Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 28, 1973. Testimony of John Dean.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 28, 1973. Testimony of John Dean.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 28, 1973. Testimony of John Dean.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 28, 1973. Testimony of John Dean.
Senator Sam Ervin (D North Carolina). Now, you have testified about a September 15 meeting with the President. When was that meeting held with respect to the time that the bills of indictment were handed down in the original criminal action? John Dean. As I recall the meeting, it was in the late afternoon. I believe the President was just about to leave to go somewhere and that in fact the helicopter might have even landed during the very end of the meeting. I don't know where at this point in time he was going. I remember we continued to chat on. We had gotten into the subject of the book I was reading at that time, which was Inside Australia. We were discussing Australians while we were waiting. The indictments had been handed down or announced far earlier in the day and had been running on the wires all day.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 28, 1973. Testimony of John Dean.
Senator Sam Ervin (D North Carolina). Now isn't, it true that a short time after the break in, the news media carried information to the effect that five burglars had been caught in the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate and that four of the burglars had money in their pockets which came from the Committee to Re-Elect the President? John Dean. I don't believe that was reported immediately, but shortly thereafter it was, yes. Senator Sam Ervin (D North Carolina). And notwithstanding that fact, was it not revealed shortly thereafter that this money had been paid to Mr. Liddy by Mr. Sloan at the instigation of Mr. Magruder and with the consent of Mr. Stans and Mr. Mitchell? John Dean. I believe that is correct.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 28, 1973. Testimony of John Dean.
Senator Sam Ervin (D North Carolina). Notwithstanding the fact, rather, do you not agree with me that these facts indicated that there were footsteps which went from the Watergate right into the Committee To Re-Elect the President? John Dean. There is no doubt about that. Senator Sam Ervin (D North Carolina). Yet nobody in the committee except Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt were indicted. John Dean. That is correct. Senator Sam Ervin (D North Carolina). And had it not been that Mr. Magruder had resorted, to your knowledge, in his testimony before the grand jury to perjury to keep the grand jury from implicating him and others? John Dean. That is correct. Senator Sam Ervin (D North Carolina). And so this meeting in which the President said that Bob Haldeman had told him about your activities was held in the office of the President right after it had been announced that the indictments had stopped with Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt and Mr. McCord? John Dean. That is correct. And there had been discussion within the White House of this very strategy of stopping them at or stopping the case at Mr. Liddy and there was an a awareness of the fact that Mr. Magruder was going to have to perjure himself to have that accomplished.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities June 28, 1973. Testimony of John Dean.
Senator Sam Ervin (D North Carolina). Do you know of any action that the President took at any time between the 17th day of June until the establishment of this committee and until February that is mentioned here by Mr. Buzhardt to have the facts concerning this matter discovered? John Dean. I do know that after the election there was discussion with Mr. Haldeman in his office in which Mr. Haldeman said that the President would like to lay out some of the facts and we discussed what the implications of those facts would be. And when I said I felt that, well I did not know everything that had happened in advance, I did know what had happened since June 17th. And I thought that as I result of those activities that Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Dean and I might have mentioned some other at that time also, could be indicted. Mr. Haldeman's response, which I can remember very clearly because it stuck in my mind, he said, That does not seem like a very viable option, does it?"