David Young might be available and interested. Krogh told me that Young was very much involved in the declassification project and could not be spared. The reason Young had occurred to me is that I had spent several days traveling with him in mid-October interviewing prospective candidates for nomination to the Supreme Court. I might add that during those days of traveling around the country together he never told me what the Plumbers Unit was doing or had done. But I felt that Mr. Young was a bright and extremely capable lawyer who would make an excellent general counsel and could handle the security and demonstration problems of the campaign.