1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-08-03; Part 2 of 5

the pope and then the committee will bear with me about one other question about the next lesson for our columnist john dean at his office in the white house of fourteen thirteen you know i explained to him that in connection with his request that the agency asked the department of justice to return a packet of material that they sent to land in connection with the watergate investigation it was quite impossible to request of journalists as this would simply mean the note would be left in the department of justice while the material and sent back to the agency and we have been asked not to destroy any material in any way related to this case i am told him there was no agency involved in this case and any attempt to involve the agency and it can only be harmful to the united states you seem disappointed and i left argo is

we have to be messing with the reason was that i did not write a memorandum of this conversation all in early may end up slash was having a thorough environmental aspect in this case asked me what i made a memorandum on and i said i have not yet asked me to make one that is the memorandum i wrote which would reduce some two months out mr on the air on may eleventh nineteen seventy three events of recovery is we have that memorandum of probably more than

my momma movie a popular market come inside recollections of meetings with the white house i think former acting director gray uniform of an affidavit yes because the circumstances that led to do what your recollections of the meetings and discussions i knew i was in the far east in early may and when i came back that's the chicago he had asked anyone in the agency had any connection with this case whatsoever to run after that i did so in those circumstances of the right and it does include an substance and

all of the matter is that the fight here in geneva meetings over the white house and the best of my knowledge does not think that we have a dedicated may twelve nineteen seventy eight as you have written this it is i have a question and among minority counsel fred thompson westra walters at the president's name was invoked in requests that you go to the fbi or the television coverage of the senate

watergate hearings will continue after this loss frustration and application on a bridge to coverage of these hearings is provided as a public service of the member stations of pbs for public broadcasting service the

paycheck and that continues its coverage of hearings by the senate select committee on presidential campaign activities yet again correspondent jim lehrer as a pickup the testimony fred thompson was about the question john walters the deputy director of the cia the pope it was revealing that measure the limit on june twenty thirteen were being asked to do with what not that the watergate investigation with regard to mexican part and worst years or so this is but it seems to me that the crucial question is we're not you're being told to deliver a

message to limit the investigation any other warrior warrior twenty for the you know the names of the people that have evidence that either the national or i read the names and you realize that the record for example i believe it mr bridges whoa i mean that happens i mean i

certainly an investigation they're warm which workflow to buy and that some of those words were taken from the nuns that were handed in the insane kantar media

probably used at a sense writing a memorandum uncovering local family that for some of the senate so they could maintain that also there's a reference center memorandum of june twenty eight both oh when i show them and to mr helms he said it was not his recollection that the president's name had been used it the memorandum the memorandum was mild version is that in that is that i do not feel strongly one way the other about it i'm not sure

as i say i was in power ms thomsen even reflected on record it recommends stronger challenges to help like that that's right this bill you're in a conversation

when you have this conversation on the point where i mean it was one threat in the afternoon one thirty in an hour now in the morning then europe i don't really remember what i did i don't think i would have had time to go back to the office i know i separated from his health at this point he went back to the arts one

thousand i mean it's eighty nine yes hello i would say that again if boyle's when i was an interpreter i wrote long since i've been a cia

generated or someone else president makes these are the only number and record i think almost that i wrote and seventy bc that's right but when you started writing on the problem of meeting june twenty eight meeting when i'm meeting you go find the last six meaning you know well meaning you know that claim will walk up what is the queen's exploration of whether the

agency reviews a day when the south you refer to was referring to worry was the white house figures including more you learned in my life that we didn't know like this lulu baines a little was not a level that iran seems to be of even have another middle of it because i did not know that level figures might be i did not know was behind this little or no water

we've been going in the conversation his insistence the agency was in some way while he pursued this with the boat couldn't even without your knowing it was the subway that must have been a local people used to work for the cia so for the first time magazine which made me think that he was exploring this option which is what made me tell him that i would resign rather than the agency participate in an intense that you can continue on monday last week

that some people might be working so much having them years as violet weston i'm with you among those booing you another way with respect to the investigation and how some cia was given to the fbi michael recognized that and would you tell us what was in that particular moment now in any other communications to the fbi senator richard lugar

special memorandum six contains a reconfiguration of the various pieces of information we had been steadily spending to the fbi believes it's the twentieth of june i mean what kind of an investigation did you conduct in house actor you would go to the white house news conference mr obama and mr i talk to people in the agency who were responsible for operations in mexico the fbi is a compromise and the cia's operations what kind of

investigation did you conduct with respect to the possible background and possible connection of a defendant who have been arrested for working i believe that there's no security and there's no justice and then you as a result of this investigation uncovered the fact that daniel martinez was it and a few people in the white house there's no security at the white house were there any communications with respect to this investigation them over to the white house

why did you let this year the fact that you have been in contact with mr nathan owens to be to feel that the white house will no doubt be a possible involvement of a man on retaining the cia been a moving weapons the white house now i'm asking you to mediate with anyone in the white house with respect of the house investigations and what you want covered with respect to these individuals

the fbi was investigating i would respect to well your conversation with mr gray was are you mentioned made than in your conversations with and that there wasn't any information which you inviting him might be communicated to the white house know about as you look back to the conversation starting on june twenty thirteen the subsequent conversations

with white house people including much of being is it your feeling as you look at this thing in retrospect that there or the white house those individuals with a new talk or trying to use you for cemetery in waiting i would say that that information the guys are you how did you

interpret the mandate which he gave you to go to mr gray and the talmud way when he had no information that tell can you tell mr gray that there are an fbi investigation in mexico might endanger cia activities nice job did you think that that moment by asking him what his background information might be as a premise for the directive a mandate which had you thought about it since but given the opposition

that's right so the white house right now on june of twenty thirteen we've been reading newspapers you know that some of these people involved with the imagery of the residents and they have been arrested their way to jail and they had their connections with the biggest connections with cia and you know you know the whole context and so you did not think of asking for some kind of medication with respect to the mandate which have been delivered to you will service that might have information but i'm really haven't

asked him his white house sources how we found something out but i ask you are you missed it may try to develop a respect to the possible reasons that the white house might have in an ingenious directed those are transmitted the messages today he made some reference to some people whose names meant nothing like the value of all time mr pierce in new orleans and the attempt made by some people at the white house to involve cia eight in their tasks which were built a virus or a telescope of the agency of what recommendations do you have to make to this committee so that this might not occur in the future really be

presumptuous of me to try to let legislation could be affected in this respect i must however associate myself with helms but your question yes there's a lot on the hind legislative honesty you've got to pick the right people for the jobs of all else there's obviously some legislation that could be affected but i think the most important thing is the selection of the right people for positions for us and do you feel that that there should be some nine provision in that in the long running the cia requiring any director deputy director of any other employee to report to an oversight committee in the congress when someone in the executive department or any of the department tries to use it for political purposes that could be one solution to

provide returns thank you very much will today's floor action that will ratify entries committee recess briefly and then returned to laos and dash and then lowell weicker question john walters the committee will come from a long lockout the mongolian long written record a memoir around the man life

fbi you've been charting a couple of memorandum or the acting director of the nation's attention on the monthly video director of security gustavo rodriguez and record an indicator that while on the job there's more i do

at the university of the great he also has a year in additional were in school that has raised the nineteen who were in the war before the end of the night when i think that that's tamara keith was recruited by the agency in january nineteen sixty one in connection with juvenile great the product which is finally terminated in nineteen fifty nine since that time was the martini has been one of our report on the cuban government in connection with activity it was left matt on to and i've been unable to the contract defense and forty nine that the elite plan activities as the martini has received a retainer one hundred dollars a month he receives a thousand one about the year wears

fulltime operational activity is that the bolivians that one thing is is a real estate lawyer of the burn until a bar or you got information for you are all only and should not be disseminated also give your restraint meant any information on this matter to the attention of the director of security and you have seen that but i haven't done that and i think in violence is one of the questions that's one question of why coke this information i mean this is a letter to the federal bureau of investigation on the twentieth june nineteen seventy two the

question is we're going to see it through but you went right to work investigating the status of the various people of this one twentieth of june twenty two nineteen seventy three days oh great i don't think there's an ongoing project center i believe i testified earlier that started on june twentieth we began feeling the fbi as fast as we acquired of any information on any of the defendants anybody in any way connected with this man good job

and so was those persons of an action receptionist martinez a really awesome ex cia honestly all of them that they were not in the employee of the cia for that isn't nirvana nevermind distinction only two of them i'm a carpenter then cia had full time employees and others will contract the ongoing for a short marriage oh you like in the mines but in any event except for twenty years and yet i gather your

investigation still employees india and one twentieth rolls around the one person that was with you know what happens to the stage of any agency made a very genuine effort to cooperate with us so it was with some places that we arrive at an investigation now ms talked to the director and the twenty seconds and said that there is no cia and while it just wasn't pulling something earlier he had some facts before i mean thirty years and when you walk in on the twenty thirteen

and the director you were so cognizant of these investigations i have not seen that the memorandum i knew that these people had been former cia employee's and i knew that we were friendship on available information on them through the department of justice but i deny watergate the importance and they get what's been stating here for government and the impressions we give up her are equally important to the fact that this committee of the lessons that i think there might have been an impression left that in the meeting of the twenty thirteen when you and the director said dan witnessed the whole mr art and state that there's no cia and while but i think it was and in this matter in the previous days

talking on the basis of what he knew your account when you're just fine for you and the director how many times and has in this period you say there is no cia involved the various individuals i could possibly count is the state of the state yesterday with some well it needs constantly well i mean we know that the director turn to acting director brennan said there is no cia involvement twenty seconds and i gather in the meeting on the twenty thirteen was made again clear lawyers are involved i gather when you met with mr dean you're very forceful as i would imagine at their say in a variety of ways there is no cia involved

now in the uk and i got a final chapter and there is no cia involvement being transmitted is part of mr gray reporter i am well i'm saying in your recollection of the conversation their conversation with mr gray where he reported to eat when we're reporting i can only assume i know first part there where you describe the beginning of the meeting on june twenty third at one o'clock <unk> robert all americans the white woman set the bugging of

fear of the democratic national committee headquarters of the watergate apartments in illinois and the democrats are trying to maximize the fbi had been called and was investigating the murder investigations leading to a lot of important people and this could get worse yes what the connection with the agency was a great repeated that there was no auden said the whole affair is getting embarrassing and was the president's wish that water's gone acting director l patrick gray it's just you and that sense of five suspects have been arrested that should be sufficient was not advantageous to have the concrete pushed especially in mexico city now my question my question to you is right consumers to be rather strange conversation for for cia officials to be modern

with the exception of that one cent he asked the question of the agency was represented there was none all the rest of those three paragraph deal with a political situation here in the united states has nothing to do with the cia didn't agree with that that this is a rather strange conversation for you to be involved or not that sounds more to me like a meeting of the republican national committee and the meetings that the cia does occur to the rest of the city and the distinction between the agency being ball in the sense of having had any participation in the operation against the democratic national committee when i understood mr holland to be referred to with cia activities outside but i know

that that's not the context of these comments this is strictly is focusing on this as an embarrassing political situation investigators leading to important people also the whole preventing embarrassing that was the president's wish the wallet on acting director of representatives and the wives of the rest of this should be sufficient well i may not been completed not this is not the totality of what he set ej these gentle considerations and then the concerns expressed was that the fbi investigation in mexico might jeopardize from athens on activities the cia he was talking in a philosophical sense about what happened in the united states and then the other part that i understood referred to the possibility of compromise and cia assets of personnel so you leave a meeting

and i as director helms said yesterday like this you were you're saying that they frankly was an easy with money what would the orders that have been given to you from the strip mall and that he stated yesterday in his testimony that he suggested to the lawyer konrad indicate to a marine normal between the fbi and the cia and that was quite sufficient you recall is that conversation i recall that conversation we called the one minute how mentioned yesterday the time didn't tell me that i was not the message i decided i should remind you not and so now you you go

through the rest of the state rv that investigation of course of the board of trustees and some of them are covert projects in view of the fact that the five men involved underestimate best to taper off commander there roger waters and phrases that i can certainly view me to be a man of integrity and i think your careers because this wasn't really exactly business this concept that you left with the acting director really wasn't the truth was that i had information that i did not have that something this investigation say i have been in the cia think that i

did not know the details of the operation i had about any of this question did you say has told me to tell you that or did you deliver this to mr gray as if this were your own it i believe that my recollection said that i told him that i come from the white house that i've talked to some senior people there and i then proceeded to deliver this message for gracie jew standing before him as a representative of the director of the cia would he have every right to believe that but this was the opinion of

the cia or were that this was coming from the white house i believe we have the right to think that the message that day to end this could jeopardize assets of the cia was essentially end at what point did you disabuse mr gray of this concept that you're left with them on the twenty thirteen to directly on the sixth of july however our next working gangs was a friday and the money i told mr dean why was informed was in charge of this will matter that there was no agency involvement that this would not jeopardize any activities that the agency as i stated earlier perhaps naively i believed as the woody allen says they were obviously in combat in retrospect i should certainly of color graded told

myself you know you can't that's the basis of the belief that mr hall women would know something about the operations of the cia that you and the director didn't know i find actually rather in rather unusual i'm not saying i don't think the white house in a broad general way in the way of tossing that they wouldn't know where that wouldn't be your knowledge of the american but as far as the actual operations of the cia there anything that you feel the white house know that you don't know you're like we could not we could know three when union but there are cases where the white house is sometimes supported or something is done for them and foreign countries by members of the cia and it would be awkward oh i think there's clearly

evidence that it's coming from the white house at least at this point without the knowledge of what they say without knowledge of the cia this is why i felt someone in the cia might know why i checked with the geographic bee one last question as presently this is it possible for mr haldeman ehrlichman to give direction to a cia agent without a director the assistant director along with it i have known president nixon i believe senator since nineteen fifty seven as i testified earlier services interpreter during a trip he made to a countries in south america subsequently i saw him only on the anniversary now the stoning interacts with the cards that are

not used to get a pow it is huge vice president used it apart and one c i went to that in the years between mr nixon's departure from the white house and his reelection as president i saw grabs three times in those eight or nine or whatever it was yours nixon became president i accompanied him on trips around europe basses as i testified earlier i have not it's seen as the nixon privately talked to since the second of may nineteen seventy two when he swore me in as deputy director of the agency i got one phone call in that timeframe the army or something concerning his trip to moscow with nothing else we discuss victor relationship personally as well as professionally i would say yes that we view shared the kind of danger that i mentioned this morning there was a certain element that i would like to bring out that i've also

served as president truman president johnson president eisenhower we've had some testimony don't fully committee at the white house making efforts to make all the agencies more of wanting to the white house to appoint the director of the cia was an effort to make the agency more responsive to the white house i would say center the president appoints people presidential appointees because he has confidence in them there's been some testimony that i've heard the effect that someone said that i was put in the agency in order to influence agency policy in all fairness i would like to say that with a single exception of events about which i'm testifying today no one in the white house the president or anyone else has ever saw ambulance agency policy i'm going to have a very outstanding background and the vision to holmes who's big

a different languages yes and there's also a poet on one occasion when the president was in france when you're that the military actually it made a fifteen minute meet you listen to that repeatedly for a bad omen financial sector and i wanted to be a member of that tomorrow now then only one very important one in montana where it's at attention than others but it's important my standpoint you have a memo dated july thirteen nineteen seventy two and that the more you have it in for you you read it in the record actually has only occasionally president callers be ready to congratulate him on the fbi which

frustrated that i get happen to that language it that although the president has befallen the gray if he had probably about these areas what keeps you going they replied to me that they're going to engrave had been approached about will be at great that point directly to the island or less frightening and they know no right there and i asked him what his recommendation was on the map live is good not be covered and would leave quite high and that he felt that the president would get rid of the people that will involve any attempt

involving fbi or the cia in this case tomorrow you say that you were a new team that the president then ship then we'll direct third time i forget agent palmer on a high breyer replied that was his recommendation the president then a well meaning you was this a mistake well later that day paul klee and repeatedly conversation me and said okay the corrective about implications doesn't have that as i have i you recollect a gray saying that the president had told him to go on the stage now mara

the president of the united states that indirect the federal bureau of investigation and the deputy director of the central intelligence agency if there was something on white house and you are correct this is my obsession for my recollection of it just a great deal now to libya appears to be repeated at the white house that on the bottle and sell a lesbian when i got to get too involved against your bets against the only way that it was an effort on the white house a lot

get to an arrest gray director of the federal bureau of investigating that uncommon for cover up with the aisle senator i would like the distinction between the three people you've mentioned as i've testified earlier i believed at the time most of them and asked me to go to see this really did answer could have some information <unk> and as i recall in all fairness did not take part of this conversation my first conversation with the number twenty six made me suspicious when he asked me whether the agency paid bail of the souring of these people when they were in jail i became convinced of it option of doing something improper was being expelled i wouldn't mind however that i have no further conversation with mr obama must on any time after the twenty thirteen oh so there was really a differentiation one three people were asking you as i've said before

if i thought that stalin was asking me to do something improper i wouldn't this is one thing i would like as you have no professional bases president united states bases you thought what was happening is a lot of them foreign agencies in the united states involved in the obstruction of justice i came to show on president obama for other opponents are combining my troubles i recorded my superiors the helmsman of wanted the acting director of the fbi if i if i told you something improper i wouldn't i just like playing it he was exploring bit by plane to him the very first meeting he attempted to directly to indicate the agency in any way i would resign

and i would go and tell i didn't hear much mr be that you have a long career first lieutenant we corrected would you ever have occasion about us the captain will see that made good and if i saw something going on wrong i believe i would say that i must complete what was that he was asking me to do that was that was alternative exploration happens to be done anytime ordered me to do something improper i would not talk about this no reflection whatever o'neill condo for us to get involved in the obstruction of justice and you didn't do it but you don't know that some of the closest confidants the united states were involved in that conspiracy and you've been on the road are not i don't quite think that sometimes an assumption on the question of

financing festival to go back to the climate of this time the agency was under attack various unjustified accusations ryan accused of misdeeds were a lot that was his word against mine if i am one out instantly accused him of trying to involve me in something and he said no the environment in the united states at that time and not necessarily have been favorable to my answer one word i would have simply about the agency in for the publicity in support of something i could not prove other than by my state and i know that my overwhelming concern so this time as it is today is because i believe in it it is essential and i got us involvement in donegal which i couldn't prove a landmine supporting where i would not serve the purpose that i was attempting to serve and i have no further questions over compliment you on your own

insurance you can play and you can find that it remains so the moment senator graham alaska general walters was requested or ordered to go see the fbi director public television coverage of the senate watergate hearings will continue after a pause for a station identification on a bridge to coverage of these hearings is provided as a public service of the member stations of pbs a public broadcasting service the pain and that continues

its coverage of hearings by the senate select committee on presidential campaign activities you again correspondent jim lehrer will go back to the hearings at senator gurney's turn to question general years he's been through different versions of you suggestive of the investigation in your testimony before the appropriations committee and this is from the wreckage of the appropriations committee west although it has been decided that you will go to mr

gray and tell them out of the investigation of the mexican finance it may uncovered some cia asset you actually do fb the