Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
It was after my presentation to the President and during our subsequent conversation the President called Haldeman into the office. And the President suggested that we have a meeting with Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman to discuss how to deal with this situation. What emerged from that discussion after Haldeman came into the office was that John Mitchell should account for himself for the pre-June 17 activities and the President did not seem concerned about the activities which had occurred after June 17.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
After I departed the President's office, I subsequently went to a meeting with Haldeman and Ehrlichman to discuss the matter further. The sum and substance of that discussion was the way to handle this now was for Mitchell to step forward and if Mitchell were to step forward we might not be confronted with the activities of those involved in the White, House in the coverup. Accordingly, Haldeman, as I recall, called Mitchell and asked him to come down the next day for a meeting with the President on the Watergate matter.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
In the late afternoon of March 21st, Haldeman and Ehrlichman and I had a second meeting with the President. Before entering this meeting I had a brief discussion in the President's outer office of the Executive Office Building suite with Haldeman in which I told him that we had two options. One is that this thing goes all the way and deals with both the pre-activities and the post-activities. Or the second alternative, if the coverup was to proceed we would have to draw the wagons in a circle around the White House and the White House protect itself. I told Haldeman that it had been the White House's assistance to the Re-election Committee that had gotten us into much of this problem and now the only hope would be to protect ourselves from further involvement.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
The meeting with the President that afternoon with Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and myself was a tremendous disappointment to me because it was quite clear that the coverup as far as the White House was concerned was going to continue. I recall that while Haldeman, Ehrlichman and I were sitting at a small table in front of the President in his Executive Office Building office that I for the first time said in front of the President that I thought that Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Dean were all indictable for obstruction of justice and that was the reason I disagreeing with all that was being discussed at that point in time. I could tell that both Haldeman, and particularly Ehrlichman, were very unhappy with my comments. I had let them very clearly know that I was not going to participate in the matter any further and that I thought it was time that everybody start thinking about telling the truth. I again repeated to them I did not think it was possible to perpetuate the coverup and the important thing now was to get the President out in front.