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Speaker 1: Hello friends, and welcome back to the rabbit Hole. I'm

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your host Danny, and today we have the pleasure of

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having Jeff Shepherd on the podcast. So during my research

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for the upcoming Watergate episode, I kept finding interviews that

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Jeff had given on this topic specifically, so he actually

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worked in DC at the time after graduating from Harvard Law,

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and he became a White House Fellow in nineteen sixty nine,

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and then he served on President Richard Nixon's White House

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staff for five years, including a year as deputy counsel

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on the president's Watergate defense team. So like if anybody

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knows the stuff, he knows it. He has written three

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books and produced two documentary films, as well as an

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off Broadway stage play about the internal prosecutorial documents he's

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on covered, many of which are posted on his website

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www dot Shepherd onwatergate dot com. It's Shepherd without the

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h so s H. E. P. A. R. D. Shepherd

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onwatergate dot com and I'll link that in the show

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notes as well. Hi, Jeff, thank you so much for

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coming on the rabbit Hole. I'm really excited to have

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this conversation with you.

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Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here too. This is gonna be fun.

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Speaker 3: It is gonna be fun.

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Speaker 1: I'm like deep in the rabbit hole about Watergate. So

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it actually didn't start with Watergate. It started because I

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started to do I wanted to look into Operation Northwoods

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with Cuba, and then I was like, well, I don't

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want to just do Northwoods.

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Speaker 3: Let's just do like a Cuba episode.

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Speaker 1: Well, then when I was doing the Cuba episode, I

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started finding all these CIA agents that also worked with Watergate,

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and I was like, that's weird. So I need to

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look into Watergate now too. So then I went down

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that rabbit hole and I found you, and here we are.

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Speaker 2: Well at Watergate is a very deep rabbit hole. And yeah,

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in summation for your viewers, there's only three facts that

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you can count on in Watergate. There really was a

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break in. They were caught red handed, so there's criminality

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from the start. There really was a cover up because

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there was worry about who knew about the break in

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in advance, and some pretty senior people on the president's

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reelection campaign knew what was going what was going on.

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And third, Nixon really did resign, the only president in

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our history to resign, but pretty much everything else you've

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been told is not true. And you've got this difficulty,

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particularly people like me who lived through it, who've gone back,

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looked at the records. And what makes it unique? The

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special prosecutors, the Watergate Special Prosecution Force was a special recruited,

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highly partisan bunch of Democrat lawyers, mainly Ivy League lawyers,

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whose gold in life was to get Nixon. And they

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got a hold of the prosecutorial machinery and used it

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to investigate, as they announced in their press conference, every

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allegation of wrongdoing committed by the Nixon administration since it

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took office. And that's what you've been taught, that's what

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you've heard about. But they were so eager to get

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Nixon and his people. They cut corners. Nobody was watching them,

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they were in charge. The media was on their side,

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and they did secret meetings with the judges. They suppressed

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exculpatory evidence, they expanded statutes way beyond their normal meetings,

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and what makes it you? Nick and the press could

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care less. They hated Nixon too. They left a paper trailer.

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Were so proud of what they were doing. They wrote

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memos to each other about it. And I learned twenty

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years ago. I learned their internal files, those that survived,

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are kept at National Archives and you can put in

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foier requests, and I've put in a lot of foire requests.

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I have filing cabinets filled with this stuff, and they're

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held in what's called special access the archives, and that's

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where all investigatory files end up. So the JFK Assas Nation,

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the Clinton impeachment, they're all there, and they have to

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look at the memo you want or that your foyer

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request covers, and they have to be sure that there

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are no names there who are still alive that were

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investigated but not indicted. Okay, some privacy. After you asked away,

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you have no privacy. It's the opposite of don't speak

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ill of the dead. It's you have no interest in

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your reputation, so they keep track. I think most Watergate

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people other than me have passed away. Well that's not true,

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that's not true. John Dene is still alive and two

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of the lead prosecutors are still alive.

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Speaker 1: Does he talk about it, John Dene?

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he talks about it all the time. He's

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the hero, he's the purported whistleblower. Who is this innocent

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kid cut up with these evil people.

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Speaker 3: But that's the narrative. He's just like sticking to the

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whole forever.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, with one exception, I'll get to second

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believe FBI agent special agent in charge from the day

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of the break in arrests straight through to the conviction

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for the cover up. Angelo Leno did in oral history

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for the National Archives two thousand and nine, I think,

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you know, not that long ago, and he said that

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he credits John Dene with ninety five percent of the

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cover up. And yet he's he goes scott free. He

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never single night in jail. And then you know Gordon

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Lenny and I knew Gordon didn't like him, but I

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knew him. Gordon spent five years in jail. Now he

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planned it. He would not cooperate with prosecutors, and they

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threw the book at him. But John Dene's very active.

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He wrote a book. He's written a lot of Watergate books,

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you know, but he wrote one that was published in

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twenty fourteen, that's ten years ago. And there's this infamous footnote,

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page fifty four, and it says, you know that smoking

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gun tape where Nixon agrees to get the CIA to

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tell the FBI not to interview these two people. That's

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been misunderstood from the beginning. This is John Dene's footnote.

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The lawyers misunderstood he was trying to protect or the

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people proposing it. The identities of two very prominent Democrats

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contributed to Nixon's re election campaign under the assurance it

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would never become public. And when they started tracing the money,

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they knew the burglars who had all these one hundred

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dollars bills. Yeah, they'd gotten the money from Crete. But

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the FBI, being thorough, wanted to know how the money

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got to creep in the first place. That would have

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exposed these democratic donuts, and that was the reason they

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wanted not to interview them. It actually postponed their interviews

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for a week, and after they were interviewed, they were

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determined to have no involvement whatsoever. And all this was

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known that the White House met with the CIA, the

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CI called the FBI.

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Speaker 1: Oh, that was known when you saw that video, right,

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Like you were one of the first people to watch

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that video.

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Speaker 2: The video with Angelo Orlando.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the the.

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Speaker 2: FBI agent Well, yeah, I mean you know it was

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taken in two thousand and nine. I happened to see

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it last year. I didn't know it existed. There's a

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whole set.

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Speaker 1: I thought that the smoking gun video is the one

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that you had seen.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a tape recording, it's not a video. Excuse Well,

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while we're there. I transcribed all the White House tapes

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as a young lawyer on the White House staff, and

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I was the third person to hear that particular tape

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of June twenty third, nineteen seventy two, and I prepared

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the official transcript, and I'm the one that called it

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the smoking gun, but not because it was my conclusion.

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It was because my boss, the president's top lawyer, was

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appalled at what he had heard and mistakenly assumed it

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showed that Nixon was in on the cover up from

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day one. He wasn't. And today I think it's pretty

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much agreed nobody on the White House staff. You remember

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there's the White House staff and then there's Creep, the

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re Election.

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Speaker 3: Committee, which are very different.

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Speaker 2: Oh well, they happened to be kitty cornered across the

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street from each other, and they it was staffed Creep

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by former members of the White House Staff or the

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Department of Justice for the main part, and they were very,

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very different. But the break in was planned and executed

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by people who worked for Creep. And the people on

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the White House staff Nixon, Holdeman and Earlockman and Colson

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had no idea that this was planned. But John Deane

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was at two important meetings in Attorney General Mitchell's office

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where he heard about the plans, and so he was

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fearful he was going to get caught up. So he

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ran the cover up to protect himself, of course, and

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the White House thought he was protecting them, but in

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the course of his cover up, he infected members of

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the White House staff and then he turned on them.

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Now let's go back over that very carefully. How did

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it all start. Well, it started when Bob Haldeman asked

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John Dene to prepare a campaign intelligence plan. Every campaign

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has one. They call it opposition research. You want to

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know everything you can learn about your opponent. Where's his

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money coming from, what are his policy positions, where's he

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going to speak tomorrow? Who doesn't like him? All those things?

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 2: Well, the trouble was John Deane hadn't been that involved

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in campaigns and didn't really know what he was doing,

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and he recruited and hired a guy named Gordon Levy.

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Now your viewers don't know Gordon, but I had worked

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with Gordon when I was a White House fellow at Treasury.

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And the nicest thing you can say about him is

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that he was very intense, I prefer crazy as a loone,

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just eager to go way beyond normal activities. And he

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prepared a campaign intelligence plan that was priced out at

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a million dollars. This is nineteen seventy two, and it

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envisioned mugging, bugging, kidnapping, and prostitution. And you can say, oh, Shepherd,

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know you're exaggerating. Everybody exaggerates. But Letty wrote an autobiography

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seven years after water Date, and he describes his plan

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in loving detail. There's no question what he had in mind.

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It was just it just happened to be illegal.

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Speaker 3: And he was FBI.

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Speaker 2: Former FBI. From the FBI sometime he worked for the

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district attorney up in Dutchess County, New York. And he's

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got a local celebrity because he fired off a starting

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pistol in court. Heard the daylights of people. Yeah he did.

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He ran for Congress and he lost in the primary,

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but he threatened to run as a conservative in the

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Conservative Party. New York's got some splinter parties, and it

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was the district where there were the congressman was Hamilton Fisch,

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I think, and they decided to buy Lyddy off. So

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they said, if you don't run and we win in

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sixty eight, we'll give you a federal job. Now you're

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not supposed to do that, right, That's got nothing to it, Nixon.

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That was New Yorkers. That was Rockfellers people.

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Speaker 1: Oh good, Now, some research in the rock Fellers.

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Speaker 2: Well they have good and bad points. Yeah, healthy. Well,

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so Lyddy ends up as a Special Assistant to the

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Sector at Treasury. And I'm assigned to Treasury as a

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White House fellow. And he's a gun nut, and I

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believe in the Second Amendment, but he's way over the line.

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And of course he's reporting to the Assistant Secretary for Enforcement,

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and he's got under him the Bureau of Customs, the

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Secret Service at Treasure, and atf Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms,

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which regulates firearms and is detested by the gun lobby.

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So Gordon would go out and give speeches on how

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he was going to protect the gun lobby when his

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sister organizations. We were atf and they said, you're don't

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stop this, you can't go out and do this stuff,

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and he wouldn't listen. So he was going to get fired.

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And my boss on the White House Staff was in

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charge of the law and order issue, among many other things,

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and had good friends at the Department of Justice, and

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they liked Gordon. Because Gordon so hated his job at Treasury.

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He would tell the Apartment of Justice how they were

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messing up. Treasury had customs there after drugs yep. The

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Department of Justice had the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous

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Drugs there after Drugs. Law enforcement fighting each other for

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the competition got to be so intense. There was one

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instance where they drew down on each other.

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Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.

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Speaker 2: They were following different aspects of this smuggling routine. So

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Gordon's going to get fired. And my boss, Bud Krogue,

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gets convinced to hire Gordon just to thumb our nose

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at the treasure and so we did. And I was

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so opposed. I'm just a kid, you understand right, I'm

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twenty four when I joined the White House staff. But

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I threw such a hissy fit that Bud said, let's

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set aside a half hour. Let's go across the street

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to Noni's coffee, joh, and you can make your pitch

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against Gordon with no interruption. So he heard me down,

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and my pitch was that Gordon might be a good

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field general, but you can't trust him at headquarters because

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he didn't follow instructions. But I lost. So we hired Gordon,

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and then John Dene hires him to do this campaign

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intelligence plan.

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Speaker 3: Did John Dene know how crazy Liddy was?

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Speaker 2: No? No. In his book he talks about meeting him

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and he looked, you know, he looked very presentable in

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a vested suit. And I remember the suit. It was

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a Glenn plaid summer weight with a vest. And Letty looked, yeah,

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I spoke well. He had conducted what's called the Plumber's

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break in before nineteen seventy one. Earl Lukman was appalled

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at the idea they had broken into a psychiatrist's office.

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They'd instructed Bud that Gordon had to go get him

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off your staff, right. So John Dene comes around looking

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for people to help him with his campaign intelligence plan.

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Gordon said at the bus, I got somebody for you.

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Speaker 3: He's like trying to offload this weight.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I had no question about it.

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Speaker 3: He's like, here, just take this guy off my hands.

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Speaker 2: But just to personify this, just for a second, I

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really did pitch a hissy fit and I lost. And

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then Gordon in his book, he says when he shows

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up on the White House staff, Jeff Shepherd was assigned

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to show him around, teach him the rogues, you know,

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welcome aboard, Gordon. Well, then Gordon does this break in

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that I don't know about in Lewis Fielding's office. Uh,

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doctor Daniel il Burg's shrink. Yeah, remember Illsburg linked.

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Speaker 3: The link to the Pentagon papers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so Gordon's supposed to leave. He goes over to

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the reelection committee, and I remember walking down the hallway

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of the old the gorgeous old building next door to

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the White House, saying to myself, you know, Gordon's been here,

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and now Gordon's gone, and nothing's gone wrong. Your friends,

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their friends must think you're not to have raised such

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a hue and cry about Gordon. Man, Man, there's the

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Watergate break in. They get arrested. This is June seventeenth,

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seventy two.

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Speaker 3: Can we talk about that for a second. The burglar, Okay,

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I mean I yeah.

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Speaker 2: At eighty one, I proceed slowly. So the newspapers start

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speculating about somebody who planned the break in but wasn't

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caught red handed, who's caught right hand? Four Cubans and

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the CIA wireman, James mccordy. But they start speculating about

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who else it might be. And my secretary's roommate was

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the secretary to the plumbers unit where Gordon worked when

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he was on the White House staff. So jo Anne

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Kathy was her name. Joanne says, well, you know who

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it is, this unknown person. I'm really not that worried

283
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about it. I got a full plate of other stuffs.

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I'm just plodding along. I'm busy. She says, let me

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give you his initials. Oh Man, and she says gg l.

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It doesn't make any sense. Who cares? And then she

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says Gordon and g Gordon, and I go oh no,

288
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oh no, And then all the memories of ting to

289
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keep me out of there come flooding back, and Gordon's

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got us in a huge trouble with its campaign intelligence plan.

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Now go to your question.

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Speaker 1: So it seems like they get caught or they have

293
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this lookout, right, and the lookout was like, hey, there's.

294
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Speaker 2: Police, offered Baldwin.

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Speaker 1: And they just like ignored the fact that they were police,

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and they just kind of like kept going until they

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were caught. And then they like the police came in,

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they're caught and they're like, oh, yeah, we're guilty, and

299
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they just like give up with no fight. They didn't

300
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call in any favors. Then call like were they trying

301
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to get caught?

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, no, no. Well, well I know nothing,

303
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I know nothing. I've read some stuff. I have views,

304
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:48,839
but they may or may not being better than anyone else,

305
00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:56,240
is to uh. Everybody involved in the break in itself

306
00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:03,839
had some connection with the CIA. James McCord, who's the wireman,

307
00:22:04,039 --> 00:22:10,759
was a career of CIA official, right. Well. Cubans, well, yeah,

308
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we had the four Cubans who a couple they were

309
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all consultants to the CIA. And Howard Hunt had been

310
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the infamous Eduardo during the Bad Pigs when we were

311
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preparing the army to go. So there's a lot of speculation,

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a lot of books and I called them the doubter

313
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books because they doubt conventional wisdom and The most influential

314
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is one by Jim Hogan, I think it came out

315
00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:55,559
in the late seventies called Hidden Agenda, And then there

316
00:22:55,640 --> 00:23:01,720
was one by Lynn Colodney called Silent Coup, and Silent

317
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:09,000
Coup dumps more on. John dene Secret Agenda covers the

318
00:23:09,759 --> 00:23:14,640
CIA involvement because he'd written a previous book called Spooks

319
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Uh and he raises all these questions. So the police

320
00:23:20,759 --> 00:23:24,640
car that you know, the janitor calls in because the

321
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:30,240
tape right, Well, why was the tape put around the

322
00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:34,200
edge of the door instead of on the thin side.

323
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Speaker 1: Where which the first time they did it like that,

324
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and then this time they did it differently.

325
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Speaker 2: Why did they do it again? Why on earth did

326
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:48,359
McCord replace the tape? He didn't tell the others. So

327
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the theory I'm attracted to says the Cubans were sent

328
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in to uh photograph and take pictures of what was

329
00:24:05,839 --> 00:24:11,519
going on. McCord was supposed to plant microphones. Remember it's

330
00:24:11,599 --> 00:24:15,880
the second entry. Yes, plant the microphones and get his

331
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ass out before the cops came and arrested the Cubans.

332
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That it was a part of a scheme to be

333
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:33,400
arrested by In theory, the CIA, who didn't like Nixon. Now,

334
00:24:33,599 --> 00:24:39,880
the CIA didn't like Nixon, but I believe that the

335
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CIA knew what was underwent and they chose not to

336
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warn the president that it was underway. But if you

337
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:59,359
think about it, who would they tell? Because the president's

338
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best friend and John Mitchell and his attorney general was

339
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said to have approved the plan, So who's the CI

340
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:11,359
is supposed to sidle up to it and say, you know, oh,

341
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:15,519
we don't know, we don't know for sure. But the

342
00:25:15,759 --> 00:25:24,200
cops show up because there was a unassigned car with

343
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plain clothesmen in an unmarked car where the guys shouldn't

344
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:33,079
have been there anyway. And when the call came through,

345
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he from the back seat grabbed the microphone and said,

346
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we're on it. We'll take care of it. So this

347
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car pulls up middle of the night. Baldwin is across

348
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the street in what was at that time the Howard

349
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Johnson's and his walkie talkie doesn't work because the batteries

350
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were fouled up. So he can see the guys on

351
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the I think it to the sixth floor, but he

352
00:26:03,039 --> 00:26:07,240
can't warn them. And then lights go on in the

353
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DNC offices and the cops come in and the people

354
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come out with their hands up and they're in suits

355
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and they have on rubber gloves, and four out of

356
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:26,759
five or cubans they expected to be sprung that night.

357
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,160
There's this story about one of the Cubans saying to

358
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:34,039
the police saying, you know, we're both on the same side.

359
00:26:34,759 --> 00:26:38,680
You know, we're the good guys. Right soon, soon you'll

360
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:40,400
get a phone call saying let us go.

361
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 1: That's what I was curious about too, Like they didn't

362
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:47,039
call anybody, like they have all these CIA connections and

363
00:26:47,079 --> 00:26:50,599
they're connected to the creep like the reelection campaign. They

364
00:26:50,599 --> 00:26:52,839
didn't make any phone calls to be like, hey, come

365
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:54,119
get us, we got caught.

366
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, there's this guy named Douglas Caddy who is

367
00:26:59,079 --> 00:27:03,799
general counsel of Mullen and Company, which is thought to

368
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:10,920
be a CIA front and employed Howard Howard Hunt. And

369
00:27:11,039 --> 00:27:17,039
the theory is Hunt nearby, maybe in the Watergate office building,

370
00:27:17,079 --> 00:27:21,640
but not caught and Gordon's same thing. There's somebody who

371
00:27:21,839 --> 00:27:24,759
streaks out the door and they don't know who it is,

372
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but they assume it was either Hunter Lyddy and they

373
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go wake up w Caddy and say you got to

374
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:35,480
get these guys out of jail, go down and represent them.

375
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,359
The Cubans didn't know who he was, didn't know where

376
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:44,680
he came from, but they were happy for help. Gordon

377
00:27:46,599 --> 00:27:53,599
not Gordon. Somebody approaches Dick Clindingstone the golf course at

378
00:27:54,480 --> 00:28:02,359
a county, the Congressional country Club and says, Mitchell wants

379
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:06,519
you to call him and get wants you to get

380
00:28:06,559 --> 00:28:09,720
these guys out of jail. This is a message from

381
00:28:09,799 --> 00:28:14,559
John Mitchell. You you were deputy, now your attorney general.

382
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:19,480
This is your predecessor. You'll do what he asks. And

383
00:28:19,599 --> 00:28:22,920
Klindings said, if John Mitchell wants to call me, he'll

384
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,039
call me. Hes not sending a message through the likes

385
00:28:26,039 --> 00:28:32,240
of you, but he doesn't report that contact. If he

386
00:28:32,319 --> 00:28:36,759
had ordered that to the people down in the bowels

387
00:28:36,799 --> 00:28:42,880
of DOJ, his career prosecutors Watergate would have ended much sooner.

388
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:51,640
But because there was this massive cover up seeking to

389
00:28:51,759 --> 00:28:57,880
protect John Dene Jim McGruder, who headed the campaign committee,

390
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:03,319
waiting for Mitchell and Mitchell those are pretty senior people.

391
00:29:03,839 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Mitchell being like Nixon's best friend and like

392
00:29:07,839 --> 00:29:14,200
them being like attorneys together before they were like in office. Yeah,

393
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:18,319
so like I mean Mitchell was if he's involved, then

394
00:29:18,359 --> 00:29:20,200
Nixon being involved makes a lot of sense.

395
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 2: Now there was something else I was going to say about. Oh.

396
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:36,599
Libby shows up at Creep on December tenth, nineteen seventy one,

397
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:44,920
and says to Jeb macgoudor, who's acting in waiting on Mitchell,

398
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:49,440
I've been promised a million dollars to do a campaign

399
00:29:49,559 --> 00:29:54,000
intelligence plan. Now, Jeb is not the sharpest knife in

400
00:29:54,039 --> 00:30:01,279
the draft. So Jeb says, well, that may be, but

401
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:05,960
nobody here has the authority to approve a million bucks.

402
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:11,720
Only John Mitchell can approve that kind of expenditure. And

403
00:30:11,759 --> 00:30:17,200
he's still over DJ. So they go over to talk

404
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:22,079
to John Mitchell. On January twenty seventh, nineteen seventy two,

405
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:28,759
Gordon has charts prepared by the CIA describing Jimstone is

406
00:30:29,839 --> 00:30:34,720
series of of sreptitious entries and kidnapping and all that

407
00:30:37,039 --> 00:30:43,440
because of a budget issue, because Jeb can't approve a

408
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:47,559
million dollar budget. And you see there's a you understand,

409
00:30:47,599 --> 00:30:52,559
the whole government came down right because this tom fool

410
00:30:53,319 --> 00:30:57,480
Yeah creeps, only only Mitchell kind of approved this, you know,

411
00:30:57,519 --> 00:31:01,200
the shooting, I mean, you know it's it's money issue,

412
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:05,000
and it's just that the water gets filled with those

413
00:31:05,079 --> 00:31:11,640
kinds of little vignettes that if you, if you did it,

414
00:31:11,839 --> 00:31:15,680
live through it, you can't fully appreciate how bizarre they

415
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:16,279
really are.

416
00:31:17,319 --> 00:31:23,519
Speaker 1: Well, then you have like the the in the journalists

417
00:31:23,799 --> 00:31:28,079
right that they're like being fed this information by Mark

418
00:31:28,119 --> 00:31:29,279
Felt from the FBI.

419
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's Woodward and Bernstein mainly, but it's I'm

420
00:31:36,119 --> 00:31:39,920
blocking on Seymour Glanzer out of the New York Times

421
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:45,359
and Woodward and Bernstein off the Post, and all kinds

422
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:52,839
of mystery about how Woodward knows felt but felt identity.

423
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:58,799
It's kept secret till about two thousand and four. On

424
00:31:58,839 --> 00:32:03,920
the same tape with Angelo Atlano, the FBI agent, the

425
00:32:04,119 --> 00:32:09,519
questioner says that weren't you helped by Woodward and Bernstein

426
00:32:10,319 --> 00:32:14,119
And he says, no, not a single bit. They were

427
00:32:14,319 --> 00:32:20,799
printing what we already knew. And the questioner says, yeah,

428
00:32:20,799 --> 00:32:24,759
but didn't they give you some leads? And he says, no,

429
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:29,039
not a one. Did we give them leads? Oh hundreds?

430
00:32:30,119 --> 00:32:33,000
You know, But what woodwarn of Bernstein? You call them

431
00:32:33,079 --> 00:32:37,599
the greatest investigative reporters of all time. No way they

432
00:32:37,599 --> 00:32:41,799
were reporting. But the government already knew. The public didn't know,

433
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:46,599
but the government was leading the investigation. He was very

434
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:53,160
thorough and they had hundreds of FBI agents working on that.

435
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 1: So were they did they do this? Were they said

436
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:01,359
the information to sway the the court of public opinion

437
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:05,440
because Nixon was winning by a landslide. This guy would like,

438
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:09,079
this was a huge win for Nixon for a second term.

439
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:11,799
Speaker 2: But you got to get this, You got to get

440
00:33:11,839 --> 00:33:18,880
the dates straight. Two things. Nixon was going to wipen

441
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:25,400
the governor out without question, but the Democratic Convention had

442
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:32,160
not yet been held. Oh, Tummer in Miami. It's there.

443
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:39,279
He's talking with Mitchell about bugging Larry O'Brien's suite down

444
00:33:39,319 --> 00:33:43,000
at this Miami hotel, and Mitchell says, be sure you

445
00:33:43,079 --> 00:33:45,559
get the bugs out before I go down because the

446
00:33:45,599 --> 00:33:49,839
Republicans are coming in next. He's kind of kidding about it, right,

447
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:58,759
But Nixon had already had one election stolen from him

448
00:33:58,839 --> 00:34:02,759
in nineteen sixty by Jack Kennedy and his people and

449
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:08,280
Mayor Dailey of Chicago, and then they thought they'd run

450
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:11,760
Robert against him, but Robert got assassinated too, and they're

451
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:17,320
down to Teddy and Teddy's damaged goods. He's fourteen years

452
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:25,079
younger than the brothers. He's arrested three times for drunk

453
00:34:25,159 --> 00:34:29,320
driving at UVAS. They're not a Harvard College for hiring

454
00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:33,159
somebody to cheat on his Spanish exam. He's a real

455
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:40,199
weak league. But he's the last candidate. Okay, Joe dies

456
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:44,519
in the war, Jack and Bobby are assassinate. You're down,

457
00:34:44,639 --> 00:34:53,599
You're down to Teddy. And the theory was Nixon feared

458
00:34:54,599 --> 00:34:58,679
Teddy would skip all the primaries leading up to the

459
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:02,920
convention because of chap Aqutic and Mary Joe Kopecne drowning

460
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:07,000
that role. Yeah uh, and he would skip the primaries

461
00:35:07,039 --> 00:35:13,519
where he might lose, but emerge at the convention as

462
00:35:13,559 --> 00:35:17,960
the great hero. The Kennedy the restoration of Camelot. So

463
00:35:18,159 --> 00:35:23,000
Nixon was was much more anxious than his staff. This

464
00:35:23,199 --> 00:35:27,480
is a metaphor, but he grabbed people in the hallway

465
00:35:27,559 --> 00:35:30,519
by their lapels and say, you're not taking this seriously.

466
00:35:31,199 --> 00:35:34,760
You don't understand the Kennedys. You know, I lost one.

467
00:35:35,159 --> 00:35:37,800
I'm not going to lose again. So there was an

468
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,440
intense concern about the Democrat Party.

469
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 3: I can see that.

470
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:49,159
Speaker 2: And then there was another issue that escapes me, but

471
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:56,360
a little come up as we can to talk. Nope,

472
00:35:56,519 --> 00:35:57,119
don't have it.

473
00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 3: That's okay.

474
00:35:58,119 --> 00:36:00,679
Speaker 1: So we have the burglary, right, we have this cover

475
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:02,840
up that John dene is like leading this cover up.

476
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:09,119
Speaker 2: I know, I know. Why did they bug the DNC headquarters.

477
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:15,119
Everybody knows the real information was out with the campaigns.

478
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:20,880
Why didn't they bug McGovern? Why didn't they bug the

479
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:27,679
guy from Maine? And the answer it's in Earl Silbert's diary.

480
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:32,519
Earl s the lead prosecutor, the career prosecutor who broke

481
00:36:32,599 --> 00:36:36,519
the cover up, one of the few real heroes in Watergame.

482
00:36:37,639 --> 00:36:45,760
He says, well, One, they tried to infiltrate in McGovern's

483
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:50,480
campaign a couple of times and couldn't do it. Two,

484
00:36:51,079 --> 00:36:54,480
the assumption was after the convention, which is going to

485
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:58,559
occur in a week or two. After the convention, McGovern

486
00:36:58,639 --> 00:37:02,599
will take over the NC headquarters in the Watergate Hotel

487
00:37:03,639 --> 00:37:09,280
and we'll already have our bugs in place. So with that,

488
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:15,079
that's not not as crazy as it sounds. Yeah, maybe

489
00:37:15,119 --> 00:37:19,239
they know, maybe there was some method in their madness.

490
00:37:19,559 --> 00:37:21,000
Now back to your questions.

491
00:37:21,519 --> 00:37:22,800
Speaker 1: So I just I was going to move on to

492
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:24,639
the cover up because we have John Deane like trying

493
00:37:24,679 --> 00:37:27,960
to cover all this up, and that actually like pushes

494
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:32,519
the narrative more that Nixon and his administration has evolved.

495
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:39,760
Speaker 2: Two things. He sits in on all the FBI interviews

496
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:44,800
of important people, and Atlanto says, I'm the same. Did

497
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:52,559
you to listen to the interview Alano's oral history? He says,

498
00:37:52,639 --> 00:37:58,440
we could tell because we interview somebody, And then half

499
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:00,840
the time they'd be in John Dene's office for the

500
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:06,079
interview that they've been coached, they weren't telling us what

501
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:10,599
stuff for strict they'd already reviewed all that stuff with Dean,

502
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:15,320
so we knew he was running it from day one.

503
00:38:15,519 --> 00:38:20,119
And ordinarily the FBI would never allow a lawyer to

504
00:38:20,199 --> 00:38:24,719
sit in on an interview, but this was the White House,

505
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:29,960
you know, and he was the president's lawyer. Then what happens,

506
00:38:31,119 --> 00:38:40,400
cover up collapses. Dean's been running it, and he decides, well, Magruder,

507
00:38:40,679 --> 00:38:44,880
who is the main reason for the cover up. There

508
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,679
two main reasons for the cover up. Magruder is a

509
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,480
very weak read. And they if they can shut it

510
00:38:51,519 --> 00:38:55,239
off at Gordon Liddy that Gordon's crazy one. It's probably

511
00:38:55,239 --> 00:39:00,400
true and Liddy will be magruder will be part acted.

512
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:07,519
And two, they've got to prevent disclosure of the earlier

513
00:39:07,639 --> 00:39:12,679
breaking out in the Beverly Hills offices of Daniel Ellsberg's

514
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:18,000
shrink because it's the same people. Yeah, that break in

515
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:25,519
is has the appearance of being author authorized directly from

516
00:39:25,519 --> 00:39:29,360
the Oval Office. So that's not oh, it's that campaign.

517
00:39:30,559 --> 00:39:33,920
That's when the Pentagon papers Lake Nixon said, spare no

518
00:39:34,639 --> 00:39:38,639
sparrino expanse, spare no effort. Go find out what this

519
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:43,679
guy's going to do. This Elsberg guy, he has access

520
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:50,480
to fifty four thousand pages of other classified documents as

521
00:39:50,519 --> 00:39:54,760
a consultant for Rand Corporation out in Santa Monica.

522
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:57,320
Speaker 1: How did he not get arrested for leaking all that

523
00:39:58,079 --> 00:39:59,199
he was?

524
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:05,119
Speaker 2: The case is brought out in Los Angeles. Big case.

525
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,480
Takes a while for these things to gin up, and

526
00:40:09,519 --> 00:40:13,920
it's presided over by Judge Matthew Byrne b y Orne

527
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:19,280
Good judge used to be an FBI agent. So when

528
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:29,599
we get rid of Pat Gray as head of the FBI,

529
00:40:29,679 --> 00:40:32,440
the acting head of the FBI, he can't be confirmed.

530
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:39,920
He gets up there for confirmation and he admits he

531
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:47,000
has given John dene At one different investigative reports prepared

532
00:40:47,039 --> 00:40:52,800
by the FBI. He's leaking to the president's lawyer, who's

533
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:59,400
leaking to the defendant's counsel. So Pat Gray's gone, He's done.

534
00:40:59,679 --> 00:41:03,760
Got a find another guy. We asked the Department of Justice.

535
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:05,719
So I was in this because I did law and

536
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:11,239
order related very closely to people at DJ. Who you

537
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:16,360
got in mind? Who's the best person? Well, it's this

538
00:41:16,559 --> 00:41:21,679
judge of California named Matthew Byrne. Trouble is, he's presiding

539
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:26,440
over the Elsberg prosecution for leaking the Pentagon papers. And

540
00:41:26,559 --> 00:41:31,079
I tell John Erlickman that, so we can't talk to him, right,

541
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:36,519
It says, Oh, yes we can. I'm not waiting till

542
00:41:36,519 --> 00:41:39,760
that trial's over to pick the next FBI guy. We

543
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,519
got to get somebody in line. So they're out at

544
00:41:42,519 --> 00:41:47,840
San Clemente, the Western White House, and he meets with Burne.

545
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:53,079
He meets with the judge presiding over the Elsberg trial,

546
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:56,679
but they don't talk about the Elvesburg trial. They ask

547
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,599
about his interest in being head of the FBI, and

548
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:07,559
he's interested. But he's interested, So Earlokman brings him back

549
00:42:08,199 --> 00:42:10,840
and introduces him to Nixon. Who's out there at the

550
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:15,480
Western Lighthouse. Well, one that leaks, you know, hell breaks

551
00:42:15,519 --> 00:42:20,079
thought and burn has to step down as judge. What

552
00:42:20,159 --> 00:42:25,599
he does is dismiss the case because we had wire tapped.

553
00:42:26,559 --> 00:42:30,679
We had overheard Elsberg on a wire tap that Henry

554
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:35,840
Kissinger had demanded of somebody else on the National Security Council,

555
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:41,360
guy named Mark Halpern, who happened to write the Pentagon Papers.

556
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:46,800
There's three people at the Department of Justice who are

557
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:53,119
the three most senior anti Vietnam War officials at DOJ.

558
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:57,599
Paul Warnkey, who's General Counsel, Mord Halpern, who's one of

559
00:42:57,599 --> 00:43:03,280
the thinkers, and a guy named Les Gelb. And they

560
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:08,559
authorized this giant secret study. Nobody at the White House

561
00:43:08,599 --> 00:43:12,719
knows they're reviewing it, Nobody at the Department of State. It's

562
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:18,400
not peer reviewed. This Pentagon Papers report. It's done by

563
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:24,400
people who hate the war. And less Gelb prepares the summaries.

564
00:43:25,519 --> 00:43:27,559
And if we had a moment, I could show you

565
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:37,480
the report. It's four volumes of printed up forty eight notebooks.

566
00:43:37,519 --> 00:43:46,360
Everything started in nineteen forty five forward. But and they've

567
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:51,880
got dozens of Army people working on preparing this report.

568
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:57,599
And they divided it up, and you know, there's the

569
00:43:57,639 --> 00:44:02,079
World War two involvement, there's the Geneva can Accords, there's this,

570
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:06,239
there's that. It stops with Linda Johnson, doesn't go into Nixon.

571
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:10,119
Speaker 3: So why did this look bad on Nixon?

572
00:44:10,199 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 2: Then let me finish, let's go hold the thought. So

573
00:44:16,679 --> 00:44:23,360
Gail summarizes different parts of the report, and so he's

574
00:44:23,519 --> 00:44:27,079
really what you don't want to read four volumes and

575
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:30,760
it's posted on Narrow's websites. You go see the Pentagon papers.

576
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:34,840
It's all declassified today. You could read. Nothing else to do.

577
00:44:35,599 --> 00:44:39,519
But what you do is you go and you print

578
00:44:39,559 --> 00:44:43,199
out the executive summaris and that will end up with

579
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:46,360
a stack about this high. And instead of.

580
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:50,159
Speaker 3: Four volumes, well is better?

581
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:58,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, And what's interesting, I've read his summaries. He's summarizing

582
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:03,199
work prepared by differentferent people, different officers in the army.

583
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:10,280
And if they liked the president, they're kind to him.

584
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:15,239
If they didn't like that particular president, they're not kind

585
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:20,400
to him trying to summarize this. So they liked Eisenhower.

586
00:45:21,519 --> 00:45:25,679
And if you read the summary of going into the

587
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:33,159
Geneva courts, coming out Eisenhower's treated very fairly. So's Jack Kennedy.

588
00:45:33,559 --> 00:45:36,079
But then you get to Lyndon Johnson and they just

589
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:41,920
dump all over him. It's all Linden. And again it's

590
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:46,480
not peer reviewed. It's not the official view of the Pentagon.

591
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:53,320
It's the anti warview of three Pentagon officials. So that's

592
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:56,599
what that's what leaks. You had another question.

593
00:45:57,000 --> 00:45:59,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that all this is leaked during Nixon's first

594
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:03,719
why is he so concerned about it, Like if it

595
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:05,800
doesn't really have anything to do with Hey.

596
00:46:06,159 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 2: It's lated on June seventeenth, nineteen seventy one. Okay, June

597
00:46:11,519 --> 00:46:15,039
seventeen keeps coming up because of the break can date two.

598
00:46:16,199 --> 00:46:19,679
And the beginning reaction is who cares? It's all Linda,

599
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:23,119
It stops with us, right, Yeah, well, well we'll come

600
00:46:23,119 --> 00:46:29,239
out looking better, and Kissinger throws a hissy fit. Kissinger says, listen,

601
00:46:30,199 --> 00:46:37,719
I am negotiating in secret with three totalitarian regimes Russia,

602
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:42,960
China and North Vietnam. If they conclude we can't keep

603
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:47,760
a secret, they won't talk. Just like today, you know

604
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,559
we are meeting with Iray. Well, yes, we are meeting

605
00:46:50,599 --> 00:46:54,639
with Iron nowhere you know, and you're you're sitting there.

606
00:46:54,639 --> 00:46:59,960
You've got back channels apparently today through Pakistan, maybe maybe

607
00:47:00,079 --> 00:47:04,599
through Spain to or somebody else. Pakistan is always eager

608
00:47:04,639 --> 00:47:09,599
to be a facilitator. But it's the same situation back then.

609
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:16,400
Now why was it top secret? Well, they would describe

610
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:21,320
some event we heard from the ambassador to Vietnam, our

611
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:24,800
ambassador that we should do something, that we were going

612
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:29,280
to do something, and it is an encrypted communication that

613
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:36,239
comes back to us that is broadcast. But our enemies

614
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:41,480
can't break the code. Well, with the Pentagon papers, they

615
00:47:41,519 --> 00:47:44,119
would tell you about all the stuff that was going on.

616
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:49,920
And then at least according to Gordon, they attached the

617
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:57,920
memo in question in the last four notebooks, So hundreds

618
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:04,400
and hundreds of pages of highly classified documents. And if

619
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:09,480
your opponents had the document, they could break the code

620
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:13,679
because they had the encrypted Now they had it's the

621
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:19,199
Rosetta stone. I mean, you don't do this. And and

622
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:27,559
so one of the two plumbers, Bud Krog and David Young.

623
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:32,119
David comes from the NSC, Bud comes from the Domestic Council.

624
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:35,920
David told me he's a good friend. He just died,

625
00:48:36,599 --> 00:48:41,039
died maybe two months ago. He said, you know, Jeff,

626
00:48:41,079 --> 00:48:47,519
people died because the Pentagon Papers lead. It exposed networks

627
00:48:47,559 --> 00:48:54,119
of spies and secret government helpers across the world.

628
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:58,320
Speaker 1: So that pissed off the deep state.

629
00:49:00,079 --> 00:49:04,880
Speaker 2: Well, yes, of course it did. But they hated Nixon too,

630
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:11,320
So you've got this this back and forth. The media

631
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:15,519
loved it. The New York Times, of course, Prince. It's

632
00:49:15,639 --> 00:49:18,400
it's a very If you get a hold of the page,

633
00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:22,199
to the front page of the New York Times, there's

634
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:29,880
a color picture of Trisia's wedding to the Cox kid David,

635
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:36,239
I'm not Cox, David Eisenhemmer, okay, in color, and then

636
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:40,320
below the fold there's the first leak of the Pentagon Papers. Yes,

637
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:46,760
rather historic, historic issue of the New York Times. They

638
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:50,039
try to stop it in advance. They want to stop

639
00:49:51,039 --> 00:49:54,519
papers from printing it again because they think people are

640
00:49:54,559 --> 00:49:57,639
going to die. It is alleged to be the biggest

641
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:06,119
national security leak its World War Two, and the district

642
00:50:06,199 --> 00:50:10,800
judge says no, no, no, there's no Official Secrets Act,

643
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:20,239
there's no prior restraint, and twenty nine different judges, district court,

644
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:24,679
different newspapers start. They shut down the New York Times,

645
00:50:24,679 --> 00:50:27,360
than the Post starts, they shut down the post in

646
00:50:27,519 --> 00:50:30,719
Miami Herald starts. It's what I call whack them mole.

647
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:33,760
Speaker 3: With the different papers like posting.

648
00:50:34,199 --> 00:50:37,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, what the judges would say is, you can't do that.

649
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:43,960
You can't prevent it. You can indict them for causing damage,

650
00:50:44,639 --> 00:50:50,920
but you can't prevent publication. But I will issue a

651
00:50:51,039 --> 00:50:56,960
temporary restraining order while you appeal. So they were, they

652
00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:59,320
were stopping, and then somebody else would pop up more

653
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:01,519
and they'd stop there, and somebody else'd pop up. Moore

654
00:51:02,599 --> 00:51:07,360
And the only judge out of DC who refused to

655
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:14,400
grant a temporary stained order was Judge Gerhard Gazelle and

656
00:51:14,559 --> 00:51:19,920
not particularly notorious, but he's the one that presided over

657
00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:24,039
the later Plumbers trial. So this guy who was involved

658
00:51:24,079 --> 00:51:28,440
in it from the beginning. And then we're going to

659
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:34,039
add a different point at this point, my books about Watergate,

660
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:41,480
secret meetings between prosecutors and judges, suppression of exculpatory information,

661
00:51:41,679 --> 00:51:47,440
and changing of stories by witnesses that's not shared with defense.

662
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:53,880
I'm currently working on my fourth and last book about

663
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:59,239
the Plumbers. Okay, and what is so interesting? I even

664
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:08,880
had a have a draft right here. First draft, different

665
00:52:09,079 --> 00:52:15,239
issue Plumbers is plumbers in Watergate. Different lawyers working for

666
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:21,320
the Watergate Special Proscution Force, different task forces, same secret

667
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:27,519
meetings with the judges, same suppression of exculpatory information, same

668
00:52:28,559 --> 00:52:34,440
situation of witnesses changing their story that not being shared

669
00:52:34,559 --> 00:52:40,320
with defense counsel. It's called a Brady rule violation, right, mean,

670
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:44,159
just ex blame that viewers just for a second. If

671
00:52:44,199 --> 00:52:48,239
you flip, you're a bad guy. You're one of six

672
00:52:49,639 --> 00:52:54,320
they're covering down. You can conclude you'd better be the

673
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:57,920
first to flip. You'll get a better deal. And then

674
00:52:58,199 --> 00:53:04,880
having flipped, your new best friend is the prosecutor, because

675
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:08,360
he's going to determine what they say to the judge

676
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:12,760
about how helpful you've been. So you start to polish

677
00:53:13,039 --> 00:53:19,039
your story to please your new protectors. Right, And that's

678
00:53:19,280 --> 00:53:22,800
very human and it's very well known. So the rule

679
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:28,199
is if a witness changes their story in the hands

680
00:53:28,199 --> 00:53:33,920
of the prosecutors, the prosecutors must share that with defense counsel.

681
00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:38,760
So defense counsel says, you said you were last in,

682
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:43,559
and yet before the Congress you said you were first in.

683
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:51,440
And so the question is were you lined then or

684
00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:54,440
are you lying now? We don't care which it is,

685
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:58,039
but the fact matters. You lie, right, And so they

686
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:01,880
hid that. In both of these major trials, the cover

687
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:06,320
Up trial and the Plumbers trial, witnesses changed their.

688
00:54:06,159 --> 00:54:08,719
Speaker 3: Stories and they didn't talk about it.

689
00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:13,360
Speaker 2: No, they didn't share that with defense. But I've uncovered

690
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:19,079
the memos that document the changes. See about two thousand

691
00:54:19,119 --> 00:54:25,400
and three, I learned the Special Prosecution Force specially recruited,

692
00:54:26,039 --> 00:54:31,800
highly partisan. They were government employees, so their records are

693
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:35,320
at National Archives if they survived. A lot of the

694
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:40,719
top people took their records with them, prosecutors, four top

695
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:43,880
obscuters took their records with them. Not supposed to do that,

696
00:54:44,079 --> 00:54:44,639
but they did.

697
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:48,360
Speaker 1: But because they didn't want anybody to know what was

698
00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:49,079
in their records.

699
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:54,639
Speaker 2: Well, no, they didn't want that. No. The memos confirming

700
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:59,559
secret meetings with the judges. Yeah, demos saying how can

701
00:54:59,599 --> 00:55:02,760
you I think this guy he's not guilty. Well, we

702
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:06,840
want to break the government hold, you know, we know

703
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:14,519
what we want to do. And they those records, those

704
00:55:14,639 --> 00:55:20,480
internal records, official official government documents, no question as to

705
00:55:20,599 --> 00:55:27,760
their authenticity. They first began to surface in twenty thirteen. Wow,

706
00:55:28,559 --> 00:55:33,239
George is the second special prosecutors. The key takes all

707
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:37,719
his records, goes back to Texas, finishes his career. He

708
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:44,480
heads up a big firm, full Brighton Jeworski Houston, and

709
00:55:44,519 --> 00:55:47,239
when he dies, he gives his papers to his alma mater,

710
00:55:47,599 --> 00:55:53,119
Baylor Law School in Waco, Texas, and they sort through

711
00:55:53,159 --> 00:55:56,840
them and get them ready to make them available. And

712
00:55:56,920 --> 00:56:02,679
they become available about twenty thirteen, and somebody else is

713
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:08,440
down looking and they say, these are grand jury transcripts.

714
00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:13,480
You can't have these. So Archives goes down, fetches all

715
00:56:13,519 --> 00:56:16,880
these and goes through it. I was told they had

716
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:21,239
an all hands on deck effort to redact the names

717
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:28,599
of people who investigated but not indicted. And I had

718
00:56:28,639 --> 00:56:33,239
a Foyer request pending about something else, and the head

719
00:56:33,239 --> 00:56:38,880
of this special access section said, Jeff that these papers

720
00:56:38,960 --> 00:56:44,559
aren't particularly responsive to your foyer requests, but we just

721
00:56:44,639 --> 00:56:47,239
finished clearing them and we want to get them out

722
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:50,119
to the public, so we're going to make them available

723
00:56:50,159 --> 00:56:53,199
to you. So I'm down there, and I got to

724
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:58,559
drive from my house outside of Philly down to Archives

725
00:56:58,679 --> 00:57:02,440
two romanum Wal two, which is in College Park, Maryland, Okay.

726
00:57:03,039 --> 00:57:05,320
And it takes me about three hours. It's rush hour

727
00:57:05,519 --> 00:57:09,800
rush hour to Philly at Wilkington, out of Baltimore into Washington.

728
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:12,639
It's a big project, and I was going down to

729
00:57:12,760 --> 00:57:16,000
prove something else in my mind, find documents that showed

730
00:57:16,039 --> 00:57:21,960
something that I was interested in in. What you do?

731
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:25,159
You take what's called a flat bed scanner, and if

732
00:57:25,159 --> 00:57:29,280
you look right off my right shoulder under the picture

733
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:35,840
that there's a flatbed scanner there. It doesn't curl the document.

734
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:40,840
The scanner moves like the old Xerox machines, you know,

735
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:44,440
the documents held and then the scanner, so you don't

736
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:49,159
you won't hurt the document. Perfect In a full day's stay,

737
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:56,199
I could scan approximately four hundred pages, but I couldn't

738
00:57:56,239 --> 00:57:59,280
read them. You'd look, here's a memo. Here's a five

739
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:04,840
page memo. Quick decision, scan or don't scan. And then

740
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:07,400
when you're scanning page one, you can read a couple

741
00:58:07,440 --> 00:58:11,960
of sentences of page two. Flip. Takes about a half

742
00:58:12,199 --> 00:58:17,639
minute to complete the scan at one page. I'm driving home.

743
00:58:18,599 --> 00:58:21,960
This is twenty thirteen. I'm talking to a good friend,

744
00:58:22,079 --> 00:58:26,960
former assistant Attorney General at the Department, and I say,

745
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:32,519
you know, it was a wasted trip. I didn't uncover

746
00:58:32,679 --> 00:58:36,039
the documents I wanted on this other topic. Then I

747
00:58:36,079 --> 00:58:42,119
get home and you print out all the documents. You

748
00:58:42,199 --> 00:58:45,639
put them in order, because they aren't in order when

749
00:58:45,639 --> 00:58:50,400
you got them. Okay, they're usually backwards by the calendar

750
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:52,880
because you keep putting stuff in in the next month

751
00:58:53,559 --> 00:58:56,920
and it gets fouled up. And highlight the dates and

752
00:58:56,960 --> 00:58:59,079
get them in order and their advance and then set

753
00:58:59,159 --> 00:59:03,239
of a gun. These guys were meeting secretly with a judge.

754
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:06,000
It's right there in black and white. I mean, you know,

755
00:59:06,239 --> 00:59:13,760
the so my second book, the real Watergate scandal. You see,

756
00:59:13,800 --> 00:59:18,559
that's that's over my other shoulder. I can't do this

757
00:59:18,679 --> 00:59:24,840
with a screen. I'm left candidates, everything gets felled. But uh,

758
00:59:25,239 --> 00:59:31,599
that's based primarily on documents from Juwarski's counfinancial Watergate files,

759
00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:38,480
meeting with the judges, discussion with the attorneys about who

760
00:59:38,519 --> 00:59:42,559
to hold responsible and why, how to phrase the cases.

761
00:59:45,239 --> 00:59:53,519
It's fascinating to me, but it's for all outward appearances,

762
00:59:54,079 --> 00:59:57,079
it's the same thing going on today with Trump. Right,

763
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:06,119
You've got five different assaults on Trump, the person trying

764
01:00:06,159 --> 01:00:13,159
to convict him of criminal and civil cases where it

765
01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:21,760
turns out there tempted to take shortcuts and reinterpret statutes

766
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:29,920
and cause new law. There are four phrases today popular

767
01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:35,480
today that didn't exist during Watergate, deep state, fake news,

768
01:00:36,559 --> 01:00:42,360
false narrative, and most of all law there the misuse

769
01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:47,159
of the criminal law to destroy your political opponent. Well,

770
01:00:47,639 --> 01:00:52,559
I maintain all those things existed during Watergate didn't have

771
01:00:52,679 --> 01:00:59,719
We didn't have those terms. And what's changed everything is

772
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:07,239
people today are willing to consider the idea that these

773
01:01:07,320 --> 01:01:13,639
specially recruited Watergate prosecutors hated Nixon so much they cut corners,

774
01:01:14,760 --> 01:01:19,599
and they're willing to listen to my pitch that this

775
01:01:19,760 --> 01:01:23,519
is what was going on now. As I say, these

776
01:01:25,159 --> 01:01:30,239
internal documents have come to light since twenty thirteen, so

777
01:01:30,239 --> 01:01:35,199
they've been out a dozen years. Reproduce ce them on

778
01:01:35,239 --> 01:01:38,639
my website. They're in the appendix to all of my books.

779
01:01:41,199 --> 01:01:46,159
Not one single document has ever been challenged by anybody

780
01:01:46,199 --> 01:01:55,119
as inauthentic or misunderstood. Not what Shepherd says. It says

781
01:01:57,039 --> 01:02:02,119
no one. There's absolute silence from the other side. But

782
01:02:02,880 --> 01:02:09,360
what's picking up is podcasts by people like you saying,

783
01:02:09,559 --> 01:02:11,679
you know, we have to take another look at this,

784
01:02:12,559 --> 01:02:15,000
We'll to take another look at this. So I've written

785
01:02:15,039 --> 01:02:22,400
three books, produced, two documentaries, and a off Broadway stage play,

786
01:02:24,119 --> 01:02:28,760
all with roughly the same thing. They're these documents that

787
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:32,159
have come to light that change everything. And as I

788
01:02:32,440 --> 01:02:36,239
just showed you, I'm just starting on a book about

789
01:02:36,280 --> 01:02:42,920
the Plumbers. The Plumbers is a lesser known prosecution, but

790
01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:47,239
same games, same was it.

791
01:02:47,320 --> 01:02:49,800
Speaker 1: Just overshadowed by Watergate? Like, do you think that the

792
01:02:49,800 --> 01:02:52,880
Plumbers would be would have been bigger if Watergate hadn't happened.

793
01:02:55,559 --> 01:03:02,360
Speaker 2: Yes, they were huge on their own, but present a

794
01:03:02,440 --> 01:03:08,119
totally different question. We have this little thing called the

795
01:03:08,119 --> 01:03:14,800
Fourth Amendment to our Constitution prohibiting the government from unreasonable

796
01:03:14,920 --> 01:03:18,039
search and seizure. Okay, so you've got to have a

797
01:03:18,159 --> 01:03:22,599
judge's order to go into your house. It's got to

798
01:03:22,599 --> 01:03:24,880
be specific where they can look, when they can look

799
01:03:24,920 --> 01:03:33,480
all that stuff. So those are search ones. Yes, government

800
01:03:34,639 --> 01:03:37,719
can't do that unreasonably. They can't come into your house

801
01:03:38,519 --> 01:03:44,519
without a judicially approved search one. But as the argument goes,

802
01:03:47,119 --> 01:03:50,239
the president is also a commander in chief responsible for

803
01:03:50,280 --> 01:03:57,480
protecting America from all enemies foreign and domestic. Does the

804
01:03:57,519 --> 01:04:04,800
president's responsibility is mandarin chief give him the authority in

805
01:04:04,920 --> 01:04:10,679
certain instances where national security is involved to break in

806
01:04:10,800 --> 01:04:14,320
without a warrant, they don't have to go to it. Judge,

807
01:04:14,320 --> 01:04:18,440
this is too important, moving too quickly. The bad guy

808
01:04:18,559 --> 01:04:22,280
is moving between four houses and we don't know who's

809
01:04:22,320 --> 01:04:26,159
coming up next. We've got to move now, Okay. Is

810
01:04:26,199 --> 01:04:26,719
that okay?

811
01:04:27,400 --> 01:04:28,960
Speaker 3: It feels like an abuse of power to me.

812
01:04:30,480 --> 01:04:38,280
Speaker 2: It should. So the way that issue is presented is,

813
01:04:38,280 --> 01:04:44,760
is there a national security exception to the Fourth Amendment? Okay?

814
01:04:46,159 --> 01:04:51,400
Speaker 3: No, I mean right, there is, but like no, but.

815
01:04:51,800 --> 01:04:56,760
Speaker 2: You see, that's the plumber's case. They broke in to

816
01:04:57,199 --> 01:05:03,679
Ellsberg's shrinks office without a warrant. Okay, that's the violation.

817
01:05:04,199 --> 01:05:09,679
They violated the Fourth Amendment. In less there's national security.

818
01:05:09,719 --> 01:05:13,199
And as I said, it was the biggest national security

819
01:05:13,280 --> 01:05:16,599
league since World War Two. He had access to fifty

820
01:05:16,639 --> 01:05:22,800
four other class of documents. Somebody had just leaked the

821
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:26,840
United States backup position for the SOUL to the Strategic

822
01:05:26,960 --> 01:05:31,719
Arms Limitation Dogs Treaty. We were being picked to down.

823
01:05:33,519 --> 01:05:36,280
Nixon said, you've got to stop this. You know, you've

824
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:41,239
got immense pressure. One of the meetings they held, the

825
01:05:41,239 --> 01:05:45,599
meetings where they created this Plumber's unit. They held the

826
01:05:45,639 --> 01:05:49,199
meetings in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing, right

827
01:05:49,199 --> 01:05:53,119
across the hall from the Oval Office, and they leaned

828
01:05:53,440 --> 01:05:58,840
hard on these government bureaucrats, THEBI and the CIA and

829
01:05:58,920 --> 01:06:02,159
the Department of the Demand. Elsberg was a Department of

830
01:06:02,239 --> 01:06:06,159
Defense guy, what's going on? How did he get this stuff?

831
01:06:06,199 --> 01:06:11,360
Why didn't you know? They were told in one of

832
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:16,119
those meetings by the FBI that a full set of

833
01:06:16,159 --> 01:06:20,039
the Pentagon papers had been delivered to the Soviet embassy.

834
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:23,679
On the same day, the New York Times printed the excerpt,

835
01:06:24,119 --> 01:06:26,119
Oh my goodness, it's big stuff.

836
01:06:26,440 --> 01:06:27,719
Speaker 3: Yeah.

837
01:06:27,760 --> 01:06:35,840
Speaker 2: So they got prosecuted in the plumber's trial for violating

838
01:06:37,480 --> 01:06:43,840
the Fourth Amendment. Okay, you went in without a search. One.

839
01:06:44,119 --> 01:06:51,320
The difficulty is that for the previous four decades, the

840
01:06:51,360 --> 01:06:55,320
position of the Department of Justice was, well, of course

841
01:06:56,039 --> 01:07:00,840
there's a national security exemption. We go in when damn we'll.

842
01:07:00,719 --> 01:07:03,519
Speaker 3: Please, right, because they like that law.

843
01:07:04,360 --> 01:07:08,239
Speaker 2: Well, hell, I mean, you know, now, there are eight

844
01:07:08,320 --> 01:07:12,840
hundred federal judges, give or take some not all of

845
01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:16,639
them even have a national security clearance. They can't even

846
01:07:16,719 --> 01:07:20,000
read this stuff. Why should we have to go to

847
01:07:20,079 --> 01:07:25,239
some Yahoo in Minnesota and get his permission to go

848
01:07:26,559 --> 01:07:27,360
protect the name?

849
01:07:28,159 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 1: But At the same time, here's a question, why do

850
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:33,519
they break into his psychiatrist's office instead of bringing into

851
01:07:33,519 --> 01:07:37,559
like his home or something which makes more sense. This psychiatrist,

852
01:07:38,079 --> 01:07:40,400
he's got a lot of patients, not just Ellsberg.

853
01:07:41,159 --> 01:07:47,559
Speaker 2: You know, we should do duels duets more frequently. Because

854
01:07:47,639 --> 01:07:50,480
when the break in was not successful and they did

855
01:07:50,559 --> 01:07:55,719
not find an Elsburg file, they recommended breaking into his home.

856
01:07:57,039 --> 01:07:58,239
That was their comeback.

857
01:07:58,840 --> 01:08:02,039
Speaker 3: And so let's just start there early.

858
01:08:02,039 --> 01:08:03,960
Speaker 2: I'm going to said, enough of this ship. Get let

859
01:08:04,119 --> 01:08:07,800
get letty, get Lyddy off your stead out of here.

860
01:08:08,320 --> 01:08:12,760
So he foisted him onto the re election campaign. I

861
01:08:12,760 --> 01:08:19,399
want to go back to uh four decades of there

862
01:08:19,439 --> 01:08:27,640
being a national security One of the most significant Watergate reforms,

863
01:08:27,680 --> 01:08:31,640
after we send everybody off to jail, was the creation

864
01:08:31,840 --> 01:08:33,840
of the committee to go have a look at what

865
01:08:33,880 --> 01:08:38,239
the government had been doing. And it's called the Church Committee.

866
01:08:38,239 --> 01:08:45,199
It's the Special Senate Senate Select Committee on Domestic Intelligence.

867
01:08:46,079 --> 01:08:49,720
And they held hearings and they reviewed, and it was

868
01:08:49,760 --> 01:08:54,920
a different era. Luther had died, Jaeger Hoover had died,

869
01:08:56,840 --> 01:09:01,960
Richard Helms the CIA had been relieved and reassigned as

870
01:09:02,000 --> 01:09:08,079
our ambassador to Iran, the people who were left behind

871
01:09:09,920 --> 01:09:13,960
actually responded to subpoenas from the Church Committee and they

872
01:09:14,920 --> 01:09:18,119
asked them for all kinds of documents, and then they

873
01:09:18,279 --> 01:09:22,359
produced a report. Happened to have it right here. Look

874
01:09:22,359 --> 01:09:27,880
at that book two of the Intelligent Activities and Rights

875
01:09:27,920 --> 01:09:32,199
of Americans, Final Report of the Select Committee to Study

876
01:09:32,239 --> 01:09:41,680
Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligent Intelligence Activities. And they

877
01:09:41,800 --> 01:09:45,600
lay out chapter and verse of what we've been doing

878
01:09:46,000 --> 01:09:51,000
for four decades, all right, laid out there for the

879
01:09:51,159 --> 01:09:52,159
world to see.

880
01:09:52,920 --> 01:09:56,720
Speaker 3: It's a game plan. Yeah, and there's like following.

881
01:09:56,479 --> 01:10:00,439
Speaker 2: It's what we've done. We don't do this anymore because

882
01:10:00,439 --> 01:10:06,239
we're telling you we used to do this. That Church

883
01:10:06,319 --> 01:10:13,520
Committee geared up within one year of the Plumber convictions.

884
01:10:14,199 --> 01:10:19,560
So you're appealing this case with these Republicans, broke into

885
01:10:19,640 --> 01:10:26,600
the Fielding's office and you're holding extensive hearings. The government

886
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:33,760
had done this for four decades, same situation. Yeah, and

887
01:10:33,760 --> 01:10:38,720
and and nobody says, well, wait to say, you know,

888
01:10:38,880 --> 01:10:42,239
how come you didn't tell Why? Why weren't we informed?

889
01:10:42,680 --> 01:10:47,640
Why didn't we know this at the trial? Never comes up. Now,

890
01:10:49,439 --> 01:10:53,359
there was a guy named Phil Haymon, Harvard law professor.

891
01:10:53,439 --> 01:10:57,399
They all go to Harvard. It came with Archie Cox,

892
01:10:58,840 --> 01:11:03,199
and he felt, as a matter of policy, just like

893
01:11:03,279 --> 01:11:08,640
you feel, that there is no exception, the government's been

894
01:11:08,640 --> 01:11:13,600
doing it. But the government's wrong. So he argued in

895
01:11:13,640 --> 01:11:20,720
the Plumber's case and in related cases perjury by Bud Crogue,

896
01:11:20,720 --> 01:11:26,079
one of the head plumbers, other spinouts from this intrusion,

897
01:11:27,439 --> 01:11:32,560
and the appeals, he argued, there was no such exception

898
01:11:32,720 --> 01:11:37,039
that this was groundless to begin with. There was no exception.

899
01:11:38,760 --> 01:11:42,920
And you ask yourself, well, wait a second, what right

900
01:11:44,079 --> 01:11:51,600
does a specially recruited, highly partisan Democrat prosecutor have to

901
01:11:51,840 --> 01:11:55,479
argue that position as though it were the position of

902
01:11:55,520 --> 01:12:01,039
the Department of Justice, which it demonstrably was not. For

903
01:12:01,119 --> 01:12:06,520
an extraordinary liberal judge who rule at the conclusion of

904
01:12:06,560 --> 01:12:11,720
the Plumber's trial, any government review of your private papers

905
01:12:12,319 --> 01:12:15,079
is a per se violation of the fourth man without

906
01:12:15,079 --> 01:12:18,600
a court work. So you've got this, and I hate

907
01:12:18,600 --> 01:12:20,840
to dwell on it, but that's what I'm working on. Yeah,

908
01:12:21,680 --> 01:12:26,600
you have on the Pentagon papers, you have the Elsberg

909
01:12:27,000 --> 01:12:30,479
break in and the plumbers, and then have the Church

910
01:12:30,560 --> 01:12:36,680
Committee which undercuts all that, and nobody gives it. Nobody,

911
01:12:36,840 --> 01:12:41,520
nobody wants to raise that question because that would make

912
01:12:41,640 --> 01:12:44,760
Democrats look bad instead of Republicans.

913
01:12:45,119 --> 01:12:47,119
Speaker 1: The whole thing is so stupid when it comes to politics.

914
01:12:47,159 --> 01:12:49,560
They're like, well, we need you to look bad. We

915
01:12:49,600 --> 01:12:52,159
can't look bad. And then all in all, like you're

916
01:12:52,159 --> 01:12:54,439
screwing over the people that you're supposed to be representing.

917
01:12:55,039 --> 01:12:59,520
Speaker 2: Well, it's all about power, right, not issue take the day.

918
01:12:59,520 --> 01:13:03,720
If we could just for a second, absolutely apparently this

919
01:13:03,880 --> 01:13:09,319
morning at two am, we voted to fund DHS. Voted

920
01:13:09,359 --> 01:13:12,680
to fund DHS, and went home. We'll see if the

921
01:13:12,680 --> 01:13:20,720
House concurs. Each side thought they have an absolute, unassailable position.

922
01:13:22,039 --> 01:13:27,479
The Republicans wanted to fund the department. The Democrats, still

923
01:13:27,760 --> 01:13:31,319
upset by long lines in the airports, wanted to fund

924
01:13:31,399 --> 01:13:35,600
TSA on a standalone basis. We said, no, it's all

925
01:13:35,680 --> 01:13:39,479
or none. They said, no, it's us. We got the votes.

926
01:13:40,000 --> 01:13:42,880
You may be in charge, but you don't have sixty votes.

927
01:13:44,560 --> 01:13:48,720
And then at the end my understanding, we said, okay,

928
01:13:48,800 --> 01:13:52,399
let's fund TSAY. This is crazy and they said, now

929
01:13:53,119 --> 01:13:58,479
that's not enough. We want ton Dice. In addition, yeah,

930
01:13:58,920 --> 01:14:02,359
we're winning the pr battle and all those people in

931
01:14:02,399 --> 01:14:06,079
those lines are blaming you. Because we go out and

932
01:14:06,079 --> 01:14:08,960
say you control the government. Now you don't because you

933
01:14:09,000 --> 01:14:12,880
can't break the filibuster, right, But the public doesn't know that,

934
01:14:12,920 --> 01:14:15,920
and the press won't write it that way. You're being

935
01:14:16,000 --> 01:14:22,239
blamed for the long lines. We're going to win the midterms.

936
01:14:23,079 --> 01:14:26,800
The longer this keeps up, it's going to destroy the economy.

937
01:14:27,319 --> 01:14:31,680
Will blame you. Yep, it's going to cause massive disruption,

938
01:14:32,319 --> 01:14:36,359
will blame you. And the Republicans are sitting there saying,

939
01:14:36,399 --> 01:14:40,880
you know, we're going to remember this one because this

940
01:14:41,039 --> 01:14:43,760
has nothing to do with good government. This is just

941
01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:48,600
all power, and that's human nature, and that's why our

942
01:14:48,640 --> 01:14:53,880
founding fathers divvied it up. Three branches, checks and balances.

943
01:14:54,399 --> 01:15:00,199
Smart people. They couldn't solve everything. But my goodness, are

944
01:15:00,199 --> 01:15:02,279
we better situated than other countries.

945
01:15:04,560 --> 01:15:06,000
Speaker 3: The whole thing just blows my eye.

946
01:15:06,279 --> 01:15:09,800
Speaker 1: Politics, the power that they feel like they need to

947
01:15:09,840 --> 01:15:12,159
have is crazy to me because at the end of

948
01:15:12,199 --> 01:15:14,960
the day, like you're affecting people's like day to day lives,

949
01:15:15,000 --> 01:15:16,880
and we don't really care about your power. We care

950
01:15:16,920 --> 01:15:20,560
about like just paying our bills in like liters.

951
01:15:21,079 --> 01:15:26,119
Speaker 2: What they almost sanctimonious as can be. Hiens sit there,

952
01:15:26,199 --> 01:15:29,840
look you right in the eye. We had a reporter,

953
01:15:32,960 --> 01:15:38,239
Virginia something or other here around Philadelphia, fast rising star,

954
01:15:38,359 --> 01:15:44,159
local station, hardly thought of. She ran her car off

955
01:15:44,199 --> 01:15:46,760
the road at the Kennan Allen drowned. But she was

956
01:15:46,800 --> 01:15:49,920
a rising star before them. In one of the lines

957
01:15:49,960 --> 01:15:51,680
she was famous for, how did you do it? How

958
01:15:51,720 --> 01:15:54,560
did you? How do you do so well? You know,

959
01:15:54,640 --> 01:15:59,199
all you do is local news is interview with people

960
01:15:59,199 --> 01:16:02,479
whose kid is just falling off the roof, you know, Oh,

961
01:16:02,560 --> 01:16:06,560
local news at Gore And she said, oh, once you

962
01:16:06,680 --> 01:16:11,439
get false sincerity down, you've got it made. It's all fake.

963
01:16:11,520 --> 01:16:17,600
It's all theater and they're actors. These are not distinguished people.

964
01:16:17,680 --> 01:16:22,319
We lost distinguished people right right about the time of Watergate.

965
01:16:23,199 --> 01:16:29,479
There used to be really distinguished people who fought like

966
01:16:29,560 --> 01:16:32,000
mad during the day and went out for drinks with

967
01:16:32,119 --> 01:16:34,439
the opponent that night. I mean, you know it was

968
01:16:35,439 --> 01:16:38,960
that they really did play it on good government. But

969
01:16:39,000 --> 01:16:42,079
no more. The other one that happened, and I should

970
01:16:42,119 --> 01:16:46,760
really stop on this. What's caused the change since the

971
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:52,000
year two thousand is there's a tie. When there's a tie,

972
01:16:52,159 --> 01:16:58,279
the House, the Senate, the White House could change in

973
01:16:58,399 --> 01:17:03,920
any given election, they're all at risk. And when there's

974
01:17:03,960 --> 01:17:08,439
a tie, you fight harder, You fight like man, because

975
01:17:08,479 --> 01:17:12,560
maybe just one more vote, one more story that dumps

976
01:17:12,600 --> 01:17:15,439
on the poor guy's wife or kid who got into

977
01:17:15,479 --> 01:17:20,279
a fight in high school, one more false accusation might

978
01:17:20,359 --> 01:17:24,399
swing enough that you could win. Yeah, then you could

979
01:17:24,439 --> 01:17:28,920
be reasonable. Then you could be congressman for all the

980
01:17:29,039 --> 01:17:33,479
voters in your district. But you've got to beat that tie.

981
01:17:34,319 --> 01:17:37,000
Speaker 1: But like, if you're willing to go that far, then

982
01:17:38,159 --> 01:17:40,159
you're already you've already proven that you're going you're going

983
01:17:40,199 --> 01:17:41,600
to go that far, So you're not going to come

984
01:17:41,600 --> 01:17:42,640
back and be like moderate.

985
01:17:42,720 --> 01:17:46,319
Speaker 2: Now, who's who did you have in mind? Who's not

986
01:17:47,159 --> 01:17:48,439
willing to go that far?

987
01:17:49,359 --> 01:17:52,920
Speaker 1: Everyone is willing to go like however far to get

988
01:17:52,920 --> 01:17:53,800
the vote they need.

989
01:17:54,439 --> 01:17:58,199
Speaker 2: Maybe Fetterman, he seems to be voting in his conscience,

990
01:17:58,800 --> 01:18:03,600
driving me. Look, it's crazy, he's my you know, weird

991
01:18:03,680 --> 01:18:11,960
guy Rand Paul Weird. Lisa Murkowski. I don't want voter

992
01:18:12,119 --> 01:18:15,720
ID because my people in Alaska lived too far from

993
01:18:15,760 --> 01:18:19,199
the polling places. And your sister, it's a you know,

994
01:18:20,239 --> 01:18:27,199
your costing us a massive voter fraud, and you've got

995
01:18:27,239 --> 01:18:34,760
your stingy views about people living in rural Alaska. Well,

996
01:18:35,000 --> 01:18:38,479
she's sincere those are her people. Back to wag Back

997
01:18:38,520 --> 01:18:43,439
to Watergate. There were certain Watergate reforms after everybody was

998
01:18:43,479 --> 01:18:47,039
sent off to jail. One was called the Ethics and

999
01:18:47,159 --> 01:18:50,520
Government Act. I think it passed in seventy eight or

1000
01:18:50,560 --> 01:18:55,880
seventy nine, and it set up the Independent Council Statute,

1001
01:18:56,039 --> 01:19:05,720
Independent Prosecutor Statute, which legitimatized what was done with Cox day. Today,

1002
01:19:06,399 --> 01:19:08,600
it's a judge down in Florida, I think her name

1003
01:19:08,640 --> 01:19:13,920
is Canon who held that Jeff Smith and his whole

1004
01:19:13,960 --> 01:19:18,359
group were illegitimate because they had not been confirmed by

1005
01:19:18,359 --> 01:19:23,000
the Senate and they were not enforcing a specific law

1006
01:19:23,159 --> 01:19:28,159
passed by the Congress, and that was their holding. Now,

1007
01:19:29,560 --> 01:19:32,960
the Department of Justice withdrew the case before it was

1008
01:19:33,000 --> 01:19:39,399
heard on appeal, but two Attorney generals ours argued that

1009
01:19:40,399 --> 01:19:45,960
it was really operating without legitimacy. Same situation with Watergate.

1010
01:19:47,279 --> 01:19:51,039
Archie Cox, the first special prosecutor, was never confirmed by

1011
01:19:51,079 --> 01:19:57,279
the Senate. The guidelines that ran the special Prosecutor staff

1012
01:19:57,319 --> 01:20:01,239
and gave them complete independence, it's from the Department of

1013
01:20:01,399 --> 01:20:05,399
Justice oversight that was never passed by the Congress. It

1014
01:20:05,560 --> 01:20:10,439
was done in a romped session by the Democrats led

1015
01:20:10,479 --> 01:20:11,439
by Ted Ny Kennedy.

1016
01:20:13,039 --> 01:20:14,600
Speaker 3: Any legal, How's any of this legal?

1017
01:20:15,840 --> 01:20:20,720
Speaker 2: Well, the argument today is it wasn't. In retrospect that

1018
01:20:20,880 --> 01:20:27,159
wasn't legal. Well, so were the due process violations used

1019
01:20:27,199 --> 01:20:29,359
to be? Maybe not today, but it used to be.

1020
01:20:30,560 --> 01:20:35,039
Most Americans would agree, no matter how henus the crime,

1021
01:20:35,159 --> 01:20:39,439
no matter how despicable the defendants, they got a fair truck,

1022
01:20:40,079 --> 01:20:41,880
then you'd hang them. But they got a fair truck.

1023
01:20:42,279 --> 01:20:45,520
Right now, today that's not quite the same thing, because

1024
01:20:45,600 --> 01:20:49,359
they want Trump derangement syndrome, you know, get rid of

1025
01:20:49,359 --> 01:20:55,239
them at any cost. Legalities don't matter. But that was

1026
01:20:55,319 --> 01:21:01,000
the situation with Watergate. Convict them at any cost because

1027
01:21:01,039 --> 01:21:10,439
they're evil. Nixon's evil. He conducted the war. I mean,

1028
01:21:10,439 --> 01:21:14,039
there were five hundred and thirty seven thousand US troops

1029
01:21:14,039 --> 01:21:19,079
in Vietnam when Nixon took office. But Pat moynihan, one

1030
01:21:19,119 --> 01:21:23,600
of his top advisors, liberal Democrat, but neat god. He said,

1031
01:21:23,640 --> 01:21:27,319
the public doesn't blame you for the war, but they

1032
01:21:27,359 --> 01:21:31,279
will if you don't make significant progress in six months

1033
01:21:31,840 --> 01:21:33,520
in getting us out right.

1034
01:21:33,640 --> 01:21:34,119
Speaker 3: Do something.

1035
01:21:34,159 --> 01:21:38,279
Speaker 2: And Nixon wanted peace with honor. He wouldn't cut and run.

1036
01:21:39,079 --> 01:21:42,920
So they started blaming him, and the Democrats who tolerated

1037
01:21:43,000 --> 01:21:48,920
Lyndon Johnson's war were suddenly out posturing like mad against Nixon.

1038
01:21:50,000 --> 01:21:54,960
It was a very, very tough time. We had this

1039
01:21:55,119 --> 01:22:01,640
period that they call the unrest of the nineteen sixties.

1040
01:22:02,920 --> 01:22:06,439
And you hear that phrase, Yeah, it's really a twenty

1041
01:22:06,560 --> 01:22:11,920
year period from nineteen sixty to nineteen eighty when there

1042
01:22:11,920 --> 01:22:16,279
were three assassinations Jack Kennedy, Bob Kennedy, Martin Luther King.

1043
01:22:17,600 --> 01:22:22,399
There were riots in at least nineteen major cities. No

1044
01:22:22,840 --> 01:22:25,239
president completed two full terms.

1045
01:22:25,920 --> 01:22:26,359
Speaker 3: Wow.

1046
01:22:26,800 --> 01:22:33,279
Speaker 2: Jack Kennedy's assassinated. Then Johnson chose not to run, Nixon resigns.

1047
01:22:34,079 --> 01:22:36,199
Ford was never elected to anything.

1048
01:22:36,920 --> 01:22:38,880
Speaker 1: He just like took over for the two years and

1049
01:22:38,880 --> 01:22:40,079
then it was not appointed.

1050
01:22:40,199 --> 01:22:45,000
Speaker 2: Yes, he was confirmed by the Congress and Jimmy Carter.

1051
01:22:46,520 --> 01:22:49,840
Jimmy Carter served one term. It wasn't until we got

1052
01:22:49,880 --> 01:22:53,520
to Ronald Reagan that we had a president served two

1053
01:22:53,560 --> 01:22:54,279
full terms.

1054
01:22:55,159 --> 01:22:59,640
Speaker 1: Wow, Skims didn't realize that, Like, oh, and you.

1055
01:22:59,680 --> 01:23:01,920
Speaker 2: Think so it's nothing, it's you know, the end rest

1056
01:23:01,920 --> 01:23:04,800
of the sixties. Well, we we had a riot last

1057
01:23:04,880 --> 01:23:08,039
night in Detroit. You know who cares man. It was.

1058
01:23:08,159 --> 01:23:13,159
There were bombings, there was the Symbionese Liberation Army, the

1059
01:23:13,199 --> 01:23:20,399
Black Panthers, the weather underground. We're getting close, but it

1060
01:23:20,600 --> 01:23:26,800
was much worse than see what happened. What happened was

1061
01:23:26,800 --> 01:23:30,880
the Vietnam War, most unpopular war in our nation's history.

1062
01:23:32,079 --> 01:23:35,760
One of the main reasons it was so unpopular was

1063
01:23:35,800 --> 01:23:42,119
the military draft only applied to guys only impacted guys

1064
01:23:42,159 --> 01:23:50,119
born between nineteen forty in nineteen fifty who became draft

1065
01:23:50,279 --> 01:23:54,319
eligible at the height of the war. Right, I mean

1066
01:23:54,399 --> 01:23:56,560
that group. I was born in nineteen forty four. I

1067
01:23:56,640 --> 01:23:58,239
lived through this and.

1068
01:23:58,359 --> 01:24:02,279
Speaker 1: Did it it like on fairly, like unfairly. There was

1069
01:24:02,319 --> 01:24:08,680
more like minors and not miners, minorities and like poor

1070
01:24:08,800 --> 01:24:12,119
people that were drafted versus like people of.

1071
01:24:13,479 --> 01:24:14,000
Speaker 3: Influence.

1072
01:24:14,439 --> 01:24:20,479
Speaker 2: That is an accusation. It was not confined to minority

1073
01:24:20,560 --> 01:24:23,199
Women weren't involved, of course, right, of course, it wasn't

1074
01:24:23,279 --> 01:24:32,359
confined to minorities. You every single person had, every single

1075
01:24:32,640 --> 01:24:36,640
male had to register at age eighteen. You had local

1076
01:24:36,720 --> 01:24:47,039
draft boards, four or five people, prominent citizens. Patriot call

1077
01:24:47,079 --> 01:24:51,520
would go out for more soldiers and they would have

1078
01:24:51,560 --> 01:24:56,800
a quota. You need to supply twenty five people, and

1079
01:24:56,840 --> 01:25:00,479
they came from a list of one a's those are

1080
01:25:00,520 --> 01:25:04,439
eligible for draft. Or you could have a medical or

1081
01:25:04,479 --> 01:25:09,000
you could have an educational or you could have a

1082
01:25:09,000 --> 01:25:15,920
a dependent exemption, or a conscientious objective. But pretty much

1083
01:25:15,920 --> 01:25:20,880
those were the five categories. Come now. You don't have

1084
01:25:20,920 --> 01:25:24,119
to come because you're medically unfit. You don't have to

1085
01:25:24,119 --> 01:25:27,640
come because you're in college. You don't have to come

1086
01:25:27,680 --> 01:25:30,880
because you're married. You don't have to come because you're

1087
01:25:30,920 --> 01:25:36,520
a conscientious objective. But we're talking tens of thousands of people.

1088
01:25:36,600 --> 01:25:41,600
Everybody had this cardboard draft guard had to carry with him.

1089
01:25:42,399 --> 01:25:46,479
That's what you burned when you were opposing in the war. Yeah,

1090
01:25:46,920 --> 01:25:51,399
and it was like talking about your astrological sign, what's

1091
01:25:51,439 --> 01:25:55,439
your draft status? How you doing? How about Bob? Whatever

1092
01:25:55,520 --> 01:25:59,720
happened to Bob? Well, Bob failed a course in college,

1093
01:26:00,119 --> 01:26:06,560
draft board took him. Well what about George, Well George

1094
01:26:06,560 --> 01:26:09,359
had a doctor's prescription saying he had flat feet, so

1095
01:26:09,439 --> 01:26:15,960
he's okay. Well what about John claiming conscientious objector? Well,

1096
01:26:16,000 --> 01:26:20,680
that's a tough tough loop to fly through because it's

1097
01:26:20,720 --> 01:26:24,840
so subjective. How do you prove to the draft board

1098
01:26:25,119 --> 01:26:29,600
who wants you that you just said, not get shot

1099
01:26:29,640 --> 01:26:37,079
at now. Uniquely, we talked about the Quaker schools. Quakers

1100
01:26:37,159 --> 01:26:41,359
have been pacifists from day one. Kids who went to

1101
01:26:41,439 --> 01:26:46,079
Whittier with me had a real leg up if they

1102
01:26:46,119 --> 01:26:51,800
wanted to claim COO status because they could say, you know,

1103
01:26:52,159 --> 01:26:55,960
having been here for four years, I've come to believe

1104
01:26:56,039 --> 01:27:00,560
in Quaker pacifism. So I've lived it for four years.

1105
01:27:00,600 --> 01:27:04,319
I've got knowledge about it. And they had a much

1106
01:27:04,359 --> 01:27:09,880
better argument to make for a tough a tough thing

1107
01:27:09,920 --> 01:27:16,800
to qualify. Whittier didn't have any ROTC units or anything

1108
01:27:16,840 --> 01:27:21,800
like that. It was above the fray. I graduated in

1109
01:27:21,880 --> 01:27:27,079
sixty six. Sixty five marks the first huge draft. The

1110
01:27:27,159 --> 01:27:30,880
draft always existed since World War Two, but they really

1111
01:27:30,920 --> 01:27:34,880
started calling people up in sixty five. And to me,

1112
01:27:35,960 --> 01:27:39,520
the only question was where you go, not whether you

1113
01:27:39,560 --> 01:27:42,640
would go. So when I got back to law school

1114
01:27:42,680 --> 01:27:47,760
back East, I joined ROTC. And it was very dangerous

1115
01:27:47,800 --> 01:27:51,279
to be in ROTC at Harvard because the other students

1116
01:27:51,439 --> 01:27:55,399
of the pasty faced peace screeps didn't like you. So

1117
01:27:56,239 --> 01:28:01,920
most ROTC units in other college. You have to wear

1118
01:28:01,960 --> 01:28:06,159
your uniform on drill day. Once a week, you show

1119
01:28:06,239 --> 01:28:10,560
up for class in a uniform. Not at Harvard. We didn't.

1120
01:28:11,279 --> 01:28:13,960
Speaker 3: We didn't have to wear uniforms, like maybe don't do that.

1121
01:28:16,000 --> 01:28:21,520
Speaker 2: We marched. We practiced in Soldiers Field, which is across

1122
01:28:21,600 --> 01:28:25,279
the Charles River where the Business School is. And to

1123
01:28:25,359 --> 01:28:29,399
get from the law school to the river you had

1124
01:28:29,439 --> 01:28:33,119
to go through Harvard Square. Yeah, you did not want

1125
01:28:33,159 --> 01:28:36,920
to go through Harvard Square with your fatigues on. That

1126
01:28:37,079 --> 01:28:39,119
was not a wise thing to do. So we go

1127
01:28:39,159 --> 01:28:42,520
as a group. See we would We wouldn't march, but

1128
01:28:42,640 --> 01:28:45,479
we would, you know, get six or eight guys to

1129
01:28:45,600 --> 01:28:48,479
go through it. And they didn't hassle you then, right,

1130
01:28:48,560 --> 01:28:51,520
So yeah, well, if you were this was the time

1131
01:28:51,560 --> 01:28:55,159
of Timothy Leary you may have heard of him. Uh.

1132
01:28:55,359 --> 01:29:00,560
He was a psychiatrist and the phrase was tune in,

1133
01:29:01,000 --> 01:29:04,680
turn on, drop out, and it was LSD and all

1134
01:29:04,760 --> 01:29:09,600
the psychedelic drugs. Pat moynihand told me once when we

1135
01:29:09,600 --> 01:29:12,039
were on the White House staff together, and he had

1136
01:29:12,079 --> 01:29:16,399
been a Harvard professor, he said every single member of

1137
01:29:16,439 --> 01:29:23,079
the faculty had one relative, one spouse or nephew or

1138
01:29:23,199 --> 01:29:28,800
kid on drugs. That it was so liberal, one regulated,

1139
01:29:28,880 --> 01:29:34,319
And he said they were everywhere LSD and speed and

1140
01:29:34,319 --> 01:29:39,399
amphetamines and uppers and downers. Hell, that's what Jack Kennedy did.

1141
01:29:40,159 --> 01:29:41,960
Speaker 1: That's so crazy to me because like you think about

1142
01:29:41,960 --> 01:29:43,960
the sixties, and that's kind of what you think about, right,

1143
01:29:44,000 --> 01:29:47,720
like the Summer of Love. Everyone's hippies, everybody's on drugs.

1144
01:29:48,000 --> 01:29:50,920
But then like it's funny that they have they have

1145
01:29:51,039 --> 01:29:53,279
changed the narrative so much. They're like, yes, everyone was

1146
01:29:53,319 --> 01:29:57,640
on drugs, everyone was happy, but like they so like

1147
01:29:58,239 --> 01:30:02,279
cover up the fact that like we're having like presidents

1148
01:30:02,439 --> 01:30:05,720
are not doing two terms, Like we have this war

1149
01:30:05,760 --> 01:30:07,960
that nobody like in I mean, we talked about the

1150
01:30:08,000 --> 01:30:11,920
Vietnam War, but not like as aggressive.

1151
01:30:11,560 --> 01:30:15,479
Speaker 2: Not knowing, not knowing right the word to this group

1152
01:30:15,600 --> 01:30:19,720
of ten years, you know, nineteen forty, nineteen fifty, if

1153
01:30:19,760 --> 01:30:24,039
you got drafted, you were going to Vietnam. If you

1154
01:30:24,079 --> 01:30:28,039
went to Vietnam, you weren't coming home. So to a

1155
01:30:28,079 --> 01:30:31,039
lot of them, this was life or death. Yeah, it

1156
01:30:31,119 --> 01:30:36,840
wasn't just us kids, It was family and friends and girlfriends.

1157
01:30:37,600 --> 01:30:44,359
Every decision you made because to the draft had to

1158
01:30:44,399 --> 01:30:47,640
take into account its effect on the draft. If you

1159
01:30:47,840 --> 01:30:51,680
dropped a course in college, you wouldn't be promoted to

1160
01:30:51,760 --> 01:30:55,359
be a sophomore, your draft board could claim you were

1161
01:30:55,399 --> 01:31:02,800
not making satisfactory progress toward a degree, so you're draft eligible.

1162
01:31:03,199 --> 01:31:04,119
Speaker 3: That's so scary.

1163
01:31:04,399 --> 01:31:07,600
Speaker 2: If it took a summer off, if you got a

1164
01:31:07,680 --> 01:31:15,319
d if you were single, you were eligible to be drafted.

1165
01:31:15,319 --> 01:31:17,720
If you got married. Imagine the pressure.

1166
01:31:19,000 --> 01:31:21,079
Speaker 1: It makes me wonder if that's why, like there are

1167
01:31:21,119 --> 01:31:23,279
a lot of really young marriages then, and also a

1168
01:31:23,279 --> 01:31:25,840
lot of people like is that the time that college

1169
01:31:25,880 --> 01:31:29,399
became really popular and people started going because like, if

1170
01:31:29,399 --> 01:31:31,199
I'm going to school, then I'm not going to like

1171
01:31:31,239 --> 01:31:32,159
I'm not being drafted.

1172
01:31:32,439 --> 01:31:39,000
Speaker 2: Right are professor of contracts at law school said, you know,

1173
01:31:39,119 --> 01:31:43,119
you many people here in class, first day of class.

1174
01:31:44,279 --> 01:31:48,159
Many of you don't really want to become lawyers. You're

1175
01:31:48,199 --> 01:31:52,159
here for another reason. There are four professions. I remember

1176
01:31:52,199 --> 01:31:59,560
the lecture very well. There are four professions military, ministry, doctor,

1177
01:31:59,800 --> 01:32:05,159
and lawyer and lawyer. Lawyer is the least intrusive and

1178
01:32:05,279 --> 01:32:09,399
the most to be able to use in a variety

1179
01:32:09,399 --> 01:32:13,760
of ways. So lots of you aren't here to become lawyers.

1180
01:32:14,920 --> 01:32:18,840
You're here to avoid being drafted. But we're going to

1181
01:32:18,960 --> 01:32:21,680
teach you to think like a lawyer anyway, don't think

1182
01:32:21,680 --> 01:32:28,520
you're going to get it, let go or something. We

1183
01:32:29,239 --> 01:32:36,000
had lots and lots of students. I mean it was

1184
01:32:36,159 --> 01:32:38,680
it was one kid in high school. You had to

1185
01:32:38,720 --> 01:32:42,960
register when you were eighteen. One kid didn't register. Okay,

1186
01:32:43,600 --> 01:32:46,520
he didn't like that hate. Well he hadn't been caught.

1187
01:32:47,359 --> 01:32:51,000
But we all knew it, you know. And what's what's

1188
01:32:51,039 --> 01:32:53,359
Bob going to do when they finally catch him. You know,

1189
01:32:53,359 --> 01:32:56,279
it's a fellow me all the rest of us. We

1190
01:32:56,359 --> 01:32:59,159
got that card. We got that silly card in our wallet.

1191
01:33:00,479 --> 01:33:05,840
I mean, it was do you after a while when

1192
01:33:05,880 --> 01:33:10,880
they started running low on draftees, being married wasn't good enough.

1193
01:33:12,000 --> 01:33:15,039
You had to have a kid. So they had a

1194
01:33:15,079 --> 01:33:21,119
lot of young kids that were created for that same reason. Yeah.

1195
01:33:21,159 --> 01:33:25,319
I had two roommates my sophomore year of college. You

1196
01:33:28,359 --> 01:33:33,399
one fled to Canada, never came back, became a professor

1197
01:33:33,439 --> 01:33:36,920
at the University of saskatch one. Thousands of people went

1198
01:33:36,960 --> 01:33:41,760
to Canada. Many came back after the pardon when Jerry

1199
01:33:41,760 --> 01:33:45,000
ford Is chewed to pardon. The other one became a

1200
01:33:45,039 --> 01:33:48,199
conscientious subjector. And he was telling me how he was

1201
01:33:48,239 --> 01:33:51,119
going to play it because he went to Whittier. You

1202
01:33:51,159 --> 01:33:54,199
know that's what and it worked for him. He never

1203
01:33:54,279 --> 01:33:58,239
served And I joined ROTC as I say it, at

1204
01:33:58,319 --> 01:34:04,840
law school. Then the faculty at Harvard College kicked ROTC off.

1205
01:34:04,680 --> 01:34:08,279
Speaker 3: Campus because they were so against it.

1206
01:34:09,000 --> 01:34:14,520
Speaker 2: Yes, well, if you were in college, you wouldn't be drafted.

1207
01:34:16,399 --> 01:34:19,960
They belonged to the college, to the Faculty of Arts

1208
01:34:19,960 --> 01:34:24,840
and Sciences, the college faculty. None of the students cared.

1209
01:34:25,840 --> 01:34:28,960
They weren't going to be drafted out of college. The

1210
01:34:29,079 --> 01:34:31,800
ROTC and it was made up of kids who went

1211
01:34:31,840 --> 01:34:36,079
to law school and the business school because in many

1212
01:34:36,199 --> 01:34:41,720
draft boards, colleges weren't I mean, graduate school wasn't protected.

1213
01:34:42,560 --> 01:34:45,279
And then one more story will stop just because I'm

1214
01:34:45,319 --> 01:34:46,319
working on this right now.

1215
01:34:46,600 --> 01:34:48,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I love that you were working on this

1216
01:34:48,520 --> 01:34:50,600
because I feel like it gives like a like more

1217
01:34:50,600 --> 01:34:53,239
of a perspective of what was happening at the time.

1218
01:34:53,319 --> 01:34:54,600
Speaker 3: Why Watergate was like.

1219
01:34:54,880 --> 01:34:58,159
Speaker 2: Right, well, I'm debating whether to keep all my personal

1220
01:34:58,239 --> 01:35:02,800
stories in my book. But law schools in the beginning

1221
01:35:03,840 --> 01:35:07,640
didn't require you to have gone to college. You went

1222
01:35:07,680 --> 01:35:14,039
to law school straight out of civilian life, and therefore

1223
01:35:14,119 --> 01:35:20,119
you got an LLB a Bachelor of Laws. If you

1224
01:35:20,199 --> 01:35:24,319
went to college you'd get a BA or a BS,

1225
01:35:27,800 --> 01:35:33,399
a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science. Some

1226
01:35:33,560 --> 01:35:37,119
draft boards again getting down to the bottom of the barrel.

1227
01:35:37,159 --> 01:35:43,159
They got to meet their quota, took the position you

1228
01:35:43,239 --> 01:35:48,800
already have a bachelor's degree. You're going for a second

1229
01:35:49,239 --> 01:35:55,600
bachelor's degree, Bachelor of law. That's not making satisfactory progress.

1230
01:35:55,720 --> 01:36:00,319
You're out of here. Okay, it really happened. Where was

1231
01:36:00,359 --> 01:36:02,680
this law school, the University of Michigan the way I

1232
01:36:02,760 --> 01:36:07,399
understand it, and they awarded the top twenty five percent

1233
01:36:07,439 --> 01:36:12,600
of their class a jd. A doctorate of law or

1234
01:36:12,800 --> 01:36:16,520
doctor and whether they had to write a paper or not,

1235
01:36:16,680 --> 01:36:18,279
but you got a doctorate degree.

1236
01:36:18,640 --> 01:36:19,520
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1237
01:36:19,560 --> 01:36:26,640
Speaker 2: Well, word spread and in one year, virtually every law

1238
01:36:26,680 --> 01:36:31,039
school in the nation flipped and started issuing JD's to

1239
01:36:31,239 --> 01:36:36,079
protect their students. In my class at Harvard, class of

1240
01:36:36,199 --> 01:36:40,439
nineteen sixty nine, but it entered in nineteen sixty six,

1241
01:36:41,199 --> 01:36:45,079
it's the first class to be awarded j d's, and

1242
01:36:45,239 --> 01:36:47,199
we were right at the cutting edge.

1243
01:36:47,680 --> 01:36:49,840
Speaker 3: That's awesome, isn't that it is?

1244
01:36:50,000 --> 01:36:53,319
Speaker 2: That's really cool, some dippy little change, you know.

1245
01:36:54,119 --> 01:36:55,600
Speaker 3: But it made a big deal. I go. I was

1246
01:36:55,640 --> 01:36:56,840
a big deal for a lot of people.

1247
01:36:57,960 --> 01:37:01,439
Speaker 2: You bet it was. They even started telling them retroactively.

1248
01:37:02,720 --> 01:37:04,840
You know, if you had graduated the year before and

1249
01:37:04,880 --> 01:37:07,800
you were afraid of being drafted, shit, we'll sell you

1250
01:37:07,840 --> 01:37:08,319
a JD.

1251
01:37:09,760 --> 01:37:11,960
Speaker 3: That's great, that's so funny. You're like, yeah, I just

1252
01:37:11,960 --> 01:37:12,359
bought it.

1253
01:37:13,079 --> 01:37:19,520
Speaker 2: But that shows you how all persuasive. And then in

1254
01:37:19,640 --> 01:37:26,600
nineteen seventy they institute the lottery. We're going to have

1255
01:37:26,640 --> 01:37:32,319
a drawing, and it's your birthday. Who's ever picked for

1256
01:37:32,920 --> 01:37:39,520
one through three sixty five? Because of the drawdown from

1257
01:37:39,640 --> 01:37:45,479
Nixon ending the war, they didn't need but about five

1258
01:37:45,680 --> 01:37:51,720
percent of the draft eligible pool to maintain what they

1259
01:37:51,720 --> 01:37:56,319
were doing as they were bringing troops home. But everybody

1260
01:37:56,479 --> 01:38:00,680
was scared shitless, excuse me, scared to death about and drafted.

1261
01:38:01,600 --> 01:38:07,439
So the lottery broke the back of the opposition. They

1262
01:38:07,479 --> 01:38:12,479
were only to take the first twenty five numbers. Say

1263
01:38:12,479 --> 01:38:16,720
who got drawn not I don't remember what my number was,

1264
01:38:16,760 --> 01:38:21,680
but it was two hundred or something. Nobody cared well. Immediately,

1265
01:38:22,920 --> 01:38:29,159
the opposition to the war effectively deflated. Sorry about that one,

1266
01:38:29,439 --> 01:38:31,840
that five percent if you're in that group, But I'm

1267
01:38:31,880 --> 01:38:36,960
home free right around, see around, I'm gonna go break

1268
01:38:37,000 --> 01:38:37,760
my engagement.

1269
01:38:39,239 --> 01:38:42,600
Speaker 1: I'm not having kids anymore, like I was gonna marry her.

1270
01:38:42,600 --> 01:38:46,800
Speaker 2: Because I'm getting out of this school. I'm going to

1271
01:38:46,880 --> 01:38:48,039
take summer off. Yeah.

1272
01:38:48,399 --> 01:38:52,279
Speaker 1: Oh man, Jeff, When does your Plumber's book come out?

1273
01:38:54,039 --> 01:38:57,239
Speaker 2: I don't know, but usually usually it takes a year.

1274
01:38:59,399 --> 01:39:03,479
But I show you I just assembled that yesterday.

1275
01:39:03,840 --> 01:39:04,479
Speaker 3: Oh wow.

1276
01:39:05,319 --> 01:39:10,039
Speaker 2: Because I was working on individual aspects. I researched most

1277
01:39:10,079 --> 01:39:14,079
of it five years ago. But my agent said it's

1278
01:39:14,159 --> 01:39:18,000
too soon for another book. You just came out with

1279
01:39:18,079 --> 01:39:24,079
The Nixon Conspiracy in twenty twenty one. Okay, So we

1280
01:39:24,119 --> 01:39:28,319
were talking the other day and he said, enough time

1281
01:39:28,359 --> 01:39:39,000
has passed. That book over here there, The Nixon Conspiracy.

1282
01:39:39,640 --> 01:39:42,279
It's now sold eleven thousand copies.

1283
01:39:42,760 --> 01:39:43,079
Speaker 3: Wow.

1284
01:39:43,600 --> 01:39:49,680
Speaker 2: I produced royalties, not big royalties, but royalties five years

1285
01:39:49,720 --> 01:39:54,640
after publication. And he said, that's very rare. Your books

1286
01:39:55,439 --> 01:40:00,199
have a timeless quality. Because Vietnam is fifty years years

1287
01:40:00,199 --> 01:40:05,319
ago but still topical. That book will probably be producing

1288
01:40:05,600 --> 01:40:10,439
some kind of royalties for ten years. And the book

1289
01:40:10,520 --> 01:40:14,239
before it, the Middle Book on the Shelf, published in

1290
01:40:14,279 --> 01:40:19,560
twenty fifteen, it's still producing I'm not talking big numbers,

1291
01:40:19,600 --> 01:40:24,720
but it's still producing royalties. About half the inquiries. I

1292
01:40:24,800 --> 01:40:29,119
get to do podcasts like yours. They're keen off that

1293
01:40:29,239 --> 01:40:32,720
second book. They don't even know about the third book.

1294
01:40:33,600 --> 01:40:35,760
We had poor marketing.

1295
01:40:37,159 --> 01:40:38,479
Speaker 3: To your website, and I had seen it.

1296
01:40:38,600 --> 01:40:40,640
Speaker 1: But mostly I didn't know about your books at all,

1297
01:40:40,680 --> 01:40:42,640
like i'd like I had told you before, like I

1298
01:40:42,640 --> 01:40:45,479
had seen your interviews. And then I went I was like, well,

1299
01:40:45,479 --> 01:40:46,479
who is this guy?

1300
01:40:46,720 --> 01:40:46,880
Speaker 2: Right?

1301
01:40:46,920 --> 01:40:48,760
Speaker 1: Like I want to know more about you? And then

1302
01:40:48,800 --> 01:40:50,920
I learned about your books. I learned about all the things,

1303
01:40:51,000 --> 01:40:53,439
and so I didn't even find you from your books

1304
01:40:53,439 --> 01:40:55,119
at all.

1305
01:40:55,239 --> 01:40:56,239
Speaker 3: From other podcasts.

1306
01:40:57,600 --> 01:41:00,359
Speaker 2: Take it from the other side, the bad guy who

1307
01:41:00,439 --> 01:41:06,600
are heroes. I'm still so obscure. They don't have to

1308
01:41:06,640 --> 01:41:10,000
respond to my accusations, they don't have to respond to

1309
01:41:09,359 --> 01:41:15,680
my books. They'll ask John Dene we have a mutual friend.

1310
01:41:16,760 --> 01:41:21,119
They'll ask Johnny what about Shepherd? And he'll go, well,

1311
01:41:22,039 --> 01:41:28,079
he was a young I vaguely remember him. He was

1312
01:41:28,119 --> 01:41:33,920
a young lawyer on the White House staff. But I

1313
01:41:34,000 --> 01:41:36,840
can't comment, and I've never read his books. You know,

1314
01:41:36,880 --> 01:41:42,039
I can't come in on anything about them. But if

1315
01:41:42,279 --> 01:41:46,439
somebody invites us both to be on the same program,

1316
01:41:46,560 --> 01:41:49,960
oh boy, let's see. You know, John won't.

1317
01:41:49,720 --> 01:41:55,479
Speaker 1: Come interesting because your evidence is just so blatant.

1318
01:41:56,119 --> 01:41:59,000
Speaker 2: Well, and he owns the status quo. He was the

1319
01:41:59,039 --> 01:42:04,479
hero of the Irvine Committee. He's this innocent whistleblower. Why

1320
01:42:04,600 --> 01:42:10,439
risk that when Shepherd's not really making a lot of progress? Now?

1321
01:42:11,039 --> 01:42:17,399
Three books, Little Finger, fourth one. Two documentaries. You probably

1322
01:42:17,479 --> 01:42:21,359
haven't heard of the documentaries either. We put one out

1323
01:42:21,760 --> 01:42:27,279
Watergate Secrets and Betrayals, the same day as the Tucker

1324
01:42:27,319 --> 01:42:32,479
Carlson interview, which was the fiftieth anniversary of Nixon's resignation.

1325
01:42:34,520 --> 01:42:38,319
That won an award on March fifth.

1326
01:42:38,800 --> 01:42:43,840
Speaker 3: Okay, wow this month, Yeah, amazing from.

1327
01:42:43,640 --> 01:42:48,880
Speaker 2: The Golden State Film Festival that's held at Grumman's Chinese

1328
01:42:48,960 --> 01:42:54,800
Theater in Hollywood, and we were awarded Best Editing for

1329
01:42:54,920 --> 01:42:59,960
a Feature Documentary, which means we think you presented your

1330
01:43:00,159 --> 01:43:06,960
factual case quite well and we're chuting that. Yeah around,

1331
01:43:09,079 --> 01:43:12,680
we'll see that. After my second book came out, this

1332
01:43:12,800 --> 01:43:15,359
guy contacted me and said, I want to write a

1333
01:43:15,399 --> 01:43:20,479
play about your book. And I checked with my agent

1334
01:43:20,680 --> 01:43:26,279
and they said, please, don't make any money. I said, yeah,

1335
01:43:26,319 --> 01:43:32,520
but I got time. I'm not going anywhere. And so

1336
01:43:32,640 --> 01:43:36,680
he wrote a play and it took us five years.

1337
01:43:38,680 --> 01:43:42,399
It's very hard to take a book, you know, three

1338
01:43:42,479 --> 01:43:45,479
hundred eight and reduce it to an hour and a

1339
01:43:45,560 --> 01:43:48,279
half and introduce.

1340
01:43:49,800 --> 01:43:50,920
Speaker 3: All the characters.

1341
01:43:51,800 --> 01:43:58,560
Speaker 2: The characters and the conversations. A factual book doesn't have conversations.

1342
01:43:59,079 --> 01:44:02,880
It has facts, right, but you need to take a

1343
01:44:03,000 --> 01:44:08,199
chapter and reduce it down to two scenes. And if

1344
01:44:08,840 --> 01:44:13,640
somebody walks off exit stage left when they next appeared,

1345
01:44:13,680 --> 01:44:16,319
they got to come from stage left because there's no

1346
01:44:16,479 --> 01:44:20,319
path behind the curtain to get to the other side.

1347
01:44:20,920 --> 01:44:23,479
We spent and what we did it was really it's

1348
01:44:23,520 --> 01:44:29,560
fascinating stuff. We said, we're going to give Nixon the

1349
01:44:29,600 --> 01:44:34,840
impeachment trial in the Senate. He never got so the

1350
01:44:34,920 --> 01:44:38,000
name of the play was ran off Broadway in twenty

1351
01:44:38,039 --> 01:44:44,000
twenty one, was called Trial on the Potomac Okay Impeachment

1352
01:44:44,039 --> 01:44:48,119
of Richard Nixon, and it starred this Nixon impersonator, rich

1353
01:44:48,239 --> 01:44:53,560
Little Rich made his career impersonating Nixon fifty years ago.

1354
01:44:53,760 --> 01:44:58,239
But he'd never been in a Broadway play. Really wanted

1355
01:44:58,279 --> 01:45:02,520
to do it. He's eighty and and he didn't anyone

1356
01:45:01,760 --> 01:45:07,680
he lives. He performed still in Las Vegas, moved to

1357
01:45:07,720 --> 01:45:13,920
New York for six weeks, produced the play, we treated

1358
01:45:14,000 --> 01:45:19,840
the audience as senators. Okay, the lights would dim and

1359
01:45:19,960 --> 01:45:23,640
the voice would say, the Senate will come to order.

1360
01:45:24,960 --> 01:45:28,840
Today's issue is the trial of Richard Nixon. There isn't

1361
01:45:28,920 --> 01:45:32,119
going to be an intermission. The only vote that will

1362
01:45:32,159 --> 01:45:35,079
be taken is at the end of the trial, when

1363
01:45:35,119 --> 01:45:39,000
you'll get to determine his guilt or innocence. And then

1364
01:45:39,039 --> 01:45:42,800
we would run the trial, fake trial, as best we

1365
01:45:43,039 --> 01:45:50,800
could hypothetically produce. It never occurred. He's in our play.

1366
01:45:50,960 --> 01:45:53,520
He's been impeached by the House. This is the trial

1367
01:45:53,600 --> 01:46:01,079
before the Senate. Unfortunately, the Clinton, you know, the Trump

1368
01:46:01,359 --> 01:46:04,680
first Trump impeachment came up. Yes, so we had two

1369
01:46:04,760 --> 01:46:08,880
examples of what to work from. And the only difference

1370
01:46:09,239 --> 01:46:15,720
from Watergate forward was the documents I had uncovered came

1371
01:46:15,720 --> 01:46:19,239
out during the course of the trial, okay, And so

1372
01:46:20,079 --> 01:46:23,199
we showed the prosecutors that cheated and all that, And

1373
01:46:23,239 --> 01:46:25,359
then the audience got to vote on the way out,

1374
01:46:26,159 --> 01:46:29,319
and we would really count the votes and we would

1375
01:46:29,359 --> 01:46:32,600
post them on our website by performance.

1376
01:46:33,000 --> 01:46:34,119
Speaker 3: So, did he get impeached?

1377
01:46:35,560 --> 01:46:37,600
Speaker 2: No, the question is did he get convicted?

1378
01:46:37,640 --> 01:46:38,880
Speaker 3: Did he get convicted? Excuse me?

1379
01:46:39,720 --> 01:46:44,560
Speaker 2: Once out of twenty eight performances. Wow, Now, to be fair,

1380
01:46:46,319 --> 01:46:49,520
it's got to be two thirds to remove him from office.

1381
01:46:50,720 --> 01:46:55,199
One time, one matinee, there were enough votes to remove

1382
01:46:55,279 --> 01:47:00,119
him from office. Five or six there were a majority

1383
01:47:00,680 --> 01:47:04,439
hating men. But you got to understand the dynamics of

1384
01:47:04,520 --> 01:47:06,079
that theater.

1385
01:47:06,960 --> 01:47:09,680
Speaker 1: But they also have like the history of like what's

1386
01:47:09,720 --> 01:47:15,079
been pushed in real life versus what you're seeing on

1387
01:47:15,119 --> 01:47:15,560
the play.

1388
01:47:15,880 --> 01:47:20,520
Speaker 2: Well, of course, and the play is totally hypothetical. And

1389
01:47:20,640 --> 01:47:25,359
they don't know what to do with these documents were disclosing.

1390
01:47:26,079 --> 01:47:28,920
They'd never heard about them before. They're like you, they

1391
01:47:28,920 --> 01:47:34,600
didn't read the books. Yeah, and a self selected group

1392
01:47:34,600 --> 01:47:37,960
of people that live in midtown Manhattan aren't going to

1393
01:47:38,000 --> 01:47:42,279
be conservative. Half of them may have come thinking it

1394
01:47:42,399 --> 01:47:44,960
was going to dump on Nixon, you know, travel on

1395
01:47:45,000 --> 01:47:48,840
the Potomac. We'll get to relive the sacrifice of Richard Nixon.

1396
01:47:50,279 --> 01:47:51,239
Speaker 3: Kick him out of there again.

1397
01:47:52,039 --> 01:47:56,079
Speaker 2: There were twenty eight performances, and all but one he

1398
01:47:56,119 --> 01:47:59,159
walked free. Well not he would have been ruined, but

1399
01:47:59,199 --> 01:48:02,079
he walked free. It was a foot And then that

1400
01:48:02,239 --> 01:48:06,720
same guy just did the documentary that won the Film Award.

1401
01:48:08,159 --> 01:48:12,159
So and I would keep saying to him, George this

1402
01:48:12,319 --> 01:48:16,680
has got to be accurate. I'm not exposing this one

1403
01:48:16,920 --> 01:48:21,760
slight factual error and we'll really get raamed. And he

1404
01:48:21,800 --> 01:48:25,319
would say, yes, Jeff, but we're not filing a legal brief.

1405
01:48:26,199 --> 01:48:29,520
This is supposed to be entertaining. People are supposed to

1406
01:48:29,760 --> 01:48:36,680
enjoy the performance. And he said, look in the play,

1407
01:48:36,880 --> 01:48:41,520
you can't hear it. He's a concert pianist, amongst many things.

1408
01:48:41,960 --> 01:48:45,399
He said, you can't hear it. But there's a meter

1409
01:48:46,359 --> 01:48:50,720
to the dialogue and you can't put in big words

1410
01:48:51,279 --> 01:48:54,039
because the actors have to be able to mouth them

1411
01:48:54,479 --> 01:48:57,920
and project to the back of the theater, and it's got

1412
01:48:57,920 --> 01:49:03,079
to have kind of a lobic progression. Yeah, you leave

1413
01:49:03,119 --> 01:49:07,399
these words to me, and you can come tell me

1414
01:49:07,439 --> 01:49:11,880
if it's factually incorrect, we'll change it. But you'd be

1415
01:49:11,960 --> 01:49:14,880
wasting your time if you tried to write the dialogue.

1416
01:49:16,000 --> 01:49:16,560
Speaker 3: That makes sense.

1417
01:49:16,600 --> 01:49:18,560
Speaker 1: I think that, Yeah, I think that's a good like

1418
01:49:19,439 --> 01:49:20,760
give and take between the two of you.

1419
01:49:21,239 --> 01:49:26,800
Speaker 2: Yes, and the reason the documentary won has nothing to

1420
01:49:26,880 --> 01:49:32,880
do with me. I happen to uncover the documents, but

1421
01:49:33,000 --> 01:49:37,399
it's the fact that documents exist that is so startling.

1422
01:49:38,119 --> 01:49:41,600
And he wrote the play, He wrote the he wrote

1423
01:49:41,600 --> 01:49:46,000
the documentary, and he really did a very, very creative job.

1424
01:49:46,039 --> 01:49:48,600
We're getting it in a word for creativity.

1425
01:49:49,359 --> 01:49:51,680
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm going to watch it the documentary.

1426
01:49:52,039 --> 01:49:55,000
Speaker 2: You can get it if you go on Watergate Secrets

1427
01:49:55,199 --> 01:50:00,920
dot com. Charge four bucks to rent, nine bucks to buy.

1428
01:50:02,039 --> 01:50:04,560
There's also a link on my website. We want to

1429
01:50:04,560 --> 01:50:14,560
pitch my website for a second. Yeahd on watergate dot com.

1430
01:50:12,000 --> 01:50:13,640
Speaker 1: Al link that in the show notes too, So that

1431
01:50:13,680 --> 01:50:15,079
way it's super easy people.

1432
01:50:14,800 --> 01:50:21,760
Speaker 2: Can www Shepherd onwatergate dot com. In law school, particularly Harvard,

1433
01:50:22,520 --> 01:50:27,079
the big important professors, they had a casebook and it

1434
01:50:27,239 --> 01:50:33,039
was always titled that way Kasner and Leech on real Property,

1435
01:50:33,560 --> 01:50:38,880
Chadbourne on evidence, Bison administrative law. So mine is like

1436
01:50:38,920 --> 01:50:44,800
a casebook. And what makes the website so intriguing, I've

1437
01:50:45,039 --> 01:50:49,560
posted under the books, under the window shade the books,

1438
01:50:50,479 --> 01:50:54,720
all the appendix documents are summary of the book, who

1439
01:50:54,760 --> 01:50:59,399
the characters are. So if you're cheap, you don't have

1440
01:50:59,520 --> 01:51:02,760
to buy the book. You can get the goodie, the

1441
01:51:02,880 --> 01:51:07,079
research goodie out of my website. And then I have

1442
01:51:07,159 --> 01:51:14,520
an annotated chronology under resources, one hundred and fifty page

1443
01:51:14,600 --> 01:51:19,079
chronology every single thing. Because when i'd run across it.

1444
01:51:19,119 --> 01:51:22,000
I put it in the chronology so I could reference

1445
01:51:22,039 --> 01:51:25,920
it in the future, but it's annotated, so it kind

1446
01:51:25,960 --> 01:51:29,680
of tells the story of Watergate. You know, this document

1447
01:51:29,840 --> 01:51:33,720
was produced, but doesn't it's not credible, right, and what

1448
01:51:33,880 --> 01:51:37,439
it changed their position? And then he was in anticipation

1449
01:51:37,560 --> 01:51:41,800
of that document and I'm writing my book about the

1450
01:51:41,840 --> 01:51:49,239
plumbers the same way. It's a chronological presentation, which I

1451
01:51:49,279 --> 01:51:53,760
think is the only way to understand. I agree Lexis Watergate.

1452
01:51:54,119 --> 01:51:55,800
Speaker 1: I think it makes sense because then you can kind

1453
01:51:55,800 --> 01:51:58,439
of understand. And I go, like when I do my episodes,

1454
01:51:58,479 --> 01:52:00,119
I go into the history a little bit because I

1455
01:52:00,159 --> 01:52:02,840
can't just start with Watergate because that's how it starts.

1456
01:52:03,479 --> 01:52:05,640
And so I always go into the history a little

1457
01:52:05,640 --> 01:52:07,720
bit before I jump into the conspiracy, because I think

1458
01:52:07,760 --> 01:52:09,600
that to me, that's the only way that you can

1459
01:52:10,039 --> 01:52:14,600
fully understand whatever conspiracy I'm trying to present.

1460
01:52:15,439 --> 01:52:20,159
Speaker 2: Yes, well, for Vietnam, you got to go back to

1461
01:52:20,199 --> 01:52:28,439
World War two or the misuse of government conduct, you

1462
01:52:28,479 --> 01:52:31,960
know is during national security exception, you got to go

1463
01:52:32,039 --> 01:52:34,880
back to nineteen thirty six. I mean when they're starting

1464
01:52:34,920 --> 01:52:40,239
to go into into World War two and they were

1465
01:52:40,279 --> 01:52:44,960
worried about the Germans and then the Japanese. So it's

1466
01:52:45,000 --> 01:52:49,520
our opponents in World War Two. Then it's communists. Hoover

1467
01:52:49,800 --> 01:52:59,039
was really down on communists. Then it's Women's Live. Interesting

1468
01:52:59,119 --> 01:53:06,039
are these women? And then it's anti Vietnam, pasty faced

1469
01:53:06,079 --> 01:53:10,239
peace creeps, against the war, and what you can conclude.

1470
01:53:10,920 --> 01:53:20,359
I'm conservative, but once they labeled you, I'm forgetting the word.

1471
01:53:21,880 --> 01:53:26,079
It begins with an ass a subversive. Once they labeled

1472
01:53:26,119 --> 01:53:30,720
you a subversive, he goes World War two, communists, civil

1473
01:53:30,800 --> 01:53:36,600
rights agitators, Women's Live, anti Vietnam. Once they culled you

1474
01:53:36,680 --> 01:53:40,760
a subversive, you had no rights. They could investigate you.

1475
01:53:40,840 --> 01:53:44,720
They opened your mail, they photographed you, they followed your kids.

1476
01:53:47,319 --> 01:53:50,239
They sought to all of that against the law. They

1477
01:53:50,399 --> 01:53:55,359
sought to destroy your reputation. I mean, they wrote Martin

1478
01:53:55,439 --> 01:54:00,840
Luther King seventeen wiretaps. Well, I was saying in three books,

1479
01:54:00,880 --> 01:54:04,479
produced two documentaries and done them off Broadway stage play.

1480
01:54:05,159 --> 01:54:09,880
But I've done two other things that are not Watergate related.

1481
01:54:11,880 --> 01:54:18,439
After Nixon resigned his staff, blew apart and went in

1482
01:54:18,439 --> 01:54:21,800
their different directions, And there was no email, and there

1483
01:54:21,880 --> 01:54:25,720
was no cell phones, and there was no computers. So

1484
01:54:26,399 --> 01:54:30,359
what I did was keep the record of where people

1485
01:54:30,439 --> 01:54:34,439
were going, people worked with. Now you got to understand

1486
01:54:34,439 --> 01:54:38,760
the organization of the White House staff. There's people who

1487
01:54:38,880 --> 01:54:45,079
run campaigns, and campaigns are like kaleidoscopes, constantly changing new nuances,

1488
01:54:45,199 --> 01:54:53,920
different initiatives. But governing doesn't work that way. The challenges

1489
01:54:54,039 --> 01:54:58,399
of governing don't change very much, and you need people

1490
01:54:58,439 --> 01:55:02,760
who've been there before learn on the job how to

1491
01:55:02,800 --> 01:55:08,600
be a cabinet secretary. So what we were losing was

1492
01:55:08,680 --> 01:55:14,079
the Republican brain trust, particularly after Ford lost, so we

1493
01:55:14,119 --> 01:55:18,000
don't hold office anymore. Used to be, if you wanted

1494
01:55:18,039 --> 01:55:22,520
to talk to the Secretary of Defense, you'd ask the

1495
01:55:22,520 --> 01:55:25,880
White House operator to get you the Secretary of Defense,

1496
01:55:26,960 --> 01:55:32,079
or if you had a memo that counted, you'd give

1497
01:55:32,079 --> 01:55:35,000
it to Central files. You wouldn't keep an extra copy.

1498
01:55:35,920 --> 01:55:41,960
It's only Pat moynihan, who'd been in government before, who

1499
01:55:42,039 --> 01:55:44,680
kept his own copy of everything that crossed his desk.

1500
01:55:45,960 --> 01:55:48,039
And I asked him, you know what, why would you

1501
01:55:48,159 --> 01:55:51,520
do this? It's always there? He said, because I'm going

1502
01:55:51,600 --> 01:55:53,039
to write books and I don't want to have to

1503
01:55:53,079 --> 01:55:56,239
go there to look for want my copy?

1504
01:55:56,479 --> 01:55:57,680
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1505
01:55:58,199 --> 01:56:06,079
Speaker 2: Shortly after we bandied it art. My secretary had one

1506
01:56:06,119 --> 01:56:13,000
of the first IBM electric electronic typewriters with those index

1507
01:56:13,079 --> 01:56:19,199
cards that fold, spittle or mutilate these cards, and she

1508
01:56:19,279 --> 01:56:23,159
could reproduce a page, change two words, and reproduce the

1509
01:56:23,199 --> 01:56:28,039
page again. So it was the ability to maintain stuff currently.

1510
01:56:29,199 --> 01:56:33,319
We started keeping the phone numbers and addresses of where

1511
01:56:33,399 --> 01:56:38,880
our colleagues were going, so we maintained the directory of

1512
01:56:39,079 --> 01:56:46,199
Nixon policy planning people. And then that group I started

1513
01:56:46,319 --> 01:56:53,920
arranging and hosting annual reunions again of the policy planning staff, NSC,

1514
01:56:54,600 --> 01:56:59,560
Domestic Council, and OMB Office of Management, and White House people.

1515
01:56:59,600 --> 01:57:04,079
We worked with the speech writers or the congressional relations folks,

1516
01:57:04,800 --> 01:57:08,640
so every November after the election. This was not a

1517
01:57:08,680 --> 01:57:13,960
campaign group. We'd meet for lunch, three hour lunch and

1518
01:57:14,319 --> 01:57:17,119
talk about old times or what people were doing or

1519
01:57:17,159 --> 01:57:19,880
where they were going, and you go around the room,

1520
01:57:20,199 --> 01:57:24,399
you know who's who's doing well. And we kept that up.

1521
01:57:24,800 --> 01:57:29,640
It's even through today, now done by the Nixon Foundations,

1522
01:57:29,800 --> 01:57:34,479
but there was no Nixon Foundation. They opened the Nixon

1523
01:57:34,600 --> 01:57:39,239
Library in nineteen ninety one. This was nineteen seventy five

1524
01:57:40,159 --> 01:57:47,359
seventy seven, so I take credit humbly for keeping the

1525
01:57:47,760 --> 01:57:54,560
governing brand trust together and in touch through the Wilderness years.

1526
01:57:55,760 --> 01:58:02,920
In addition to that, starting in twenty I started producing

1527
01:58:03,960 --> 01:58:12,159
documentaries on Nixon's public policy initiatives, and we call him

1528
01:58:12,199 --> 01:58:17,319
Nixon Legacy Forms. They're co sponsored by the National Archives

1529
01:58:18,199 --> 01:58:21,760
and will take an issue desegregation in the Southern School's

1530
01:58:22,199 --> 01:58:30,000
welfare reform, trip to China, reducing crime, breaking up organized crime,

1531
01:58:32,079 --> 01:58:39,960
creating epoch. We've produced since twenty ten over forty Nixon

1532
01:58:40,199 --> 01:58:45,680
Legacy Forums, which feature the people who wrote the memos,

1533
01:58:45,720 --> 01:58:49,319
the people that developed the policy on a stage at

1534
01:58:49,399 --> 01:58:53,159
National Archives, talking about what they did, what they tried,

1535
01:58:53,960 --> 01:58:55,359
why it worked or didn't work.

1536
01:58:56,359 --> 01:58:59,079
Speaker 1: So that's all like the good that Nixon did while

1537
01:58:59,079 --> 01:59:02,319
he was in office to combat like all this evil

1538
01:59:02,359 --> 01:59:04,119
that we think of when we think of Nixon.

1539
01:59:04,680 --> 01:59:08,199
Speaker 2: We are told by the National Archives we are the

1540
01:59:08,239 --> 01:59:14,880
only administration to hold regularly scheduled reunions and to produce

1541
01:59:16,439 --> 01:59:21,039
documentary videos on public policy initiatives. And so what you

1542
01:59:22,680 --> 01:59:25,960
what I want to mention in addition to Wallgate him,

1543
01:59:26,000 --> 01:59:33,479
the chieting and the impropriety you cost the nation the

1544
01:59:33,520 --> 01:59:37,520
good of Richard Nixon for the rest of the second term.

1545
01:59:38,760 --> 01:59:42,199
You know, we stopped him good and plenty. We cause

1546
01:59:42,319 --> 01:59:47,840
him to resign. We lost all of that government knowledge,

1547
01:59:47,880 --> 01:59:53,359
all of those initiatives, all of those efforts to make

1548
01:59:53,800 --> 01:59:55,960
of America a better place. If you look at his

1549
01:59:56,600 --> 02:00:01,399
domestic affairs, I'm a domestic I don't do foreign affairs.

1550
02:00:02,319 --> 02:00:07,239
When he got elected, nations tearing itself apart. He looks around.

1551
02:00:07,279 --> 02:00:13,359
This is a metaphor. He looks around across this great nation, says, Okay,

1552
02:00:13,760 --> 02:00:18,479
who's got a bitch who feels mistreated by that government?

1553
02:00:19,319 --> 02:00:23,239
You do, Indians, you feel mistreated by the government. I'll

1554
02:00:23,279 --> 02:00:28,960
restore your treaty rights, and he did. You're blacks, you

1555
02:00:29,039 --> 02:00:32,560
feel cut out of education. I will peacefully integrate the

1556
02:00:32,640 --> 02:00:36,359
Southern schools, and he does it all in the beginning

1557
02:00:36,399 --> 02:00:40,560
of nineteen seventy one. Vast majority of Southern schools integrate.

1558
02:00:41,640 --> 02:00:46,800
You think we're poisoning the atmosphere, We'll create EPO. We'll

1559
02:00:46,840 --> 02:00:50,439
pass the Clean Air, the Clean Water, the Marine Mammal Act.

1560
02:00:51,760 --> 02:00:54,760
We'll do those things you think that women are taking

1561
02:00:54,840 --> 02:00:59,199
advantage of because there aren't nothing government. I'll quadruple the

1562
02:00:59,319 --> 02:01:03,439
number of him and appointed to high government posts in

1563
02:01:03,479 --> 02:01:06,800
my administration. You think you can go off and fight

1564
02:01:06,840 --> 02:01:10,239
the fight the war, but you can't vote. We'll lower

1565
02:01:10,319 --> 02:01:13,199
the voting age at eighteen. We'll do away with the draft.

1566
02:01:14,479 --> 02:01:16,920
We'll switch first to a lottery and then to the

1567
02:01:16,960 --> 02:01:23,359
all volunteer army. Right across the road, he's got initiatives

1568
02:01:24,199 --> 02:01:27,960
to try to give people a fair shake. I may

1569
02:01:28,000 --> 02:01:28,840
have missed one or.

1570
02:01:28,760 --> 02:01:32,960
Speaker 1: Two, but I bet that's why they needed to frame him.

1571
02:01:33,399 --> 02:01:36,119
Speaker 3: They and this is just a conspiracy theory.

1572
02:01:36,720 --> 02:01:39,600
Speaker 2: It is no, no, no, but they needed to stop him

1573
02:01:39,800 --> 02:01:42,439
because he was he was ripe to the slight biggest

1574
02:01:42,520 --> 02:01:47,880
landslide in American history, and they had no comeback. They'd

1575
02:01:47,960 --> 02:01:54,279
run they progressive, they'd run George McGovern and got wiped out.

1576
02:01:54,479 --> 02:01:58,239
And the only thing they had was Watergate, and they

1577
02:01:58,319 --> 02:02:01,239
blew it out of the proportion and they got him.

1578
02:02:01,520 --> 02:02:03,960
But now it turns out they left the paper trail

1579
02:02:04,000 --> 02:02:05,880
and we know how to cheat. Well.

1580
02:02:05,920 --> 02:02:07,399
Speaker 3: I appreciate you coming on. I do.

1581
02:02:07,439 --> 02:02:09,439
Speaker 1: I really appreciate. I feel like I learned a lot more,

1582
02:02:09,479 --> 02:02:12,159
even though like i've I just did finish my episode

1583
02:02:12,239 --> 02:02:15,439
and I'm about to record it actually, and this this

1584
02:02:15,479 --> 02:02:18,319
episode will come out right before my Watergate episodes. So

1585
02:02:18,319 --> 02:02:20,840
then they'll have like this background to jump in it.

1586
02:02:20,840 --> 02:02:24,399
It'll be awesome, so I really appreciate it, Jeff, Thank you,

1587
02:02:25,159 --> 02:02:27,960
bye bye now until next week, my friends, stay Skeptical

1588
02:02:28,000 --> 02:02:28,920
and we will see you all then.

1589
02:02:30,359 --> 02:02:30,840
Speaker 3: Hey. Friends.

1590
02:02:30,920 --> 02:02:33,600
Speaker 4: The rabbit Hole is an independent podcast written, hosted, and

1591
02:02:33,640 --> 02:02:36,439
produced by me Danny Mercy. Special thanks to Lindsay for

1592
02:02:36,479 --> 02:02:38,920
research and writing. If you love the podcast, please leave

1593
02:02:39,000 --> 02:02:41,199
us a five star rating and review wherever you're listening.

1594
02:02:41,399 --> 02:02:44,359
Follow us on social media at rabbit dot Hole podcast,

1595
02:02:44,399 --> 02:02:47,920
and visit our website at Stayskeptical dot com for everything else,