Rep. Holtzman just barely. Actually, the irony is that there was a breakin in had i own Campaign Headquarters roughly around that time and a very ugly incident and people actually got beat up and had to get taken to the hospital. So i was worried about my own campaign and worried about my own Campaign Workers and worried about the breakin at my Campaign Headquarters. So watergate was just a kind of far in the distance, thunder far in the distance. Timothy you get elected. Rep. Holtzman i won the primary. That was in brooklyn, the equivalent of getting elected. Although my opponent challenged my election in the courts. But when that was over i won in the courts of course it was a november election but it was not. It was pro forma. Timothy what kind of training did they have for new congresspeople . Rep. Holtzman none. Timothy none . Rep. Holtzman none. Timothy you get to washington, what are your assignments . Rep. Holtzman well, i didnt get to washington day one of the new congress. I understood that you had to go and select a committee and be on a committee. And so i sat around with my advisers and just to give you an idea of how remote the idea of impeachment was, i mean, not only remote, nonexistent. We sat around and tried to figure out what would be the best committee to be on. And we all agreed since my predecessor had been on the House Judiciary Committee for 50 years 50 that it would probably be good to break new ground and try Something Different so i wouldnt be compared to him and try to get on another committee. So i went down to washington to lobby not to be put on the judiciary committee. In those days, freshman members of congress werent listened to. So i came down. I remember going to see in those days the ways and Means Committee made the decisions. The democrats for the democrats. The republican members of the committee for the republican newlyelected members of congress. So i went down and visited all the members of the ways and Means Committee. And it didnt do me any good. My predecessor had been on the House Judiciary Committee. He vacated that seat. That seat was empty. I was a lawyer. They were putting me on it no matter what. So i was actually quite crestfallen when my First Venture down to washington was such an utter failure. I said oh, this is not an auspicious beginning. And so i was very disappointed that i was on the House Judiciary Committee, and i was a little concerned that the other members who had served with my predecessor would somehow be hostile to me, but none of that turned out to be true. Timothy so you thought it would be a backwater. Rep. Holtzman i did. Not only a backwater. I wasnt sure it would be a backwater, but i certainly didnt think it was going to be a front water. Lets put it that way. And ill tell you Something Else. They never would have put me on the House Judiciary Committee if they had any inkling, the members, very important, very senior, very experienced democratic members of the ways and Means Committee, including wilber mills, they never would have put me on the House Judiciary Committee if they had any idea that impeachment would be taking place. So were talking already after the nixon landslide in november, the november election, this is sometime toward the end of november, beginning of december, of 1972. Just shows how remote, how nonexistent the idea of impeachment was and how successful the coverup had been. Timothy when do you start when does watergate start to come on to your radar screen . Rep. Holtzman well, i think in january early. After i took my oath of office. And early after congress began there was this little contretemp in the courts where it was quite clear judge sirica smelled a rat, thought something was very bizarre about these guilty pleas, and imposed very tough sentences. And then mccord indicated there were higherups involved and then things began to unravel at that time. I became involved indirectly i wouldnt say in watergate, but indirectly in some of the efforts to cover up. When a bill came i shouldnt say a bill. Let me restate that. I became involved indirectly in what i thought were efforts to cover up when the Supreme Court sent to the congress rules of evidence, proposed rules of evidence for the federal courts. And this would seem to be really dry, boring i mean, eye glazing over, terrible. And i looked at it, and i saw that there were some pretty drastic provisions for preserving state secrets. Ultimately, it turned out these provisions had been put in by the Nixon Justice Department for precisely the purpose of allowing and expanding and strengthening executive privilege. So my first bill and my first law had to do with preventing these rules from going into effect and preventing the Supreme Court through its rulemaking power from legislating about privileges. Timothy did the committee have any hint of the wiretapping going on . Rep. Holtzman when . Timothy in early 1973 . Rep. Holtzman no. The committee actually didnt aside from what i did about executive privilege state secrets, i think the committee did nothing about impeachment, although until october. There were some members of the committee who were pressing for us to begin to look into what was going on in the white house. But that didnt happen till after the revelations about the cambodia bombing. So there was no i dont think that i mean, the wiretapping wasnt something that i recall, in any case, having prompted the committee to act. Timothy who were your colleagues who were pushing to look into this . Rep. Holtzman well, when the revelation came out about the bombing of cambodia, that president nixon had ordered the bombing of cambodia, even though congress had prohibited it, and even though this was carried out in secret, father dryden took the floor of the house of representatives and said Richard Nixon should be impeached. That produced really no response from the powers that be, but some of us by that time were quite concerned about the other revelations that had taken place about watergate, so that it wasnt just cambodia. It was also the revelations of john dean that had come out, the Senate Watergate hearings that had come out, and so i would say some of the other people who were talking to the chair about this, or talking among ourselves, i can remember don edwards, i was one of them. I cant remember and i believe there were some others. But it produced no result. I mean, i think the interesting thing if you look back was that even though you had the revelations of the Senate Watergate committee, even though you had the stuff about higherups coming out as a result of judge sirricas sentence, even though you had the revelations about the secret unlawful bombing of cambodia, there was no serious effort in the house of representatives to move toward impeachment. The leadership was not moving there. Rodino, who was the chair of the judiciary committee, was not moving there. Other members of congress were not moving there. I mean, in a way it was a heavy hand maybe of the johnson impeachment almost 100 years before that kind of put impeachment it was out of peoples minds. It certainly wasnt in peoples minds, or if it was, i wasnt hearing about it. Except from a very small number of the members of the House Judiciary Committee. Maybe i dont recall anybody else, actually. Timothy do you remember rodino saying anything about this, about the johnson impeachment . Rep. Holtzman i think not until we formally started the impeachment process. Not until after the saturday night massacre, when it was plain that the congress had to act, had to do something. And at that point, we the committee geared up for impeachment. Timothy where were you when you heard about the saturday night massacre . Rep. Holtzman i was in new york city. I was having actually dinner with some friends. And it was shocking and horrifying. And i think the nation reacted exactly the same way. Timothy what did you find most shocking . The fact the president and Archibald Cox were not getting along was no secret to anybody. Who was the most shocking about those events . Rep. Holtzman well, the president would remove a prosecutor that he would put himself above the law, that he would say i cant be investigated. You know, were not a banana republic. Were not a country like that. The special prosecutor was appointed exactly to look into criminality in connection with watergate, and the president had no power to stop it. In my view. And i think most of the country. And i think thats still the generally accepted view today. Timothy so what happens the next day . Rep. Holtzman well, the next day is sunday. Whether it was monday or tuesday, i dont think we generally got to washington on monday. I think it was generally tuesday that we got there. I dont remember exactly what happened, but then it was quite clear that the committee was going to be given a role, the impeachment inquiry would start, and the first effort was to hire counsel, which took forever. Then some of us were getting very impatient, why havent we started, why arent we moving forward, why isnt counsel being appointed already, already . This was october 23rd that the saturday night massacre took place. I dont think our counsel was in place till the end of december. Something like that, maybe the middle of december. Timothy why did it take so long . Rep. Holtzman i dont know. But in the end, i think peter rodino made an excellent choice whouse he picked john doar , was a republican, and the republicans picked a republican counsel. So here we were having an impeachment inquiry headed by two republican lawyers. But it was rodinos insight, wisdom that led him to understand that this could never be seen by the American People as an effort by democrats to railroad a republican president. Otherwidewise it would impeachment would never happen. And i think rodino and ultimately other members of the committee realized, or most of the other members of the committee realized, certainly all the democrats realized that what was at stake here was preserving the constitution. So we had to bend over backwards, even if we didnt like it, to do the right thing. Even if we wanted to move more quickly. Even if we wanted to have a democratic counsel. Even if we wanted Something Else. Timothy we have to repeat that question. There was a bang. Im sorry. Okay. From bend over backwards. Timothy yeah. Please say that. Rep. Holtzman i dont remember what i said. Timothy you were saying that with the hiring of the fact that rodino chose a republican. Was a sign he understood that if you were going to be considering impeachment youd have to bend over backwards. Rep. Holtzman not only consider impeachment. If we were going to succeed. If we were going to bring the country with us, the only way that it could be successful would be if the country thought that this was totally fair and totally honorable and not a partisan hatchet job designed to remove by democrats in congress, designed to remove a republican president. Remember, Richard Nixon had been elected by one of the biggest landslides in american history, just, what was it, 11 months before . And here, the American People turned around and said we cannot allow a president to stop a criminal investigation. This is unacceptable in this country. The rule of law is more important. So we had to proceed in that spirit. And some of us, i think, were impatient. I wasnt a brand new member of congress, i wasnt a longstanding political figure. So for me, i was champing at the bit for us to move forward and move more quickly, but i think rodino, who was older and had really in the end excellent judgment, certainly understood this, really wanted to do it in the right way. And i think that that notion of doing it in the right way and doing it in a way that not only was fair, but was perceived to be fair is one of the reasons that the impeachment succeeded. I mean, president nixon was given the right to have counsel, to make his own point of view heard. To question witnesses. In the end, nobody questioned the fairness of the proceedings because rodino took that off the table by making it quite clear that the proceedings would be so fair that nobody could ask those questions. Timothy do you recall what your republican colleagues were saying right after the saturday night massacre . Rep. Holtzman no. Timothy were there any republicans you knew who were beginning to doubt the president that early . Rep. Holtzman i didnt have that kind of contact with republicans, that close contact with republicans. So i wasnt at least i dont remember it. Southern democrats, well, in some ways they were in just as tough a political spot and they were very uncomfortable. On the one hand, they really understood the gravity of what happened. On the other hand, members of congress are elected every two years, and their districts voted overwhelmingly for nixon. So it took a lot of guts on their part. Really a lot of guts on their part to timothy can you single out any . Rep. Holtzman to vote for his impeachment. Yes. Well, there were a number of southerners on our committee. We had jim mann from south carolina. Walter flowers from alabama. Ray thornton from arkansas. I think thats it. But thornton was more moderate. But mann and flowers were extremely conservative democrats. Im sorry. [phone ringing] i wanted thank you. Yes. Tell us a bit about Barbara Jordan. What was she like . Rep. Holtzman well, she was a very experienced political figure. Shed been, i believe, in state government. Shed been a protege of lyndon johnsons. You know, we talked. We were on this team of newcomers on the House Judiciary Committee. You know, she was a very imposing person. I should add one other thing that is not generally thought of in terms of how the impeachment was handled, and that was a decision i think by the house leadership to allow the House Judiciary Committee to act on the impeachment. They could have empowered a select committee to do that. Theres nothing in the rules that says you have to go to the House Judiciary Committee. And in a way, it was taking a big risk. A brand new chair, peter rodino. You had five brand new members. Barbara jordan, me, ray thornton, and two others. So it was a big risk, but if a special committee had been selected and voted for impeachment, then the republicans or the president could have said youve stacked the deck against me. And this way, by taking the House Judiciary Committee, whose members had been appointed totally without knowing that there would be any impeachment, to wit me. I mean, at least thats true for me. I cant speak actually for Barbara Jordan or the others. But im just assuming the same thing happened to them that happened to me. I think that was a critical decision and showed how very, very smart the leadership was and how very smart rodino was about how the impeachment was to be handled so that no extraneous questions would arise and it would all be focused on the substance. Of what the president did and what judgments should be made about that. Timothy how did the revelation of the tapes influence the committee . The revelation occurred before the saturday night massacre, but the tapes become an overwhelmingly important part of the special prosecutors work. And changes the dynamic of the debate in the country. What role did the tapes play in your proceedings . Rep. Holtzman of course, the tapes played an incredibly important role. They help to validate john deans claim there was a coverup in the white house. But they also presented an enormous trap for the president because he was involved, as the Committee Found in presenting transcripts of the tape that tried to doctor the tapes and change the meaning. One of the articles of impeachment charged Richard Nixon by trying to stymie the effort by providing false transcripts of the tapes. But the tapes, when you sat down to listen to them put the big headphones on. Extremely scratchy. We had transcripts provided, but in the end they were very persuasive. Certainly to me. Timothy how did the committee choose which tapes to listen to . Rep. Holtzman we listened to the text that we had which were given to us by the watergate grand jury. We received evidence from the watergate grand jury. They turned evidence to us. Some of the evidence included the tapes. Timothy did these Senate Watergate committee provide any evidence . Rep. Holtzman yes, depositions and transcripts. We were, what you would call, the dumping ground to rid not. Not quite. I dont mean to make light of it. The important thing is we got the benefit of the investigations that have already been done. We did very little original investigation of our own, but we put together the evidence that had been accumulated by the senate sought committee, by the grand jury, and also we had to do our own research and make a our own conclusions. President nixon, for example, took the position you could only impeachment only for a violation of the federal criminal code. Narrowing obviously the scope of any impeachment. Well, thats what the republicans argued for. And so, we had to do our research. What do a high crime and misdemeanor mean . Did it mean violating the criminal code . Was it Something Else . We ultimately came to the conclusion, and i did myself after reading a lot, not only lengthy memos prepared by staff, but also other books on impeachment and so forth, that impeachment did not need to be limited to the commission of a crime but could entail a grave abuse of power such as giving a list of people to the i. R. S. To be audited because they disagreed with the president s policies on vietnam. Timothy who were some of th