Transcripts For CSPAN3 20120610 : vimarsana.com

did he show emotion? oh, yes. he s italian. there were times he had would get emotional in his measure where there was no doubt that john s staff understood what had to be done. i think that s that was the again, by then, there was such incredible trust. these were monumental decisions. these were i remember the night moving off your subject for a minute, i remember the night we had to send a letter to the president. i mean the debate went deep into the night. i mean, do you actually send a letter to the president of the united states? every day we had to make these kind of decisions. we had no guidance. legal issue, political issue, had to be discussed, fall through, talked out, you are dealing with an intellectually powerful staff on both sides of the aisle. powerful people. in terms of their their intellectual and then you have to bring the political process. there was a lot of debate. this was not there was nothing i don t think there was any debate in this process from the day it began to the day itend . street t story of the letter, this comes after the white house has issued its transcripts. right. and interviewed senator former senator collin. who wanted to participate. and this was a really hard event for him because he failed left in the cold here. remember must have been he was your only at that point the only republican ally on this particular issue. correct. correct. and he had been courted by in other words, wrong word. he certainly access to congressmen. there had been conversations. he thought he would be important, you know, even though he is a young member. he thought that that he would be helpful to the process. cohen s draft of the letter is not the one that was sent? no. it wasn t. you are smiling. it just wasn t. that s all. it is called politics. okay. the the democratic members needed to be satisfied. correct. also decided what the correct let her to be. he was deeply appreciative of congressman cohen s input. let s talk about the tapes. did you listen to any of them? mm-hmm. what effect did they have on you? not much. i tried congressman asked me a couple of times to listen to tapes. and i tried not to in this proce process, again going back, i tried not to get i didn t want to get personal. in other words, i didn t i wanted to keep a distance in this. you know. someone remarked to me, you know, i think was a compliment, you never say anti-nixon word ever. a reporter said that to me years later. i mean, drew that covered the event from the new yorker at the time. all those years, although times, you never said a word about nixon, ever. i think that came from the chairm chairman. gave him a personal not that i didn t have a view but i didn t think it was my place to talk about it. had you to keep some distance. i was than actually very curious about the tapes. i was than enormous curiosity. i wasn t that curious. it wasn t my job. it wasn t where i fit in. people weren t asking. nobody was going on ask me what i thought of the tapes. i stayed of it. wasn t mine, so to speak. and then i have never seen thought about it. the chairman listened to the tapes n. yes, he did. he was bothered. he was bothered by the language. he was bothered by the tone. same thing same reaction as everybody. i think he was surprised about president nixon. the tapes lot of tapes surprised lot of the tapes. some of the tapes would come back and we would talk a little about it. he was bothered by it. he didn t think some of the things were again, very proper. proper language. we never talked about nor did he ever comment about the substance of the tapes. i can tell you, it bothered by some of the tapes, the condition of the president. did you see an excerpt of the shift of his position? no. no. it was just in other words whatever he and i talked about never went beyond he and i. and it just day one, to that last day. not just what his views. he tried. he he tried to keep it you know, intellectual best he could. he tried to keep centered. was it hard for him? not really. fit his personality. in other words, he was not he was not very i mean, obviously strong government. he was not very partisan. it didn t fit his personality. and i think that the the obligation so overwhelmed him and put just a weight on him and i think that the important quality all of us had then, he was very fearful in the sense of not doing the right thing. and i think fear is a wonderful emotion to have in a time like this that keeps you on track. so he didn t have time to sort of dash to get out and, you know, and be bothered by this. he just was the whole thing was so overwhelming. as you you were out like apologize for the analogy. you were like the canary. when you were out talking to these conservative democrats, when did you start seeing a shift? they must they are talking about their thinking, and obviously they are they are going to vote ultimately vote against president nixon. is that slow? very slow. very slow process. we talked about that. never to the staff, john s staff. about where we thought these people were. that was a conversation that was very deeply held. and it never it may have gone i have no knowledge, may have gone to the speaker. he never i mean we knew where the case was at a certain point. voting starts july 27. francis, long time ago. did you think you had a majority for an article, article i? yes. did you think that a month before? was it a week before? day? i don t remember. it was i don t remember when. but we had talked about it as those those nights approached. those days approached. that he thought that that the case had been made. it is a better way to put it. he thought the case had been made against the president. and he thought that he sent that problem with democrats is they believed that the case had been made. when w cohen and hogan are meeting, flowers, somebody telling you about that? flowers and i had a good relationship. we had a good relationship. we talked. you know, we got a sense of where people were. he talked to the chairman. flowers would. not to me. i have seen the images of the debate. flowers would be very emotional. mm-hmm. very emotional. very. tell us a little bit about other kinds of fears. this is a very tense washington, isn t it? well, it was a very incredible time. look back on it. it is hard important americans to think now. i mean, we had we had some of the most senior members of the administration, going to prison. being charged with serious crimes. and there was fear. there was fear on my part we would go to jail. i mean, that sounds crazy but i thought, man, these people would put us in jail. they can do anything. i mean you know, you couldn t trust the fbi. couldn t just the justice department. you couldn t trust your government. it was our feeling. that just that didn t affect we are on one thing. the president. in other words, we had to separate all of these out from our duty, but were citizens. and you know, we are living in washington, d.c. you know, there s no doubt we felt we were all tapped and under some kind of investigation. and we just took that as a course. that s that is sort of the environment and just had to be extremely cautious on how we conducted business did you have some conversations outdoors so you wouldn t be i don t conversations everywhere. i don t remember. you know, cautious. on what you said. it was than i thought that, again, i never served the government again. i thought this was the most it was obviously, extraordinary experience. i couldn t do that again. the pressure is just so overwhelming on everybody. forget me. and i had the least of the pressure. it just was it was you were drained at the end. with enormously draining. not a very happy experience. it wasn t a very happy experience. there was nothing pleasurable about doing this. you know. you don t look back and say it that was a great job. it was i thought my responsibilities, i was a young staffer. these members. i don t think any of them thought it was a great experience p i think they think historically they did you know, incredible thing, you know, to this process to go through and the american public accepted this process. but i never heard one of them say that this thought this was on a personal level sort of one of their highlights. do you remember anything from the moments after article i was passed? in the back, committee probably. i don t remember. do you know how the chairman looked? he was exhausted. went back and cried when it was over. just emotional experience. it was very emotional. had a i remember. can you recall another time you cried? he easytallian so he s very emotional. he cried a number of times. i don t think there were a couple other times he had tears. the experience. the pressure, emotion of the whole process. darkest days of this process when a lot of pressure on all of us. and then there is another piece when i told them that this was going to be televised, that was that s another story. we are going to change tapes. okay. then we will talk about that story and wrap up shortly afterwards. the congressman s views of president nixon shaped the way in which he handled this? no. i don t think so. i think i think clearly he s a democrat and clearly he would vote for a democratic presidential candidate. but when this obligation was thrust upon him, his his view was institution of the presidency. and being who he was, he had just extraordinary respect and awe important the presidency. that this was the center of everything he believed in a patriot. and so nixon in a sense was just a holder of that institution. he felt what he was being asked to do and what was his committee house was being asked to do but with what congress was being asked to do is is to view a holder of this institution. he felt that the institution, above all, had to be protected. and so he didn t have any he didn t have the visceral theories about nixon. i think as i said earlier, there was some disappointment when you hear the tapes. personal disappointments about his language and that s and he thought it wasn t very presidential. he didn t have that partisan anger that was so prevalent among many anti-war or very liberal members of the dem rattic party. he never he never voiced that kind of a view. this is before or after. he voiced disappointment that that he felt that this individual would abuse the office but that was it. it was more of a disappointment in president nixon than anything else. how important was the fact extremely important. it i think it formed his whole view that that here was an opportunity as a young man to immigrant to come to this country. and it is all cliches. he embodied all the cliches of the grow up to be you could be anything. and he worked really hard at this. you know. as a young man, the stories are that he would take go out and practice speechmaking. he would put marbles in his mouth as i think probably some of the greeks did. but to be able to enunciate. he wanted to be that s what he wanted to be. an american. he wanted to sound, talk, and be an american and be a patriot. long before this, it meant anything, wore a flag on his lapel. it wasn t like a signal where you were a liberal or conservative. patriot. and so i think that was again, became very important story. you know, here he was groomd. he was groomed for this. for this task. thank you. tell us about the decision to put cameras. well, he always said to me that i wound up having to i never met a press person until i got to the office. no. i mean i had no contact. every day out in front of the office of 25 to 30 press people every day. and, you know, following the case, follow. everybody else. it was constant. but i must say, just the quality of the press corps was extraordinary in their own right. some president of the great reporters offure time covered this story. of our time covered this story. and he always said to me that was left to me. that all of the press contacts, press conversations, once in a while you would get a conversation with the chairman and john doar. all t press would make fun of it because they had no information. it was a very we would do it. every once in a while we had would have a press gathering. i was the it was important because the congressman kept saying remember, you have to explain to the public what we are doing. this is how you explain it. on a regular basis, we had to let the public know what is going on, what the process is. very important process. why this is being done. so as this was going on, i thought in my mind, well, this is going to be told. i mean, when the hearings actually take place the american public has to view it. and it was very interesting. very formed by the watergate hearings. you remember, it was very hearings very chaotic, cameras and all of that kind of stuff. so hi this vision. the movie business. i got this visual idea that i wanted the public i talked to the congressman a lot about this, too. that when when we as citizens came in to view this i-wanted him to feel intimacy that they and their member were in a conversation in a sense. in in that they were talking to them so i wanted everything that remotely looked like a television or a cable, i want it gone. i had this very clean view. so imagine doing this today. i went to the networks and came up to new york and met with all the network presidents. i said this is my vision. this is some kid from ohio. i had a vision. i had a vision. this is my vision. i want this i wanted cameras. i want no cameras. so so they proceeded and i was taking chaos for this. hi not asked for the speaker s approval. and the committee room is on the first floor. so i had them build a behind the i would not allow cameras. i did not want any cameras behind the members. where you could dash you and i could see it. so they had to build a room outside of the building where they would place the cameras and all the equipment. then they would have little curtains behind the members. and then they would have little holes. and then there would be no none of these wires. in the back of the room would be a stand built which then you would get the view of the committee. and they bought all this at their own expense. they said absolutely. and so if you look at it, if you look at the hearings on television, i doubt if you will see any cameras. television cameras. but that was sort of the idea. but that s sort of the mechanics of sort of how it was done. the important thing is to televise it. i think there was a lot of once this had already i know john was very nervous about this. this decision. and that pep it made him very nervous and he thought this would be televised. that i remember. this is this is his world, this is what he dealt with. the age we live in. but then this decision was made we would televise it. of course the receive is the rest. there was some discussion around that. it was all after it was all done. i have to ask you this. you told us about the role the congressman plays and the chairm chairman. did the chairman want it to be televised? i can t recall. he was he wanted the public to understand it came an era before television. if he had his wishes, i suppose he may may have chosen something else. francis, are you telling us that you went to new york and met with network executives without already having permission to even televise these hearings? there was a lot of pressure. there was a lot of pressure. no decisions were made. i did go to new york. i did meet with all the executives. i did meet with the correspondents and all that kind of thing, yes. i did. but it was a fat gathering. it was a gutsy thing to do. again, yes. but this came out of a relationship, i think, with the congressman. in other words, i my role as a staffer never, ever would i have done anything that was not, i think, without his approval in the sense of understanding what his core was. and though i think because he constantly said to me this is a public this must be approved by the country, citizens of the country, i just don t think he ever carried it to in other words, i felt very strongly i was carrying out his wishes. i just don t think he understood the technology how to do that. and so i just closed that gap. was this an o brien brothers idea? that was i can t blame my brother for this. s this was this was my idea. i can t believe that the networks did this. again, you know you describe doar selection process. when you describe to described it, when you described the selection process, it is a little improvised. there s something very professional about this vision for the room. where did you where did you get this? where did you get it? was this something you you had been interested in production before? no, nothing. i think i think back. now you reach a certain age, i think some things you are just good at, some things you are not. i think i was lucky enough to be, you know, i was born with certain i don t know how you wind up with certain skills. and you know, not intellectual skills but i have good people skills. not that i m a good communicator. i have good people skills. even at that age. i just think i think i had a great mentor in the congressman. i learned so much, carried on the rest of my life. but i don t know why in other words, i look back and i don t know i don t think i made some decisions today i don t think i would have done the things maybe it is youth. and so looking back, wow, that was a good decision. but i don t know how i don t know answer is i don t know how it winds up that way, how you are good at things or not good. or that. i wasn t interested in production or anything. i just knew what bothered me about the watergate hearings was all these cameras. i just felt that it was it was circusy for me. that was all. i thought it was a common sense again, this is not my hearing. it fit his demeanor. in other words, i had always put myself in his i think i m pretty good at that. very good at putting myself into other people s places. and i think that s how i represented him. i thought that s the way he is. in other words, it reflected him and the institution. his great respect for the institution, that that s how and why would he know how to do that? i didn t know how to do it. you brought up this issue of televising of the proceedings. when i asked you about the congress congressman showing emotion, i mean, that s how you brought it up. yeah. i don t remember. my point is that did he show emotion? they were pretty upset. he and john were very upset with me when i told him. they were very i got yelled at. take to the woodshed. john took me to the woodshed, imagine, and the congressman took me to the woodshed. for make thing decision. it is already done. wait a second. i thought it was a fact finding mission. it was already it was being built. okay. i m sorry. they were i got yelled at. no doubt about it, i got yelled at. i got really yelled at. what did the committee members think? they didn t know they were going to be on tv? i have no idea. i can t remember. we have to tell the audience. they won t know this, this congress was than never. there was nothing on television. never. watergate was on. watergate hearings were on. right? and and again, all of the congressmen kept saying to me