Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 26, 1973
Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 26, 1973
[00.56.04] Senator MONTOYA. Now, were You aware all throughout your dealings With respect to this affair of the implications that you might be chargeable with violation of the law for obstructing justice? Mr. DEAN. Yes. I was. I do not know when I first began to think about it, but I did certainly think about it from time to time, and I can recall discussing it directly after the election with Mr. Haldeman. We had a discussion about a written Dean report. He asked me what would happen if all the facts were laid out. I told him what would happen, and I said the I thought that ultimately, a reconvened grand jury, which would occur if the facts were laid out, would end up in potential indictments of Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Dean. Senator MONTOYA. Well, let me ask you this question. How do you expect us to resolve the truth in this matter when you state one story and you have testified here and made yourself subject to cross-examination and the President states another story and he does not appear before this committee? I am not implying that he should. Now, how do you expect us to resolve this? Can you give us any information to how we might resolve it? Mr. DEAN. Mr. Chairman, I think this. I strongly believe that truth always emerges. I do not know if it -will be during these hearings, I do not know if it will be as the result of the further activities of the Special prosecutor. I do not know if it will be through the processes of history. But the truth will come out someday. As far as any issue of fact, and I am not suggesting this with regard to the President, of any individual where I have a difference of opinion or different statement of the fact with that individual--this has occurred once, in my early meetings with the prosecutors--I am quite willing to submit myself to a polygraph test on any issue of fact with any individual who says that what I am saying is less than truthful. Senator MONTOYA. What really made you change and start coming up and coming out with the truth of this matter as you have related it? What motivated you? Mr. DEAN. Well, I think that it was after the first of the year that I had serious reservations as to whether the coverup could continue. I must say that from June 19 on, I have not had a very pleasant day in my life. This has been a haunting Situation for me. As early as September, when I began talking with my now wife about getting married, I told her that somewhere down the road, it is going to be a very rough situation, because at that time--I did not explain it to her-- because I just realized that something like this could not go on indefinitely. At one point, I reached the, end of the line and just decided that I could not continue it. I just did not have the constitution internally to proceed with what was going on. So I decided to start swimming the other way. Senator MONTOYA. Do you have peace of mind now about what you have done? Mr. DEAN. Yes, sir. Senator MONTOYA. In disclosing everything that you knew, do you have a peace of mind and a clear conscience. Mr. DEAN. I am not here as a sinner seeking a confessional, but I have been asked to be here to tell the truth, and I had always planned at any time before any forum when asked to tell the truth. Senator MONTOYA. What I am trying to ask you, do you feel better now that you have told everything rather than hiding it? Mr. DEAN. Indeed, I do, sir. It is a very difficult thing to hide, and, as I explained to the President, it would take perjury upon perjury, upon perjury, if it were to be perpetuated. I was not capable of doing that, and I knew that, my day of being called was not, far off. Senator MONTOYA. That is all. Thank you, sir. Senator ERVIN. The committee will stand in recess until 10 o'clock tomorrow.