Process. But there were the injustices that i saw happening. I always said later, i wish i had gone to prison before i went to the white house. I really wish i had gone to prison before i went to the white house. Because i saw things and know things and could have, in my little mind could have done things that would have helped solve some problems. Can you give us examples . This whole incarceration and how it works. What you do to people. You take these young people and put them in there and you collectify them. If they have a drug issue and they are in there and theres more drugs, you are creating an incubator effect rather than separating them out and giving them some kind of Halfway House thats clean on the outside and not putting them into these facilities together. Its endless. The system is so screwed up. Im not saying they are not very smart and wise people trying to work on this problem and people who understand it better than i do. Im sure thats true. But theres just so much that needs to get done. Its so insane to take young men. We had a lot of young men in their 20s, early 30s who we were making worse, not better. And we should i happen to believe in rehabilitation. I do believe its possible. I do think people make mistakes and that they can be exceptions to that, but were your friends helpful . My friends have been spectacular. The nixon people have been absolutely wonderful. I dont know of one nixon person i havent talked to john dean and i havent talked to jeb, but i was friends with everybody, and i stayed friends with everybody. I loved what i did. And it was very important to me. And i think these friendships are golden. They still exist. Why dont we take a minute. They are 14, 15 years old. The parents are out of town and they get a hold of a few cases of beer. They have a few beers. But they dont have their drivers license yet, but they decide they are going to take the car and go around the block and come back just to prove they can drive. They start down the alley. They get halfway down and hit a trash barrel and back into a garage. And then they pull up and hit something. By the time they get the car back in the garage, the thing is a disaster. Thats what watergate is. Watergate was some very nice people, some solid people with some of the dumbest decisions in doing things imaginable. And it just got worse and worse and worse. Now the oversimplification of that, i mean, these were not people that were out to rape the country of the democracy or t to that were evil. I dont buy into that. The nixon move to contain this and manage it and so forth, had eisenhower been alive, dirksen or Lyndon Johnson been alive, watergate never would have happened. They would have picked up the phone and said, dick, what in the world is going on here . Heres what you need to do. You need to separate yourself from these guys. John mitchell is mitchells problem. Haldeman is haldemans problem, whatever it is. Get rid of them. Then the president would have survived. You went to see the president after 1974, after his resignation . Several times. A few times. Then i saw him at various occasions and reunions. One time you went with the children it was awkward but you said characteristically so. Did you ever talk to him about all of that . No, never. Never. I was always im a, what are we going to do tomorrow type guy. I really dont wallow in the past. I dont do this. I am excited about whats going to happen tomorrow. And to wallow back on watergate or something with the president , i cant think of anything more uncomfortable than to have said, mr. President , im here today to see you and why dont we talk about watergate. What are your deepest feelings . Its just i know and the other part is i mean, i knew him pretty well. I didnt know him well in terms of im your friend and youre my friend. But i was around for years. And i observed and went with him. I knew what he liked, disliked, felt about damn near everything. I would know instinctively that im raising the subject of watergate or going into all of this is not something that would be appreciated. Are there some anecdotes or recollections that we havent gotten to that you would like to preserve . We talked about the the humphrey thing. The lbj deal in detroit. The last press conference. Nothing that jumps out right now. Did you ever see his rage . The president s rage . The public saw it that day when he pushed thats whats going through my head. I had a black and blue mark once. But it was a crowd situation where they were really pressing in. He was right next to me. He grabbed my arm so tightly. And i dont know whether he was frightened or what. It was in a campaign atmosphere. Not rage. I have this calm thing about him. My job was to try to keep the tempo of everything right on track. And if he got mad, his way of doing it with me would be to say, dont you understand . Or you obviously dont understand. That one really got me. It was something i did understand and hed say, you obviously dont understand when i knew i did understand. You know what i mean . But it wasnt rage. No. Rage is not a word that i would use with nixon. But the ziegler thing was frustration. But rage . Rage is an out of control ainingertype thing. Mad, yes. Upset, yes. Pentagon papers or theres that story that there was some rally. Maybe you have heard this. He was fit to be tied. It went wrong. We got on the airplane and called the advance man up to the compartment and he said, i want it known back at headquarters this airplane is not going to land at anymore airports. Do you understand . Did you know you were being taped . No. You mean with the system in the white house . I had no idea. And i dont think theres many tapes of me. Did you know you were being taped . I had no idea about the taping system. No. Did you ever talk to haldeman about that after . No. Never. Did you ever talk to haldeman about that era . To some degree. One thing in his book, his first book, whatever the name of that thing was, that he claimed he should have never written but did write, he did not reference the segretti thing correctly. He did not remember being in the office with nixon. They are telling me to do it. I said, bob, by god, thats what happened. When the revised edition came out, he corrected it and changed it. So, obviously, i had some discussion about it with him because he made the change. Bob did come up to visit me so he could get a handle on what it would be like. He decided thats where he wanted to go. And we probably talked about the thing then. I mean, yeah, but i dont remember the substance. Im sure we sat there and talked about it for hours, but i dont remember what the details of it are. We talked a bit about the weekend that John Mitchell decided to improve the plan. You had a sense that John Mitchell had been on the phone with martha. No. He had been up all night with her. My understanding of it was, i wasnt there, but my understanding is that from John Mitchell talking to him that john was up all night with martha. Martha had a severe drinking problem. He had been up all night with her. Then he had this meeting with her the next day. Theres an interesting story here. The first time i ever heard the term president elect was when John Mitchell said, mr. President elect, i cant go with you. That response was up in the waldorf towers when nixon put his arm around johns shoulder and said, john, were going to florida to start planning the government. And mitchell said, mr. President elect, i cant go with you. And a tear comes down his face. And he says, ive got to go to connecticut and figure out what to do about martha. She was in an institution up in connecticut at that point. So her problem really was severe then. And she gets out. Shes in this washington environment with all this stuff going on. And it was just a tragic story. And she was not a well person. You mentioned you were a point of contact . She liked to call the president. She liked to call my president. So she would call. And the system had been arranged by which i would get marthas calls, and i would talk to her and act accordingly. Whatever the plan was. I would also call over and let john know that she had called. But she would call and say, i want to talk to my president. I would say he was in a conference or on the phone. Can i take a message . I want to talk to him. You have him call me, and so forth. Then i would call her back 20 minute s later and say, mrs. Mitchell, its not going to be possible today. I always tried to complete the loop. It was an awkward thing. It was awkward for john to know that he had this woman that he was madly in love with. I mean, he really love this lady. But yet, she was causing this commotion. Were the calls more frequent after the breakin . Less frequent, i think. Im talking the calls were more frequent when he was attorney general, not after he left that position. And i really dont recall any kind of an increase. My Immediate Response was a tapering off. Did the president ever speak to her . At social events, but not on the phone. Well, i dont know. Never is pretty inclusive. I dont think so. Not that you recall . No. I keep going back to the fact that this was a very well orgized or seemed to be. If you look at all of these various things, the various operations. What i find interesting is why haldeman tolerated these uncontrollable operations . Which ones . I mean, i only know of the segretti one. [ inaudible ] but bobs attitude on that would be thats ehrlichmans problem. If ehrlichman took something and went with it, thats ehrlichmans. And bob had enough on his plate that hes not worrying about what johns worrying about. He more likely would be worried about something that kissinger was doing, only because thats where nixons primary focus would be. And the ramifications on that. And also, he was not a Foreign Policy expert. So he would be trying to make sure that he wasnt screwing something up or messing around. Bob had a great philosophy. His approach on this was to, if he was in the president s office and there was a meeting going on and it got into a subject area that he was not knowledgeable about, he would attempt, not successfully all the time, but would attempt to get the key person in. I think i mentioned this earlier. Schultz or whoever it might be. He considered that a key part of his job. Because he didnt want to be in a bind either where all of a sudden, hes nodding and nixon is taking it. He wanted to get the expert there. Did you ever hear [ inaudible ] . No. Let me go back to bob a minute. Jim baker, al hague, and don rumsfeld all are people that i know. All of whom have said the system that haldeman put in place there was absolutely spectacular. And that the modern white house today runs on the system that bob put in. He made a major contribution to the office of the presidency by what he got in place there. People want to understand that system. What should they look at . The staff secretariat system. How it works. How paperwork moves through. The whole option paper concept with the memorandums and the tabs and the staffing it out and making sure that clean, concise decisions could be made after proper considerations. Just the flow. I mean gerry ford came in with this crazy hub spoke thing. No manager in their right mind would have because, i mean but after coming after nixon, its understandable why he did it. It was a pr maneuver to say im here and anybody can walk in the door. Thats just not the proper way to run something. All these guys are bright enough to know that. But one of the consequences of that approach is that the center doesnt always get all the information. If its run properly, the center gets all the information possibliy necessary to make the right decision because thats what the staffing system is all about was to say, lets pick an example. We have a memorandum from john volpe at hud. He wants to have in the next budget this and this and this and it impacts treasury, it impacts oeo, it impacts three other things. That memorandum, that document is sent out to treasury, oeo, and the other departments that might be affected. Memos are called back as to the impact on that. Its all put together, and its sent in. Its a much better way to make sure all the bases are covered. And everybody is exposed to it than letting some cabinet officer come in and have a private meeting with the president. And god only knows whats been said. The cabinet officer hears one thing. Nixon thinks he says something else. Lo and behold, youve got a mess. Is watergate a breakdown of that system . Yes. Watergate is a breakdown in the sense that when nixon and haldeman this is a personal view. When nixon and haldeman started managing this the way they did, and they excluded the people with the political sinensitivits that would have realized how this was going to build and what was going to happen on the hill and got nixon to act in a political way, not necessarily in a managerial or legal way. I mean, you can make the case that until somebody is indicted, they are innocent until proven guilty. But in politics, thats not always the best way to go. Right . I mean, my opinion. They apparently didnt bring all the people into a room to ask questions . Absolutely. John mitchell was never asked. People were never asked. People were never asked what happened. What the hell was going on here . What if you would have called the creep people over, put them in a room, and said what the hell is going on here . Were not leaving until i fully understand. Youre my campaign staff. I need to know whats going on here. Not nixons style. Hes not going to do that. Hes a man that doesnt believe in confrontation. If hes going to have a confrontation, somebody else is going to do it for him. Well, probably because it bothered to even raise that with the president. Bob said maybe we dont want to know whats going on. I cant answer that, tim. I really dont know. Do you think this is the sort of situation where it had been a harlow or bob finch or eisenhower . Yes. Thats what im talking about. Exactly. Political guys. The political guys were the ones that would bitch the most about the haldeman system. And the haldeman system was terrific for running business. But not necessarily for making political judgments and the nuances that have to go into political calculation. The thing thats mind boggling is the best politician of all is nixon. And he suffers, as he always does, when hes under attack. And when its personal, he cannot, in my reading of this, he does not make good decisions when its personalized and hes under attack politically. If its abstract, china and russia and the world today, hes brilliant. Brilliant strategist. But when you get in tight and close and Everything Else and youre fighting him and fighting his people and coming at him and its them, we, he starts falling apart. Its very tricky. Had now noticed a change in him by the time he left the white house from the way he had been when he came to the white house . I saw him come into the white house and be fairly uptight first few. That would be my reading. And then relax and just really got into it and knew the job and felt comfortable and so forth. The war thing was just this arbatross around him that was this constant thing of trying to get past. And then watergate, i was gone. I cant really talk about watergate. I was gone. So you didnt see as he got tense again . You saw him loosening up . I saw him enjoying his job. We had our moments, but well, do you have anything youd like to ask . Im free. Thank you. On the next washington journal, well talk to democratic consultant and pollster doug schoen about gridlock and the possibility of bipartisanship in washington. Then historian douglas brnkley will discuss the 40th anniversary of president nixons resignation. Recently mr. Brinkley coedited the book the nixon tapes. Well also take your phone calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Washington journal live each morning at 7 00 eastern on cspan. Friday night on American History tv, president Richard Nixons resignation in 1974. At 8 00 eastern, that nights cbs news special report. At 8 30, president nixons address to the nation announcing his resignation. And at 8 50, a panel of journalists, including the washington posts bob woodward and Carl Bernstein discuss watergate and president nixons resignation. Watch it friday night beginning at 8 00 eastern here an cspan3. Judge Robert Bourque was solicitor general in the nixon administration. In this oral history interview for the nixon president ial library, he talks about the saturday night massacre when president nixon ordered him to fire Watergate Special prosecutor cox after the attorney general and Deputy Attorney general resigned in protest. This is an hour and a half. I was sitting in my office with the solicitor general when he called and said what time did i go home, and i told him. He said since i went right by the white house, would i drop in and see him when i left. I had no idea what was going on. So i did, i dropped in, and first he sat me down and said the president wanted me to resign as solicitor general and become his chief defense attorney. That shocked me because i had no idea anything like that was coming or that they would ask it. Later on, i remember after a different episode at the white house, richardson said to me, why would he call you, you were a professor. I said before i was a professor, i was a practitioner and i put together big cases, antitrust cases, which were quite complex. Richardson didnt know that but i guess nixon must have been in touch with my partners who were at the bussing bill session. He was very persuasive and he made the case and it sounded like only i could save the republic. He discussed the fact that their legal operation was in shambles. For example, they did not know in advance that butterfield was going to disclose the existence of a taping system in the white house. Ive heard that dispute, but anyway, in addition to that, there was no strategy. People were charging in different directions. He said youll be in charge. I said, how do we know how will people know im in charge . Will you give me a title . He said no, no, youll be in charge because youll be the only one with access to the president. I said, yeah, until i give him the wrong advice and then i sit by a phone that doesnt ring. He said, thats very per exce receptive of you. I wasnt about to get myself in a position where i sat and stared at a wall for months on end. I had just enough brains to ask for 24 hours to think it over. I went home and called a friend of mine, Alexander Bickle who was in town, and he and i spent the night discussing it and drinking a little, i must say. By morning it was quite clear i didnt want to job. So i went over to see Elliott Richardson before going down to see hague. And he made some sugges