Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 28, 1973 (2/2)
Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 28, 1973 (2/2)
[01.23.51-Sen. WEICKER questioning DEAN] Senator WEICKER. Did you have any information that, Mr. Kleindienst had Indeed offered his resignation prior to this time? Mr. DEAN. No, I didn't. I read subsequently that he had proffered it. Senator WEICKER. The committee has received evidence, that a courier for Senator Muskie's campaign microfilmed documents which Were, typed by Sally Duncan, Bart Porter's secretary, and delivered by her to Gordon Strachan at the White House. This was in earlier testimony before this committee. Now, what do you know about the source of committee the list of Muskie Contributors, which list, you provided to the committee yesterday? Mr. DEAN. The only thing I know about that list is it was sent to me from Mr. Colson's office. Senator WEICKER. I see. Now, Mr. Dean, the line of questioning which I am going to follow is going to include you to some extent, it is going to include me to some extent. But one of the jobs that I think we, have is to preserve the opportunity for every individual to be. heard and heard. fairly when they come before this committee, whether it is you or any other witness, and to probe fairly, as has been the case by the members of this committee. Obviously, the seriousness of the matter before us also makes it imperative that the committee, itself and each member or the committee have credibility and be believed. [01.25.44] Now, our job, in other words as I look upon it here, is to get the facts, not to get the President, and -to have the United States or Americans feel exactly what it is that happened to their political system and, in fact what happened to their Constitution. [01.26.07] With that in mind, I now intend to review some of your testimony and to also review some of the things that have happened, Certainly, I and the, committee, the American people, have seen things that have been illegal. We have seen things that have been unconstitutional and we have seen-and heard those things which I can only categorize as gross. But to get to the issue of the credibility of witnesses, I first want to find out what your comments would be to the memorandum that was read to you by Senator Inouye. Except this time, what I am going to do is I am going to point out to you and to the American people the difference between the first memorandum that was sent to the committee, and the second memorandum that was sent to Senator Inouye. [01.27.00-WEICKER discusses the White House memorandums, and points out that the second one was much more stridently Anti-DEAN, appearing defensive] The first memorandum sent from Mr. Fred Buzhardt at the White House made the following statement: [READING] History fails to record that at that moment, Dean corrected the Attorney General's erroneous impression by pointing out that, however innocently, Mitchell, Magruder, and Dean had all been involved in planning of operations of which Watergate was an obvious derivative or that Strachan had knowledge of the fruits of this kind of operation or that all of them were suborning perjury and otherwise seeking to conceal the facts. Now, let me show you the key difference, between the first and the second versions. The first version here, "History fails to record that at that moment, Dean corrected the Attorney General's erroneous impression by pointing out that, however innocently, Mitchell, Magruder and Dean"--the memorandum which was read to you by Senator Inouye, which was the second memorandum to come from the White House, read as follows: "History fails to record that at the moment Dean corrected the Attorney General's erroneous impression by pointing out that Mitchell, Magruder, and Dean"--in other words, omitting, "however innocently". Now, to get to further aspects of the memorandum, the first memorandum stated: [READING] It is probably because of executive privilege it is not possible even to speculate on the extent to which Dean helped induce the view on attorney-client privilege." The second version of the memorandum read "It is probably that Dean helped induce the views on attorney-client privilege." Then again, in the first version of the memorandum given to this committee by Mr. Buzhardt and the White House, the statement was made in the first edition: "The President indicated to Ehrlichman that his conversations with Dean throughout the preceding month had given him a growing awareness of Dean's personal involvement and that his sending him to Camp David apparently was a device to Smoke him out." The second version that came from the White House reads as follows: "The President indicated to Ehrlichman that his conversations with Dean throughout the preceding month had given him a growing awareness of Dean's personal involvement in this." Then lastly--if you will be patient here for a minute--the first version: "Dean was not merely one of the architects of the coverup plan. He was also perhaps its most active participant." The second version from the White House: "Dean was not merely one of the architects of the coverup plan. He was also its most active participant." [01.30.49]