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.
Meeting on March 22nd. The arrangements had been made to have a meeting after lunch with the President with Ehrlichman, Haldeman, Haldeman, Mitchell, and myself.Mr. Mitchell came to Washington that morning for a meeting in Haldeman's office in which Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Haldeman, and myself were present. I recall that one of the first things Ehrlichman asked of Mitchell -was whether Hunt's money problem had been taken care of. Mitchell said that he didn't think it was a problem any further. There then followed a general discussion of the status of the Senate hearings, and the discussion never got down to specifies. It had been my impression that Haldeman and Ehrlichman were going to try to get Mitchell to come forward and explain his involvement in the matter. This did not occur. Mitchell said that he thought everything was going along very well with the exception of the posture of the President on executive privilege. He said that he felt that the President was going to have to back down somewhat or it would appear he was preventing information from coming out of the White House.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
I recall that Ehrlichman left the meeting before it had terminated because he was going to meet Secretary Shultz who was coming in from out of the country. I was also called out of the meeting about noontime when a message was sent to me by Ziegler that it was important he see me immediately. This had to do with the, statement that was running on the wires that Gray had said that I had probably lied and Ziegler wanted to know how to handle it. Accordingly I departed the meeting and went into a meeting with Ziegler and Moore to discuss Gray s comment. I returned to Haldeman's office where Mitchell, Haldeman and I had lunch.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
During lunch there was some continued conversation about the general problems. Mr. Mitchell raised the fact that F. Lee Bailey, who had been very helpful in dealing with McCord, had a problem that he would like to bring up. He said that Mr. Bailey had a client who had an enormous amount of gold in his possession and would like to make an arrangement with the Government whereby the gold could be turned over to the Government without the individual being prosecuted for holding the gold. Mitchell was addressing his request for assistance to Haldeman but Haldeman was nonresponsive and the matter was dropped.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
I again departed Mr. Haldeman's office, to have further dealings With Moore and Ziegler and Haldeman told me that there would be a meeting in the President's Executive Office Building office about 1:30 and that I should come directly from Ziegler's office when I got my problem worked out regarding Gray's statement. I arrived about 1:30 in the President's Office but the President was not ready to hold the meeting yet.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
The meeting with the President, Ehrlichman, Haldeman, Mitchell, and me was again a general discussion of the Senate. Watergate hearings situation and, did not accomplish anything. Rather it was a further indication that there would be no effort to stop the coverup from continuing. I recall that Mitchell told the President that he felt that the only problem that he now had was the fact that he was taking a public beating on his posture on executive privilege That the statement on executive privilege was too broad and that probably something should be, done to change his posture on the matter. Mitchell was not suggesting that members or the White House staff go to the Hill to testify, rather that some more cooperative position be developed to avoid the a adverse publicity. It was at this time that the President said that Kleindienst was to be working these things out with Senator Baker and he apparently had not been doing so. The President said that Timmons had told him that a member of Senator Baker's staff was very desirous of a meeting to get guidance. It was at this point, that the President called the Attorney General and told him that he should get up to meet with Senator Baker as soon as possible and get some of these problems regarding executive privilege and the turning of documents over resolved with the committee immediately.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
After the conversation with the Attorney General, there was a continued discussion of how to deal with the Ervin committee. I asked the President to excuse me from the meeting for a moment because I was working with Ziegler on a response to a statement that Gray had made. The President asked me what that was about and I then explained to him about Gray's statement. I told him what Gray had said and I also told him what the facts were. He excused me to use the telephone in his office and said that I should get that resolved as quickly as possible.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
When I returned to the conversation with the President, Mitchell, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman, they were still talking about dealing with the Ervin committee. The President told me that the White House should start directly dealing with the committee and that I should go up and commence discussions with Senator Ervin as to the parameters of executive privilege. I told the resident that, I did not think this would be wise because I was very much the party in issue with regard to the Judiciary committee hearings and that it would be unwise for me to go to the Hill and negotiate my own situation. The President agreed and Ehrlichman said that he would commence discussions.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 25, 1973 - Statement of John Dean.
The meeting was almost exclusively on the subject of how the White House should posture itself vis-a-vis the Ervin committee hearings. There was absolutely no indication of any changed attitude and it was like one of many, many meetings I had been in before, in which the talk was of strategies for dealing with the hearings rather than any effort to get the truth out as to what had happened both before June 17 and after June, 17. Following this meeting with the President, it was apparent to me I had failed in turning the President around on this subject, but Ehrlichman and Haldeman began taking over with regard to dealing with a new problem, which had become John Dean, as they were aware of the fact that I was very unhappy about the situation.