watch oral histories every weekend here on cspan-3. with white house officials and reporters who first broke the story of watergate, we begin with the story about the investigation and the cover-up with former white house counsel john dean and senate watergate committee counsel fred thompson. from the watergate office building, this is about 45 minutes. good evening, everyone, and welcome. i m mary jordan. i m the editor of washington post live which is division of the newspaper which organizes forums and debates. a very special thanks tonight to washington post chairman don graham and publisher katherine waynus, our host, and a big thank you to penzance, the owner of the warren is a key player in the watergate scandal. and what you re going to hear onstage, there are lots of people in the audience who loomed large in watergate and i see a couple of them there. alexander butterfield, the man who revealed a taping system from the oval office came all the way from cal
their lives were changed forever by what they did. most paid an enormous price and a loss of liberty and a loss of reputation. some of them went on to various forms of public as well as private redemption. watergate the crime also spawned good deeds among people that required from then on a lifelong cloak of admiration and appreciation. they were people of the law and the judiciary, of politics and government, and of course of journalism. for whom watergate provided an opportunity to do the right thing, and they took that opportunity. many of those folks were also changed forever by what happened in this building 40 years ago and the events that followed. more generally, watergate, of course, has come to be so much more than a building, a washington crime wave and a series of stunning political events and personal experiences. its meenanings now are so broad and so different that just seeing or hearing the word watergate triggers a variety of rorschach tests for us all. water
committee counsel fred thompson. from the watergate office building, this is about 45 minutes. good evening, everyone, and welcome. i m mary jordan. i m the editor of washington post live which is division of the newspaper which organizes forums and debates. a very special thanks tonight to washington post chairman don graham and publisher katherine waynus, our host, and a big thank you to penzance, the owner of the warren is a key player in the watergate scandal. and what you re going to hear onstage, there are lots of people in the audience who loomed large in watergate and i see a couple of them there. alexander butterfield, the man who revealed a taping system from the oval office came all the way from california tonight. and earl filbert, former u.s. attorney for the district of columbia profited quite a bit on all the president s men. it was on the sixth floor downstairs in this building that 40 years ago this week there was a botched break-in. burgl
stereoscopic view of the harm to the country. you know, i mean, this experience med a real prosecutor. and i i ve had prosecutive instincts for a long time. maybe they weren t honed in 1974, but i think even then i would have done it. what did it this experience teach you about the wheels of our government? the wheels may grind slowly, but they grind pretty well. there s a lot of force in the law, and it made the president do a lot of things that he didn t want to do, and the whole procedure involved a lot of things that a lot of people didn t want to have done. but, i mean, there s three countries in the world i associate with the capacity for self examination. one is israel, one is the united kingdom, and the third and perhaps the greatest is the united states. did you stay in touch, besides the 1999 story, did you stay in touch with hillary rodham after? oh, yeah. no. i ve known her pretty continuously. there were whispered conversations about bill in 1974. they
instincts for a long time. maybe they weren t honed in 1974, but i don t think even then i would have done it. what did it this teach you about the wheels of our government? the wheels may grind slowly, but they grint pretty well. a lot of force in the law, and it made the president do a lot of things that he didn t want to do, and the whole procedure involved a lot of things a lot of people didn t want to have done. throw countries in the world i associate with the capacity for self examination. one is israel, one is the united kingdom, and the third and perhaps the greatest is the united states. did you stay in touch, besides the 1999 story, did you stay in touch with hillary rodham after? yeah, i ve known her pretty continuously. there were whispered conversations about bill in 1974. they were neared the next year, same year i was married. and the bill in question, the whispers in question, not bill weld, it was bill clinton. i never did see him visiting there. he