Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 29, 1973 (1/2)
Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 29, 1973 (1/2)
[00.35.42-DEAN responds to Sen. GURNEY'S request to clarify that DEAN'S prior dealings with ERVIN, WEICKER, GURNEY were unrelated to WATERGATE] Mr. DEAN. That, I have a vague recollection of because I was not the principal actor in that. The meeting I recall was during the same set of hearings when you were going to appear on either Face the Nation or Meet the Press or one of the national television shows and I was instructed to provide you with briefing material for you and your staff to go over in preparation for that appearance. Senator GURNEY. There was a discussion? Mr. DEAN. Yes, I brought Mr. Fielding up with me and we had a very cordial, brief meeting. Mr. Fielding, I understand, had some subsequent meetings with you and your staff, and prepared you for that briefing session on national television. Senator GURNEY. That was the discussion with Senator Tunney, as I recall it on the whole matter of executive privilege that came up during the Kleindienst hearings; is that correct? Mr. DEAN. I think that is correct. It definitely had to do with the Kleindienst hearings, Yes. Senator GURNEY. Thank you. [00.36.44] Senator ERVIN. Senator, I would like to state, that my impression of this matter that referred to the allegation Mr. Haldeman had called down to North Carolina about me had reference to the time I was fighting the impoundment of funds and had no reference whatever to this committee. I was very sorry it was brought out here. I never attributed and my under any importance to it, and it didn't bother me at all, my understanding is that it had no relation whatsoever to my service on the Senate Select Committee but was,, Mr. Haldeman was, kind of distressed because I was taking a very strong stand with respect to the President's power under the Constitution to impound funds. I think that is what it was. If he did anything, I think that this is what provoked him, and -not my service on this committee and I just think in fairness to everybody that I would state that. [00.37.42-Sen. WEICKER offers a HISTORY LESSON] Senator WEICKER. Mr. Chairman, I just have one further question along the lines of the precedents cited by the chairman and the vice chairman and that appears in Carl Sandburg's book on Abraham Lincoln, "The War Years," where he writes: [00.38.06] [READING] Yet the talk of -a -Southern woman spy in the White House arrived at the point where Senate members of the committee on the conduct of the war had Set a secret morning session for -attention to the reports that Mrs. Lincoln was a Disloyalist, so the story goes, though vaguely authenticated. One member of the committee told of what happened. "We had just been called to order by the chairman when the officer stationed at the committee room door came In with a half-frightened expression on his face. Before he had opportunity to make explanation we understood the reason for his excitement, and were ourselves almost overwhelmed with astonishment for at the foot of the. committee table stood solitary, his hat in his hands, his form towering, Abraham Lincoln stood, Had he come by some incantation thus of a sudden appearing before us unannounced we could not have been more astounded. There was almost unhuman sadness in the eyes, and above all an indescribable sense of his complete isolation which the committee felt had to do with a fundamental sense of the apparition. No one spoke, for no one knew what to say. The President had not been asked to come before the committee nor was it suspected that he had information that we were to investigate reports which if true, fastened treason upon his family in the White House. At last the mourning corpus spoke slowly with control, although depth of sorrow in the voice ; I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, appear of my own volition before this committee of the Senate, to say that I, of my own knowledge know that it is untrue that any of my family hold treasonable communication with the enemy." Having attested this he went away as silent and solitary as he had come. We sat for some moments speechless and, by tacit agreement, no word being spoken, the committee dropped all consideration of the rumors that the wife of the President was betraying the Union, we were so greatly affected that the committee adjourned for the day. [00.40.19]