committee under center sam irvin the man i'm worship most in public life. and we were also proud to work for him. on may 17th 1973 out of this very room. chairman, sam irvin began hearing from the watergate scandal these hearings touched the heartstrings of america and ended up helping mold. what we thought would be the future of constitutional government. as then minority leader mike mansfield said no one in the entire senate was better equipped. to handle this thing called watergate than senator sam j irvin. i worked for center sam jay irvin for 10 years. and i can personally attest. that things were different then than they are now. civility reigned remember that word civility and all of and all the people who were here some 60 years ago know that that is the case. too much civility is absent today. consider the level of viteral and the political discourse that exists in government today and even in the halls of congress i cannot emphasize enough the importance of the relationship between democratic senator, sam j ervin. and republican howard baker last chairman. okay. welcome to tennessee. they made a pact in the very beginning that this would be a non-person hearing the sole purpose of which was to uncover the truth. it's hard to imagine this happening today. because it required level heads and plain old-fashioned civility. they prove that a congressional committee devoid of malice and political bias. good fulfill expunctional of informing the public and then proposed legislation that would prevent this egregious scandal from ever happening again. they knew that only a well-functioning separation of powers. could ensure democracy in our great country for generations. today we commemorate the 55th anniversity of watergate break-in, which carl bernstein and bob's newspaper called think of minor event about that about that size and the washington post and in my mind the pivotal lynchpin of solving what center urban called a national tragedy. was the committee discovery of a secret tasting taping system. installed in president nixon's white house and other presidential offices. these tapes prove that white house john council john dean who testified before the committee for days? had been telling the truth in laboriously. of days revealing that nixon and his leadership team were deeply involved in a massive cover-up designed to conceal the entire watergate affair. a chain of events that included the commission of crimes did we learn lesson? i fear not. the committee followed the money it's investigation and found that huge sums of unaccountable campaign money a road democracy. today we have the same problem. the citizens united decision and my mind one of the worst supreme court ruling star history. opened the floodgates for corruption just as with watergate. today is electrical process as a washington in unlimited and shameful amounts of money. democracy will survive as senator irvin said in remember this it is quote the last best. hope of mankind. in his eternal struggle to govern himself decently and effectively. and in my viewmocracy will prevail because it must thank you. know ladies and john. i want to call up here real quickly. so the the folks that made this possible they are. sponsors and their people that gave of their human earthly wealth to make sure you had a good time and if you'll come up one in time gene voice it was assistant council council sitting here and john mayall. john elmore investigator mike carpenter investigator going up here. michael hirshman deputy chief investigator stephen leopold the renowned canadian and how in the hell did get out there? investigator i'll never know how he got on but somehow he sneak past me at you. oh, he was one of those okay, lacy pressveld investigator jim stewart investigator assistant chief counsel, jim hamilton he was a neighbor from south. from south of carolina started to say south america but south carolina be fine now gordon friedman come up here make gordon. gordon has been so. sorry, lord. gordon has helped keep this thing together for so many years. we had we had a 20th what to get reunion in here and i remember connie chung back in the back. they're smoking away on cigarettes. and and running gene and carl every time i saw connie chung she was running in high heels faster than i could run. gordon has been working on a watergate website. it's called watergate dot org. he's worked with the 45th and and he has been instrumental in the 50th and gordon. is there anything more you need to tell about how to get of you? well. gate dot org just go there because what happens here tonight is wonderful, but it's what we do after tonight to keep our eyes open and our voices in the public sphere about these issues because they're not going to go away with the current situation. it's something to face. yeah. okay. sorry. let me just repeat that. so what happens here tonight? it's important, but what's really important is what happens afterwards so we have to really be vigilant going forward. there's some loopholes in the constitution and in our judicial system and really it's up to the public at the end to be responsible and to have a voice so we're going to have watergate.org and we're gonna start a little nonprofit nonprofit to keep the lights on. thank you rufus. thanks for all your help. rachel and judy dash, please stand up and let us say hello to you. their father sam sam dash was the real star of the show. he and i worked very hard together and sam dash never quit to eat. i don't know when he ate. he was a fantastic chief counsel and could have been anybody put their any better. they could have anybody better put there than the deputy chief counsel that i well. no, i didn't that at all. so i want to also say that we thank amy enright her company has helped us with this on. her company is named newton street publications. and cheryl mattingly my executive assistant who grow? yeah, sissy baker is here who sissy baker? oh. sissy baker here that's howard baker's daughter. oh my god. i love your father. one time one time sissy. i was running for governor. and he he called me. he said roof saw come over and come out for you against you whichever will help. and i said, well senator come out come over and please come out for me, but he didn't quite break that he didn't go down that hard. is joy reid here tonight? i think joy was in here a moment ago. of the readout bob woodward is somewhere hiding or did he leave? there's my friend bob woodward bob. i won't bob and carl to come up just a minute because i got to tell you guys what to do for a change. come on up here. they well you all right, you boys are at it. three minutes supposed to say something. we were not expecting to speak. and i'll just say the following. this was a triumph of democracy. what occurred in this room? and and every aspect of this country's great culture was involved. press the legislative branch the judiciary both parties supreme court and it worked. and i think if that were to be the legacy of watergate. this would be a moment. of greatness that we lack today. thank you. i remember after carl and i had done our stories in the washington post and most people did not believe them. they thought it was inconceivable and i got a call from senator irvin's office since it come on up want to talk and so went into his office and he said we're gonna investigate watergate mike mansfield had selected him to do it and he said gee we'd like to have your sources. and i said a we're not going to give them to you. because i think that would break down a barrier between the government and a free press and he said i understand but we're going to do it anyway, and literally what he said, maybe we'll find out what jeb magruder did. he kept the ball the the bar really low and then he conducted what is the gold standard of congressional investigations nixon miss calculated as you many of you recall. nixon said i'm gonna invoke executive privilege and not let hold them in urlachman and mitchell testify then nixon in one of his many delusions thought well, no, i'll let him testify they'll help me and of course they came up and tore. nixon apart and then this led to the the discovery of the tapes and of course irvin, i'm sorry to go over three minutes, but you're used to it. okay, then. the great thing other than the investigation that senator irvin did is his final report, which is four or five thousand pages and in it. he asked the question. what was watergate and he answered it and he said watergate was an attempt to subvert and destroy the process of selecting presidential candidates and a president exactly and then he goes through this, you know, he wouldn't and never evaded the tough questions and he said why water came, why did this happen and his answer and it's the end of his report the lust for power. thank you. well, i mentioned a good friend of mine the dean of the campbell law school. dean rich leonard came up. i called him on the phone. i said dean you need to go to washington. he said, okay. i don't i don't know how i finagled it. but there he is dean rich leonard of the campbell university law school and former federal judge. and now ladies and gentlemen, you you get a program that i think you will quite like and i'm not going to jump on anybody and choke them to death. i will certainly make certain quivering moments if you start going over richard. and uh so i i will i might just gave me the finger. i think that's richard benavisti. uh jill wine banks is on the next panel. and jill you need to come on up here. and kick it off. in fact, i want to tell you about this lady having been a lawyer for a long time. i think she explains complex legal issues. better than anybody i've ever seen on tv jill come up, please and convene your your your table and and you have with you, of course, my friend richard benavisti the deputy chief counsel deputy chief investor of prosecutor of the special prosecution team and jim hamilton our our jim hamilton to handle the one of the issues of the the three-pronged watergate investigation and a long time friend. and we're looking. for ms. holtzman, how are we going to handle that amy? yeah, we've got oh good lord. i love my congresswoman ross. and i want to call up also my congresswoman deborah ross. from the second congressional district in north carolina. she's a brilliant lady. and and the next panel will be gene boyce who's going to tell you how this how he discovered the tapes. this is after this battle. so jill, you are the boss here. happy new year they didn't. hi everyone. i know that you all want to be mingling. so we're going to keep our program tight. but i am very happy to be here and i can you all see or should we move chairs so that it's okay. all right good. we're going to talk about what watergate was all about from both the senate point of view, and i'm sorry that former congresswoman. liz holtzman isn't here and i'll speak in part for her. i've gotten to be friends with her. and so i'll sort of say some of the things i think she would have said and then we'll try to finish up quickly. and so we have as you've already heard richard benvenista who to me will always be rick even though he hates me when i say that and he he's going to retaliate by calling me jilly bean. so i'm preempting him. and of course jim hamilton who is going to be wonderful and congresswoman deborah ross who will talk about some of the things that need to be done now and maybe can talk about some of the things that we did after watergate in terms of congressional legislation that has been undone by the supreme court. let me start with you jim. you have described the watergate hearings which it's hard for me to believe having only seen them on television that it was in this room because it seems so small compared to what i saw. but you've described it as being the most successful the most consequential and the most um riveting of all congressional investigations and it certainly is true in american history. .. all american households watched and they were riveted and they didn't watch for an hour. they watched for a minimum of 30 hours. obviously, we're in a slightly different time, but i want you to talk about maybe just quickly five reasons. why you think that that was the most riveting and most consequential? there's a microphone. why you'd take one? maybe you should stand up. so people can really see. yeah just stand right here. yeah. no, no. try this one. it's on. how about now? okay. technology has never been my strength. you know, i think they all uh, maybe five reasons why the senate water aid committee was the most successful the most riveting and most consequential in history and let me just describe those to you very briefly. the first is the scope. of the wrongdoing that we found because watergate was not only the break-in and the cover-up. it was a series of noxious dirty tricks a lot of their name by the way at ed muskie because he was the strongest candidate against nixon. there were massive illegal campaign contributions and then there was something called the responsiveness program which gordon friedman over there found in the national archives, which was his scheme to use the bureaucracy to re-elect nixon fortunately a lot of members of the bureaucracy just balked they weren't going to go along with it. the second reason i think that watergate was so successful was the cast of characters. just think about the people involved. i mean for the committee you had sam irvin who was a folk hero. you had dana norway who was a war hero. and the other other side you had richard nixon. who to be the best known man in america was still one of the most mysterious men in america you had four cubans who had bay of pigs and cia backgrounds who had done all types of nefarious things you had gordon liddy and howard hunt. who never saw a condestine nefarious scheme that they wouldn't follow no matter how how doomed to failure it was and then you had the the trio from the white house chuck colson, uh, john ehrlichman bob halderman, who would make your the hair stand up in the back of your neck when you heard him in uh testifying the the third reason that i think watergate was so successful was there was good staff work and let's give credit to sam dash. his daughters are here. let's give credit to sam. sam knew sam knew how to tell a story and that's what he did the summer of 1973. watergate was the best soap opera on television. it was appointment television as the new york times said one day 60 million people heard john dean. talk about a cancer growing on their presidency. the fourth reason that i think watergate was so successful and rufus has already mentioned. this was that it was done in a way where partisanship was secondary. there was a legitimate effort to find the truth. let me give you just a few facts that maybe today in this in the context of what's going on now seem incredible. the watergate committee was set up by a vote of 77 to nothing in the united states senate. the decision to subpoena president nixon after we found the tapes and then to sue him when he stiffed us was by a unanimous vote of the watergate committee. the questions that were asked to uncover the tapes both in private session and at public hearing were questions by republican staffers and the watergate committee report that bob referred to this huge report, which i think was 1200 pages of text and then many append appendices that was adopted by unanimous vote by the committee would this happen today? gee, i don't think so. and of course the final reason that a watergate the watergate committee was such a great success was that we discovered the white house tapes that brought down a corrupt president. i think gene is going to talk to you about that. thanks joe. rick let me call on you to maybe talk a little bit more about the role of the watergate special prosecution office and why? we were so successful both in the trial and in you can stand in front if you want with that. i want to stand next to you. let me say a thing about watergate. uh, yeah, let me do this. um all three branches of government a special prosecutor and an implacable press were responsible. for the extraordinary result unique i think for any country in the world. to investigate itself and to come to a conclusion uh that ultimately rid us of a corrupt. president of the united states and terminated his second term. it was the result of the laws that were on the books being applied. by extraordinary people extraordinary people who stepped up and did the work. now it could have ended differently at any point if nixon had destroyed the tapes that we subpoenaed. even up to the moment that we were to get them. i think he would have survived served out the rest of his term wounded. yes. but he would have survived. and let me suggest to you that. this country would have survived nixon's. second term whatever you say about nixon and there's a lot to say about his criminality and his penchant for authoritarianism. he was an individual who had a sense of shame. at the end of the day his sense of shame was on display. watergate did not pose. a threat to the continuation of our government as we see it. i cannot say the same. about donald trump donald trump was and is an existential threat. to our democracy short and simple it was the individuals. operating within our system who are responsible for the conclusion. of the watergate saga our ability to get the tapes. uh and to then pass them along to the house impeachment committee along with a road map prepared by our dear friend and colleague george frampton who's here tonight? george stand up george say hello. we built on the great work that the senate committee did. and we expanded on it and we were able to get evidence that they were denied. and that evidence put the nails in richard nixon's coffin. let me conclude my remarks. by calling out the names of the heroes of watergate who are no longer with us. judge john j sarika senator, sam irvin sam dash peter rodino john door archibald cox henry ruth james neal leon jaworski and catherine graham. the way may we find those heroes to guide us through the troubling? months and years ahead. thank you. and of course richard meant to include senator howard baker. he has captured something that is really true, which is it was a time when there was bipartisanship. there were facts that mattered all the networks had the same facts. it was an extraordinary time of compromise democrats and republicans dined together and worked together and got things done. there was unanimous support for the legislation that followed the trial and the hearings and we aren't there now and i think that's what's really so sad is that we don't have those people coming forward now and we need that but let's go on with the questions. i want to ask one more question of you richard. you're not done yet. um. come up jack one of the issues. we were successful in of course prosecuting the aids and we named richard nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator, which was in part necessary in order to introduce the tapes into evidence in the trial. he had to be a co-conspirator. this wasn't a vindictive act. it was a necessary act. it was also part of the fact that those were what the evidence showed and we worried about things like jury nullification if the aids were being tried and the leader wasn't and there was a big debate in the office about whether he should be indicted twice once was as a sitting president and once was the day he resigned and in the period before he got pardoned and so i'd like you, you know, richard and i do not agree on this. um, i was for indictment. both times both as sitting president and again after he resigned and i look back now and i was on a panel with gerald ford's son and benton becker. who was the young lawyer from gerald ford's office who delivered the offer of pardon to richard nixon. and i was very touched by both of their comments and about the fact that gerald ford. made benton becker make it clear to richard nixon that if he accepted the pardon, he was admitting guilt and he carried with him a supreme court case that said that and i softened a little and thought well, maybe it was a good thing to let the country move on and to pardon, but i look back now and i was right then because i think that there might have been a difference if richard nixon had been indicted maybe more of a message would have been sent to future wrongdoers in the white house. i don't know that i can't say for sure that anything would have changed the behavior. we're now seeing in the january 6th hearings and because it's so contemporaneous. um i think it's important that we look at that aspect. so would it have made a difference? i don't know. was it the right thing to do? it was certainly something the evidence supported but you want to say something about that and before you do, i also want to say there's another 50th anniversary, which is it's the 50th anniversary of a good thing that richard nixon did which is title ix, which opened up opportunities for women not just in sports, but particularly in sports. so, thank you richard nixon. so, um let me unpack all of those questions and answer one of them the decision to name richard nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator is an interesting story and involves some inside baseball. we were the first to listen to the first tranche of tapes. produced after the saturday night massacre incidentally the event that i think was the most responsible for the change in america's opinion about richard nixon, i think even after the spectacular hearings in this room by the irving committee, most americans who still prepared to give richard nixon the benefit of the doubt all of his aides contradicted what john dean was saying it was he said he said times three and so without the tapes, i don't think uh, richard nixon would remotely have been forced to resign his office in the way. he was but we listened to the so-called cancer on the presidency speech in which john dean to his great credit. attempted to get nixon to realize that the cover-up couldn't last. and that he nixon ought to call an end to it. have the individuals who are responsible for violating the law already come forward and take their medicine including dean. and nixon ask dean. well, how much will it cost to keep it going and dean said well a million a million dollars over the next two years. and they said so i'll suppose i could get the million dollars and you could find a way to deliver it to. continue to keep the watergate burglars quiet. paying them hush money. uh, don't you think that makes sense and dean? oh, well, uh and all of a sudden nixon asked the rhetorical question. don't you think you ought to get hunt paid the amount? he's demanding. and get it done fast. and that was it. we looked at each other and we said nixon cannot survive this he has in his own words through his own mouth, irrefutably provided evidence that he has joined the conspiracy if he wasn't a member before he sure as hell is now an overt act has now been committed immediately after telling dean to go forward hunt was paid and off to the races. so we said to leon. we know you don't want to name nixon as a defendant. we understand the constitutional process of impeachment is preferable. it's in the constitution. it is the remedy to remove a corrupt and criminal president. but on the other hand we have evidence here right in front of us that richard nixon joined the conspiracy as a conspirator. we can't not use that evidence. and i know you don't want to get ahead of the curve and name nixon in the indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator. but how about if we put it before the grand jury to vote. on who the unindicted co-conspirators are and that the grand jury votes to authorize you leon? to name nixon at the appropriate time in the proceedings as an unindicted co-conspirator. and he agreed and in fact, it was at a a very very tense cocktail party at jill's home. uh that we broach this question to leon and leon agreed that it was the right thing to do. time passed we kept it a secret. there were no leaks from our office in watergate. sorry, bob and carl. the truth what did he say? i didn't hear that and i'm probably glad i didn't hear that. uh so some six weeks later james sinclair the president's lawyers on the sunday morning tv show saying that our subpoena forced our trial subpoena for 64 new tapes that included the so-called smoking gun tape. um should be denied because all of this evidence was hearsay. it couldn't be admissible at trial. well leon and i and phil lack rivera went over to the white house. we met with saint claire and general hague nixon's chief of staff in the map room and we said, you know, you're not getting anywhere with this argument those tapes are coming into evidence because take a look at this. and we handed. sinclair the transcript of the grand jury's vote to name richard nixon as an unindicted conspirator. and that was the end of that argument. okay, we didn't get to the congressman. of course deborah ross my god the most important person here. definitely don't want to stop before we get to her. um, we are running along. so we're gonna try and cut. um, originally we were going to have liz holtzman here. she's running for office and had a complication and couldn't be with us and i i know that she would agree that the road map that we provided that richard just mentioned was very helpful in saving a lot of time for the judiciary committee in in terms of investigating what crimes might have been committed that were impeachable and she would also talk about the post-watergate legislation that as i mentioned really did make a difference because a lot of the reason that watergate happened was all the dirty money that was floating around. all the cash in the white house safes that let them do things like operation gemstone without thinking about how much money they were spending on it whether it was a worthwhile campaign expenditure and but what i want to talk about now mostly is like liz holtzman a congresswoman ross stepped right into a quite dramatic situation. she was a new member of congress and january 6th happened and she was one of the first people who proposed impeachments which liz also was brand new in congress had taken a seat on the committee when she replaced congressman sellers and was also involved in drafting impeachment. so i want to have you talk a little bit about drafting the impeachment and how you got into that and what you think but also address what legislation you think we need now based on the january 6th hearings and where we are. do we need to bring back some of the watergate legislation? are there other things it seems to me? there's a lot of other things everything from the emoluments clause to the electoral college act that were never really issues. i never feared that we would lose our democracy or our right to have our vote counted under richard nixon. that doesn't mean he wasn't a criminal and then it wasn't terrible. but now i worry about democracy and if you're worried about democracy we need to take legislative action, so i would like to have you come up. thank you. um, well, thank you. and it's a real honor to be here with you and to just take a few minutes to tell you a little bit about what it was like to just be sworn into office. remember we were sworn in during covid and um, we really had not gotten to know each other or our colleagues very well. um, i just to be very clear because we're on the historical record. i did not draft the articles of impeachment, uh, and to be clear it was an article of impeachment. there was only one article my colleagues david cisolini and ted lou and jamie raskin did that but the position that i was in was that i had served in our state legislature and when the speaker asked me what committees i might be interested in serving on i listed the rules committee. not knowing that um once january 6th happened the rules committee had to be quickly constituted and there was one democratic spot open which had been donna shalayla's and i was the only one who expressed interest. and so the speaker's office called me and asked me if i would take that position. um, i agreed we had a zoom caucus i was i was put into my position and with one within one hour jim mcgovern the chair of the rules committee said welcome to the rules committee. you must be here tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. we're going to impeach the president. and so my very first committee meeting in congress was to approve the article of impeachment my very first speech on the house floor was to recommend impeachment and to justify that by saying that donald trump was unrepentant. and he continues to be unrepentant for what he did going to your issue of shame the biggest difference as you've heard now is we we do have a bipartisan committee and that we have. um, liz cheney and adam kinsinger doing yeoman's work. i actually think that the the hero and we all saw this today was mike pence mike pence saved our democracy. he risked his life. to save our democracy and he will go down in history as the most important vice president we have had in this country. um the moment that was most heartening i was locked in my room in longworth because they told us we couldn't leave um was when we heard that mike pence nancy pelosi and mitch mcconnell called us back into session to certify those electors and these speeches made on the senate floor by many republicans were some of the most profound speeches that i have heard and gave me a lot of hope even though i had been locked in my office. um, i am unfortunately, um pessimistic about whether or not we will pass a raft of reform legislation, like what came after watergate we have not even been able to pass the john lewis voting rights act to correct. what the supreme court? has done to our voting rights notwithstanding. what president trump advocated for and so many of our legislatures have done to diminish people's voting rights, of course, we need to reform their electoral count act the fact that we have to talk about the emoluments clause and the fact that a president would basically pimp out his office for his personal gain is a shame and a tarnish on this country. i do want to say that you know this also we're talking about watergate, but after bush versus gore. the country came together and passed the help america vote act and we did that under president george bush. and so what we need as rufus said is a return to civility a return to regular order a return to comedy. um, i'm hopeful i'm hey i'm running again, and i'm hoping to be here for a long time that we will learn the lessons from january 6th, and that people of goodwill across party lines will step up and do the right thing and there are people of good. will they just need to speak out and get it done as do the voters? i don't want jill to leave. she is one more good commentator, and i want to repeat again. she takes a very very difficult legal process and turns it into plain english. as does my friend deborah, you can see why uh, we asked deborah to speak. this is one more brilliant individual who i have high hopes in her quest in the house jill. and thank this panel very very much. and we're going to move on. thank you. ladies and gentlemen uh, i said in my opening remarks that i thought the the most important part. of the watergate hearings was the discovery of the taping system. and i still believe that because i'm i'm going to agree with rich benonisti and others had had nixon. at a certain point uh been able in his own perverted way to say. i'm sorry, some of my people did some bad things. i want you to ask for your forgiveness. the american people are very forgiving and i agree that he would have been president. he would have had some very good remarks marks on his record epa, which i think that has been extremely helpful. i think we'd probably be in war with china had it not been opening it up. he opened up a dialogue with russia but alas. i tell young people coming in to see me and and i ran 11 times statewide. that the most important thing about public office and running for it and senator don bond. who knows this? is you must surround yourself? with people who will not act stupidly richard nixon had the most stupid crowd around him that you could ever dream of in any manner whatsoever. and they could have went an award for it and i think all the panel there knows the stupidity jim. did you handle the dirty tricks? some of some of the things we never even mentioned they tried to do and why did that occur that occurred because they had bundles of money. that they meant that they needed to throw away at something and so that goes back to my point. i want gene boyce who was assistant counsel. on the senate watergate from raleigh, north carolina and who by the way in a couple weeks on july the 12th will be 90 years old. gene i would like for you to tell this wonderful gathering how in the world the tapes were discovered in that committee meeting? come on up here. it's yours. i'm reminded first of all of the monday morning when i came back to washington after discovering the tapes on friday the 13th the day after my birthday on july the 12th, his is on july the 12th. uh, i'm a i'm a year old. i know it's a decade older than rufus, but i i never will forget walking up the hall monday morning after discovering the tapes on friday and reporting it to rufus and telling everybody to keep the mouth shut be quiet. don't reveal it walking down the hall kind of chung and a bunch of reporters came running down. the hall said boys, you look what's going on to change the witness list. you look like, you know something what is going on. i said no ma'am when i told you good morning. i've told you everything in the world. i know. and they uh, they didn't believe that but it went on we're running real late, and i don't want to take up too much time, but i do the best i can and all of the things that i would talk about, uh, take a long time because it's mainly about circumstances, but you know, the one circumstances that we're all here one single circumstance. a piece of duct tape no, i'm sorry. second piece of duct tape there wouldn't have been a break-in to start this whole thing and we wouldn't have been here if it had not been for the second piece of dirt tape being put on the stairwell door and the uh night china to come in and see in his uh after taking off the first tape seeing somebody to put a second tape on that is a circumstance that brings us all here. now that's just one circumstance. i've gotten so much many more to tell but we just don't have time and i'm always reminded being here of on after discovering those tapes on friday after late friday and reporting to rufus and senator and everybody. what what had been going on and what the truth was and what we had discovered going back to raleigh. i i drove back every friday afternoon came up every morning monday morning. i didn't stay. well leslie leslie, uh, lacey president was in the car with me. i still have my diary of july the 13th friday and i wrote one thing on this diary. i still have a copy of it and it says butterfield interview well, i've been ham i'm i'm here now and my comment still is i'm here now. well, i'll be down. only only because i had only because i had a raleigh address. no other reason my friend ike andrews who became a congressman came in one day and said gene. i'm going to run for congress. i need a campaign manager and i reach for my pocketbook. he said i don't want a contribution. i want you to be my campaign manager. he's i said yo what camp i said, i i'm a i go to courtroom for you all the time. i don't know anything about campaigns. he said gee all i need is is one thing i need a campaign manager with a raleigh address because there are more voters in wake county than any of the other three that one reason was. is why i gave in became a his campaign manager didn't know anything about campaigns, but i was a lawyer i came to washington. i i never drank, but i went to cocktail parties because in january there's not much else to do but guess who i kept running into at the cocktail part is was a lawyer friend of mine rufus who said, uh, gene i've got i've got three attorneys on the watergate committee that none of them have been in court. none of them know anything about investigation. please come over and join us. well, there was so much going on. i came and joined you. i don't i don't think you're mad about that. but anyway, that was a circumstance to and life is so full of of circumstances. and uh, it it it it there's a lot more i could say, but we're running so short of time. i'm i'm i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna quit but i i would not not be here tonight with you had not been one of those things that that alexander butterfield ended up on my witness list when i joined the committee there were three lawyers. uh who had not any trial or investigative experience rufus wanted me on to fill in the fourth. to be the number four attorney in late january after they were really going and i gave in because it was so interesting and kind of having a friend that asked me to do something for him. i couldn't say no, so i joined the committee that changed the witness list there were three lawyers with 60 with 60 witnesses on the list and that's published when i came on number four lawyer. they moved those 60 witnesses and divide them up to whoever they come 15 a piece on the on my witness list being added to the committee being number four on it coming in late january early february who was on my witness list alexander butterfield now if that's the circumstance that's that's a real one pure accident was how that all came about and i'm sorry the roof says you got five minutes a friend of mine wrote roofer said no rufus you do you give gene more than five minutes. he gave me six minutes, i think and i probably already take it up the time but uh, tell them about they asked the question being asked. and what happened after what butterfield said after that that that's what people don't know what happened in that executive committee. obviously is joe weinbank knows jim hamilton and all you good lawyers. you never put somebody on the witness stand unless you know what they're going to say so every no one appeared on the witness stand here unless they'd been in an executive session and had been unbriefed. i'm not going to say practice. but so tell tell them gene about what exactly happened in that committee room in the committee room. just four of us. i was the chief counsel in there. i had a uh, my assistant counselor was a a republican republican party minority council. i had an investigator and i had a a young lady who took notes fortunately. she made a mistake and shred the notes of that hearing by state bless our heart she rewrote them from memory. but anyway, that's that's another circumstance, but it went along. uh, we uh had had that uh interview what had happened john dean. i'd interviewed john dean and dean made a statement to me and i was over at his apartment over in alexander, virginia, and they said gene. i did this. this is he said i was there with the president one time in the ovals. i said, i i felt like i was being recorded. that was just a comment just often just i felt like those things are little things that because of the work. i always did stick to me. it felt like it there must be something to that. i interviewed, uh halderman over there and then interviewed butterfield reported to my minority council. i was on i was a democrat majority council my minority counselor. don sanders great guy. he died about 20 years ago, but his heart and i said don, let's see if there's a tight recording in the oval office when don's turn came the investigator goes first. he investigator. i better not say what i'm going to say about him. he went three hours and never asked the right question when it got to don don and his uh said, uh, mr. butterfield. is there anything about there being a type recording in the oval office and the butterfield's comment? i was afraid you all were going to ask this and i've been told that i've got to tell the truth. my memory is bad, but those words stick right with me. that's exactly what happened and he told the truth not only was there a tape recording the oval office when an executive building in another office and mainly there was one at camp david's down in virginia where the president went on vacation the thought occurred to me on july the 13th 1973. oh my god an opal office. that's one thing executive build us another the other executive office. that's another but camp david. six months ago the premier of the soviet union stayed in camp, david when my turn came i said, uh, mr. butterfield on this camp david thing that that bothers me, uh, because we have visitors there. he said no mr. boyce when the when the president is not in the room oval office camp david where this never a recording. it doesn't record it records automatically, but only when the president's there and thank you. thank god another world war was not going to come about. but anyway, i i hate to hurry up, but you all have been here a long time and there's there's a lot there's a lot more circumstances because i want you to i want you to think about about your your circumstances as well. uh, and uh, uh those of your past life and the circumstances that got you here today are are really unique. and i'd say, uh, i don't give legal advice anymore, but my general advice is be prepared for those circumstances. be careful how you handled they are coming and they're going to be some good ones and some bad ones and it's going to be your choice to proceed from there if any questions, i'm not in a hurry, but i you all have been here too long. hey that gene voice doesn't need to be in a hurry and there's something else i must tell you about gene. gene instituted along with the workers in the library of congress the first computerized deal workings of any committee on the congress they worked out a witness system on computers and this man was responsible for it right here. steve leopold has a question for you gene. speak up stephen. gene for the record so we will understand he was you as i understand who suggested. donald sanders, the question would be asked. about whether there was a david sister. is that correct? oh, yeah. yeah, that's that's correct. don was great, but don was great, but the system was the investigator goes first. he went three hours and didn't ask the right question, but when it got to the minority castle, his turn was and i had prompted him on what i had learned from butterfield and haldeman about i felt like i was being recorded and butterfield who knew what was going on. he was there and don sanders asked him about it and don appropriately got credit for asking that question. i was involved but don asked the question. foreign she was just checking the profession. he passed by the struggling. well, yes, i suggested it but he asked it on the behalf of the united states of america. beautiful, okay. that's why gene boyce has lived to be 90 years old. i'll give you all to him. i'll ask if i grew up in raleigh. my answer is no not yet. ladies and gentlemen, we're moving along and we've had such wonderful people tonight mark feldstein. he's the richard easton chair on broadcast journalism at the university of maryland. right, there is mark. my old friend lawrence larry meyer former reporter and editor of the washington post. he was here every day of the hearings. and he said he's written a book and he's got me in it as a character and will not tell me what it is. and i i see trouble looming. uh, we also have martin sram formerly newsday bureau chief and syndicated columnist and they are going to analyze. the role in watergate of the of the journalism and the changing watchdog roll and what is then and now so i'm going to call right now. over here brother mark feldstein you come right here and take over and you'll be better talking into this. yes, sir. um, so thank you. i'm honored to be here. uh, martin schram and lawrence meyer both covered watergate. at the time including these urban hearings and i guess marty you had a a brush with fame when you were booted off nixon's trip to china and the white house tape showed him making anti-semitic comments about you. um we were going to have barry sussman here the watergate editor. he'd agreed to appear and sadly he passed away earlier this month so our condolences especially to the family who i understand is here. um, so uh, larry, let me start with you you worked with with uh with barry. could you tell us a little bit about him and uh about his role in watergate? yeah. um i do want to say a word about. barry barry was like the quarterback that every football team would like to have he was calm he was smart. he had great instincts. and he asked great questions. uh, he didn't give orders he made suggestions. and most of the times his suggestions were brilliant or at least very good. every once in a while like winston churchill he had a bad idea, but when he had a bad idea. he was willing to his ego didn't get in the way and you could talk him out of it. uh barry unfortunately until they died didn't get the full credit that he deserved for the role that he he played. he really directed the post coverage in the early days. and uh you may not get this in the movie. uh, but there was a lot of resistance within the washington post and barry was there to make the case argue for it. and present the evidence so that the story can move forward so that bob and carl and the rest of us could do our work and barry directed us bob carl, jean bachinski me and a lesser lesser way. and i don't know if if the outcome would have been the same uh without him, but it certainly he played an essential role. uh, he was my first editor my best editor and on top of all that. he was really a first-rate human being. uh, and i'm really sorry. several times in the last and the last couple of weeks since he died. i've been there have been things that have i've come upon and i've been dying to call him but um, he's out of reach and i would really give anything if he were standing here today instead of me. so, um and barry sussman was very critical of the sort of media mythology that grew up around watergate marty can we talk about that just a little bit, you know, we sort of live in the shadow of all the president's men, but if uh, and we've already heard from from bob and and carl briefly woodard bernstein if they had not existed or if the media had been as deferential during watergate as it was say in the 1950s. um, how would things have turned out? would it have been any different? foreign things would have been different but in the end what happened would have happened anyway, because someone somewhere would have always stepped up to do what needed to be done, you know one of the interesting before i go into the rest of it. i just wanted to say about the football analogy for barry sussman who was a friend of mine is as well. barry was like having a quarterback who was also the coach and right there on the field. he he was he was that good. what i wanted to suggest to you was that in the watergate era. there were a number of of news organizations that were doing watergate reporting and doing some very good watergate reporting in bob and carl have always been the first to say so, uh, but the one thing that was missing was they when? newsday and the la times and so many other organizations did some some very significant work it was published but it wasn't published where washington was reading it and that was a significant fact that helped is ultimately the reason i uh, eventually took ben bradley's, uh, third or fourth overture and left news day and went to the washington post and became a colleague of bob and carl's, you know, that was one of the reason why but i would like to tell you about what it was like to be in the press corps in that era i happen to experience firsthand some of the excesses of the nixon white house, and it was written about in a number of books. this had nothing to do with watergate. it was before then bob haldeman was called into the oval office by richard nixon and nixon told him newsday is doing an investigation on me and bibi riboso in our finances bibi. ribosa was his best friend banker could keep his cane and haldeman said to him who's doing the investigation and nixon said those --. and it's on the nixon tapes and uh haldeman said you mean marty schram. he said yeah him and some guy named named green burger green bomb or something like that and at that point, uh, uh, i have to interject. the other fellow leading the investigation in fact and had assembled a whole team. i was part of it was bob green g-r-e-e-n-e a big 350 pound irishman who is now buried in the our lady of the sacred hoo-ha catholic church cemetery in long island, but as far as richard nixon was concerned if they're investigating him and his finances. they're --. that that's what he felt. um. i think eventually the investigating would have been done. but what bob and carl did and the genius of what they did was to be ordinary old school reporters and uh that coupled with their own instincts really helped they went and knocked on the doors and didn't go through secretaries to try to set up interviews and they went to people's homes at night, which i always understood was the only way you're going to get a lot of people to talk because they don't want to be seen talking to during the daytime and that all made a difference a big difference. they had bob and carl had a whole series of very fine stories that other people had snippets of here and there i had some as well but nothing compared to the best work they did which was just shoe leather and and the courage to just keep at it when when you were first turned down and then turned down again, and this didn't work out and that didn't work out and they kept doing it. that was the strength and they'd also be saying what larry said barry sussman pushing dealing with them and others that made a huge difference, too, and that was a great combination. the rest of us were pretty much one in two lone reporters doing work, uh, bob and carl were the the hub and the core of a team and that that helped make their assignments clear. well, i want to reiterate or put it somewhat differently something that richard ben vanisty said, um earlier, um for all this i i envision a three-legged stool. there was the press media there was a judiciary the legal process and there was the legislature. and we all did our jobs and function as we should have. uh, and at one point i was kind of accosted by an fbi agent who was one of the investigators of watergate and he said to me he said, you know, we had all that we had all that and i said, yeah. but we didn't have it and the public didn't have it. you knew it. we got it out there. and that to the great credit of bob and carl and barry was that we did get it out there and we had two important readers at least. john jay sareka who was? indignant during the trial which i covered. and kept pestering the prosecution. to get answers to who did this? why did they do it? were they paid etc and he kept asking the same question and we had a reader on capitol hill, sam irvin. who was also interested? and it was that combination any one of those legs failed. we wouldn't have had watergate. and as other speakers have said before me. um i'm really fearful. for what the future has the media will still be there. the judiciary may still be there. i'm not so sure about the legislature the culture of this country has changed. and change in ways that are not necessarily for the better. i think the public has become jaded or indifferent. and we can put it out there, but if people don't respond and take action. then it's all for naught foreign so if watergate happened in today's media landscape social media mainstream media fractured polarized partisan local newspapers dying. how would it be covered today? marty well, unfortunately, i think it would be covered two ways. uh first there would be some journalists who learned from carl and bob and who went about doing the legwork that needed to be done. but if they and if they got their story published in the los angeles times the chicago tribune or news day you'd be able to see it and that's a huge difference. it didn't exist before because i i felt like when we that are exclusive. sometimes it was like putting a story in a bottle and tossing it into the sea, uh our our readers and they were a huge there was a huge circulation did see it uh, but uh, uh others didn't and sometimes they'd get an associated press summary of what you wrote which nobody likes that we like to have our own words and our own insights, but mainly our own facts laid out there for all to see in the organ where you organized it, but the other way that that watergate would be covered if it would happen today unfortunately is the way it happens on television, which is where shows are not based on reported stories that are carefully put together and assembled with the berry assessments and the larry myers and others as well as the on-air correspondents working out a package and putting it out there so you can get it in a clear and logical way that doesn't happen. tv much anymore on cnn and msnbc fox especially it happens that you bring someone on who investigated the matter and wrote about it and you quote a sentence or two from the story and then you ask them questions about what they think about what they wrote and how they feel about what they think and and so on and so forth and we're not going in a good way when it comes to that it would be so much better if reporters did real reporting and the stories spoke for themselves including television reporters who were excellent sometimes and great producers who could put together the package and you'd understand it much more clearly and you don't get people summing up how they feel about what they think. foreign i think there's more consensus then about facts and truth, which you need as almost a common currency to to go from so. and and an understanding about what is truth. we we can't figure out what truth is now we have divided segments. let me just add one more thing mark about that because it's also it's also true that uh, uh now if you ask, uh if you ask a reporter to do something and they get it done. it's great, but when you have uh, uh when you have it in a in a media where where clicks on the internet or what's governing things you sometimes lose the context that you need to pursue what needs to be pursued. um, okay. thank you. so, um, i'm going to wrap this up with one last question and then an observation so for larry or marty, so uh looking, how is watchdog role of journalism changed now in the last 50 years. foreign um well, i think as as uh, marty has indicated, uh, one of the critical ways that it's changed is that there are so many elements in the media now, um, and um, as i was thinking about this event and thinking about the changing role of the media the the one the one of the most crucial things and in washington, you may not appreciate this is the decline in death in a lot of cases of local newspapers. um, my first job was for the times herald record in middletown, new york, and um, uh the lawyer for the paper used to say that um if there wasn't a fire to cover we would light one so we could write about it and um, there was some truth to that we were aggressive. uh, my second job was with the louisville times and we uh, we were owned by the same company that owned the courier journal they were the morning paper. we were the afternoon paper. they didn't take us very seriously, but we took ourselves very seriously and we were aggressive and always looking for uh, an opening where we could squeeze our way through and get something on the front page. so louisville times doesn't exist anymore. and there are a lot of local papers that don't exist anymore and if they do exist they may or may not have bureaus in washington. i i'm not remembering the name of the paper or the congressman but about 10 or 15 years ago. there was a local paper that did an expose of a crooked congressman who eventually went to jail and it was through the reporting of the washington bureau. who are paying attention to this congressman and he's not they're not there anymore. and that's that is a real. real loss in and we're going to pay for it literally as well as figuratively. well said larry, uh larry took this to the place. i was going to go to uh, the fact of the matter is but i'll take it from a different perspective because i have uh a different sense of what will be covered and what won't be covered. what will be covered is the next watergate what will be covered is the uh, the next series of trump scandals or whoever makes them in that sort of thing. what will not be covered unfortunately. are those same scandals writ small where everybody lives the city hall the zoning board, etc. etc. and that's not that's not going to be happening as much now bob green who i mentioned before as newsday's investigative, uh pulitzer winning reporter. did his best work and won his best, uh plotted for local investigations where the newspaper backed him up and if he was going to get in trouble and and the people would have come right at you to try to make trouble for an investigative reporter. uh, and if they took you to court you'd have a team of lawyers and so on standing up there for you the newspaper paid for it and that's the way it went. i don't see that really happening in local politics in local coverage as much as before and we're all going to pay the price every time we uh we go home to our homes on the cul-de-sacs or in downtown or or in the rural areas or wherever we're all going to feel that. so, uh, just to wrap up here. so, um, you all were real heroes to me when i was a kid in high school watching the watergate hearings and and the impeachment hearings and and what came down. and you won watergate has a happy ending if you will. um, but nixon got a kind of revenge on us all. fox news that was nixon's idea. he was didn't call it that then but he wanted a conservative network where they could get their message out and it was his acolyte roger ailes who made it happen. uh nixon started this whole notion that the deep state the cia was really behind watergate the liberal media. this was a coup to oust who from power and roger stone who cut his teeth in the in the nixon. campaign would bring that to fruition today. so there is a clear road from nixon. to trump from june 17th to january 6. thank you. all right. i think you all agree. we've had a fantastic education tonight from wonderful people and thank you all so very much and thanks for the the sponsors again, and i hope that we will live to see another reunion of all of us here. but let me tell you my biggest boo-boo in watergate after the tapes were discovered. senator irvin met in his office with the committee and i was in there. and they said well, how are we going to get the tapes? and somebody said well, i don't know guess we'll have to subpoena them. well, you'd never the congress had never subpoenaed the president before. and all of a sudden senator irvin said to me ruthless go get the president on the phone. so like go get a loaf of bread like that. so i walked into this auntie room and i dialed up. uh, the rosemary wood number that i knew and i said ms. wood, this is uh deputy chief counsel rufus edmiston calling on behalf of senator urban. and he would like to speak to the president. now you have to remember all this time that nixon was really want to say that everybody's out to get him. he'd been saying the committee is out to get him. so i'm waiting on the phone for rosemary wood to respond and here comes this. this voice hello, senator irvin, this is richard nixon. i was so taken back. i said mr. president. hold on senator, irvin wants to get you. uh, oh my god. i have never publicly told that i know of. so i have to confit my big confess my big boo-boo. but everything worked out and it's funny. how each of these speakers denied. has told you that the three the three branches of government. we're like a team of beautiful horses working together. now there were conflicts here and there of course there were but it shows that when people decide to be civil to one another. and and i i i i was here 10 years before watergate occurred. people stayed in washington, then the center stayed here jill. they went to parties together. they ate together. we had we had all sorts of things. and now what did they do? they come in on tuesday. they leave on thursday. what do they do while they're gone? they're raised funds deborah will tell you it's just a never-ending and it's it's all about the money chase and so let's beware. of anybody that tells you that money doesn't corrupt politics doesn't know what they're talking about. thank you and good night, and we love you all and see you again. nearly two decades before the official founding of the university of virginia thomas jefferson wrote to artist charles wilson peale in january 1802 i have for a considerable time been meditating a plan of a general university for the state of virginia on the most extensive and liberal scale that our circumstances would call for jefferson considered the university to be one of

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