Transcripts For CSPAN3 Oral Histories 20150228

The 37th president s administration. This portion is about one hour 20 minutes. Right from the beginning and until late in 1971 for a couple of years, i always thought for the pentagon papers to have any effect, they should be the basis for congressional hearing. Precisely because i knew they did not tell the whole story for an adequate story. I knew a lot of what was excluded from them and what you needed was oral testimony preferably under oath. Of people who really knew the decisionmaking at the time and could explain what was the implications of these papers. When things were written down, it was a brief for mcnamara to argue with other people to present mcnamaras preferred policy. It did not usually express what mcnaughton thought was appropriate policy or what he thought to expect work for considerations. He was writing lawyers briefs for mcnamara to present. That was one example. I knew in many other cases that it did not answer many of the questions. What you wanted was testimony in writing and to keep people honest and jog their memories. You needed to be able to show them read these documents and tell us why you wrote this for what is not set in this document and so forth. I always wanted congressional hearings and i had the mistaken belief that congress was more likely to hold those hearings if they had the documents in the first instance and were not scooped by the press, that they could present or medic material. In retrospect, 40 years later that is not the way congress works. In the end, it was very important that they appear in the newspapers. Congress reacts to what the public is concerned about. If you dont have a public concern, they dont investigate and they dont press things. Neil sheehan in urging me not to give it to the congressman first which i was skeptical about i thought they just won a pulitzer prize. I did not think that was the way you do it. He was right. The times had a greater potential for getting those hearings done sensibly giving the documents to congress in the first place. I was wrong about that. I might notethe times did not do it either. The hearings never took place. When the pentagon papers came out, they said we must hold public hearings on the subject. People said that publicly right away. They were in charge but no hearings happened. Nixon wanted them. They did not happen. They both understood each other. The hearings would mainly have incriminated the democrats. Fulbright and mansfield and the other democrats had no interest in pulling mcnamara in front and confronting him with lies he had made to the public and mistakes he had made and it was the democrats that made this so they held no hearings even when there was Public Interest in the thing. Nixon come on the other hand, was very anxious. On the tapes, he says we cannot wait to get mcnamara to answer these questions and it will drive him crazy. It did not happen because the democrats were in control. If the republicans have controlled congress, there would have been hearings. I would have been happy with that. I wanted to the truth out. In short, both in 1971 and 1959, what i believe Hubert Humphrey said i keep forgetting whether it was humphrey speaking to halderman and haig and nixons people about the pentagon papers, one of them made the comment that no good to my credit could have released these. I was a democrat and i am a democrat but i was not a good democrat nor am i now. Im kind of a self hating democrat at the moment. In 1969, i was not a good democrat. I was prepared to see the democrats get the blame which they richly deserved. I did not want to punish them but in terms of ending the war i thought it will only happen if the democrats accept the blame that is rightfully theirs. Early on before nixon has planted his flag on this war quickly. The democrats i talked to were good democrats. They rejected that idea. If i had even then the pentagon papers, they would not have wanted to put them out. In answer to your question, my thought on the pentagon papers was this that if they are the basis for hearings for fulbright, and his initial reaction was very favorable to put them out until he thought better of it. At first, he promised me he would put them out. My thought was that if he gets them out in time, then nixon will proceed will perceive that he has the option of laming this war on democratic deception, democratic incompetence democratic lily liveredness, from his point of view or whatever and say, all right, the war is hopeless i have to get out. My mistake was to imagine that nixon would have picked up that opportunity. Mansfield did give him that opportunity privately and nixon rejected it. He was determined not to give it up. On the other hand, fulbright, it turned out, was much more, when he thought about it, when he saw what the pentagon papers were, could see that there were real dangers in it for the democrats print you tried this in the fall of 1969. So what to you do for the next two years . What you want you what you wanted to have happened in not happened right in fact, what you feared would happen does happen. Now heres where my mistake about nixons policy had an effect. Have i realized that as i was copying the pentagon papers nixon was directing the diuck hook military planning with his november ultimatum. In other words, the war had the potential for exploding very quickly, even that fall or perhaps later. I would have felt more urgent about what i was doing. There is a number of what ifs that fall into that. As it was, i did not know about duc hyookook because he did not carried out and the reason he did not carry it out was because 2 Million People walked in the streets and were in demonstrations on october 5 teen , 1959. It was the october moratorium october, 1969. Another demonstration was scheduled for later and that was large and that led him to give up his escalation planning because he knew that there would perhaps be 10 times as many people out if he escalated. It was not the right time for that. I did not know any of that at the time. The reason i did not know was that halperin had been kept in the dark working for kissinger. I talked about that earlier about come part mentation. Halperin had been identified as someone working for him who thought we are to get out in the interest of the country and of nixon who he was working for. He was not have a touching anything, he just believe we should get out. Therefore, he was not told. People he was working closely next to, tony lake, roger morris and others, did not tell him any of that. They were working sidebyside. Halperin left for related reasons in late august, early september. I believe if he had stayed in the white house even a couple of more months, he probably would have learned of the planning that was going on. If he told me, i would have made every effort to get at that signing and release it with some hope of doing it. I knew all the people. I was trusted by them. I had worked with them earlier. If i had had the duc hook planning, i would not have copied the pentagon papers. That was only history. It ended in 1968. I knew from the beginning that it did not show it nixons planning was. It had only a slow chance a small chance of affecting nixon policy. I described what i thought the chance was. But if i had had documents or information on his current planning, i would have put that out. 1030 pages of that would have been worth more than 7000 pages of history of the democrats. I copied the pentagon papers only because it was all i had. It was the best i had and i hoped that people would see a history that showed four president s in a row and to some extent as early as fdr and then truman, eisenhower, kennedy, and johnson five president s had all planned escalation or involvement in vietnam. It was different from what they told the public. They made secret threats, secret operations with costs higher than they ever admitted to the public and with prospects much dimmer, much less missing than they ever admitted to the public. All of them had done that is a pattern. Perhaps the public could believe what i was told by halperin that another president , the latest president , was doing the same. Thats what i hope was of the pentagon papers. It did not happen. My hopes there were not fulfilled. The public was impressed by how much lying had gone on but all these earlier president s. They still wanted to believe that our current president was telling the truth, that there was a new nixon and he was getting out which was very plausible. How could he not want to get out . In 1968 and 1969, everyone gave him the benefit of the doubt because it was hard to imagine a sane person wanting to do anything else other than get out. If he was not burdened with it like humphrey or johnson but if he was a new person coming in. So, the pentagon papers did not really revealed to them what did not make them inquisitive about what nixons real policy was at the time and for a generation later. Nixons policy hasnt been summed up by nearly everyone journalists, academics, the public, he was trying to get us out as fast as he could. That was an extremely misleading description. Although, not entirely false. He was trying to get u. S. Troops out but not by allowing the communist to achieve any kind of success except to control the parts of the country they were already controlling. It was not to control saigon or to have a coalition government. Nixon, as i understand it, never intended for saigon to become Ho Chi Minh City while he was in office. He hoped to leave a successor republican or democrat, with a strategy that could be persistent, could be prolonged with enough well. Will. It turned out, he had a good basis for doing that. He hoped even more to make it easily sustainable, a cheap sustainable war because the North Vietnamese troops would not either anymore. Tell us about 1970. What effect did kent state have on you . What effect did the escalation in cambodia have in your sense of urgency . There i thought that did have a big effect. It told me the escalation is happening sooner than i expected. Let me go back to 1959 i did not 1969. We came very close, as close as 2 Million People. If the moratorium had not occurred, i believe we would have escalated and probably used Nuclear Weapons in the fall of 1969. Nixon had plans done for Nuclear Attacks a mile and a half from the chinese border. It was in a relatively unpopulated area according to details. The intention was to kill very few civilians but to send a very large signal to the chinese and the North Vietnamese. I think he wanted to use Nuclear Weapons. Actually, and aid to senator haig haig who was later chief of staff, told cy hirsch that he was amazed that 1969 ended without Nuclear Weapons being used. The nato ambassador under nixon was also amazed there had been no use of Nuclear Weapons by the end of 1969. That was because of the moratorium. I did not know that. I thought escalation was likely to occur. Nixon did not hurt and kissinger didnt and they thought their threats would succeed. I thought their threats would not succeed. And therefore there would be escalation eventually. The north would launch an offense. I thought the escalation would come when the north launched an offensive. Which i thought was pretty sure to happen no later than 1972, probably not 1970, a little more likely in 1971 and probably not until 72. As tet was intended to affect our election in 1868, 1972 mightve been a good year. In 1968, 1970 two mightve been a good year. There was a year coming for things would go on as they were, a stalemate at a relatively low level. When you say nixon, when my hearings did not take place in 1969 i sort of gave up on the pentagon papers being very important. I continued to copy them for a while and give them to fulbright. I thought he should have them all and maybe he would eventually use them. I did not feel a great sense of urgency. Weeks would go by when i did not copy. Then something would come up and i would copy some more. Then cambodia happened. That said to me, wait a minute, he is prepared to escalate. Actually, i interpreted that as part of the threat. He wants to make clear that if they have an offensive, he will blow North Vietnam to pieces. What he was really trying to make clear was the threat he had made in 1969. If you dont get the northern troops out, i will blow you to pieces. In either case, i saw it was a demonstration that would lead to further escalation and not effective in my opinion and i was right about that. The North Vietnamese did not ever concede what he was asking. At that point, i did become quite urgent and fulbrights people told me that they would hold hearings. I began looking at the papers and saying here are the witnesses he should call. I worked in the Foreign Relations office for a while. I tried to prepare for hearings. Actually unfortunately the pressure instead of going from mcgovernhat yield of getting the troops out of indochina the political strategy by the democrats was to press the churchcooper bill to get them out of cambodia only. Nixon did agree to that did get them out of cambodia. The air went out of the large movement that responded to kent state. I think the war could have been ended in april, may of 1970 if the 200,000 people, i think in washington than for demonstrations after kent state had closed down washington. It was the one time dishes this is a what if it was the one Time Congress was for once. At the executive because they help they had been misled by the escalation in cambodia. They had not been briefed on it. The one person that has come out that they briefed was ford, the person they expected to forget what he had been told or at any rate would not tell anybody and he didnt. So congress felt totally blindsided on that. They were very angry. I think if people had shut down washington, which you could do it 200,000 people, congress for once would not have been against the Antiwar Movement. They would have been sympathetic area what you could have gotten possibly but no guarantee that there was a chance of cutting off funds for continuing the war. What finally happened in 1970, three years later, in 1973 when they cut off runs for combat operations in indochina instead of just cambodia, i think that could have been done. If i look back at what i could have done, it would have been a good time to put out the pentagon papers and make an allout push. The war was illegitimate in the beginning, look at the papers of 45, 46, 47, 48. That made the greatest impression of me but it was history that never got published too much. Nobody read it very much. What influenced me really never got to the public. The fact that we had begun the war in support of a french imperial reconquest of a commonly of a colony that had declared its independence. That meant for American Values and antiimperialist i deals, it had no legitimacy from the beginning. It was not clearly illegal, by the way, i found. Because the u. N. Charter does allow for convoys four colonies and internal policing. It was not clearly illegal for france to continue to claim ownership of indochina even though they had declared independence. From the point of view of american policy and what fdr was secretly agreeing to do was to let the french back in and harry truman did do an eisenhower did all of these had to be obscured from the American People because sustaining the french empire was not part of american ideals. It was illegitimate from the beginning. To me that meant that 1969 when i read these documents, that it was unjustified homicide which i saw is murder. It was not just an error, not just a bad, incompetent policy. It was mass murder. To be killing people who wanted to be independent in order to sustain control of them whether it was the french or hours. I did not think we had any more legitimate right to run vietnam and the japanese or the chinese for 1000 years before for the french. We had no more prospect. When you went to vietnam in the mid1960s i had a different perception in 1954. Everyone knew that indochina was a french colony. That was no secret. As an historian, how old are you . Im 46. You have to be in your 50s to remember. To make a generalization, historians, its hard for historians to get a feel for what peoples understanding was at the time and how they saw things at the time. You can get it from newspapers to some extent. The public was almost entirely ignorant of the u. S. Role in sustaining the french from 19451954. They did not really think of it as a u. S. french war. All vietnamese, all the vietnamese saw that war not as a french war but which is what all american saw it as that is a french u. S. War. In fact, i have talked to a vietnamese man whos still alive. He would be interesting to interview and hes in your area. Hes in southern california. He was at that time a viet mien political officer and had been an italian commander. He was telling me this was after the war he was he said every french president knew that the americans were supplying 80 of the funding for the french war by the end of it. I said how can you tell me that illiterate french the enemys peasants knew something that essentially no americans know . The fact is that from the time of nixons speech in november 3 when he made it nixons war the possibility of the pentagon papers having an effect did not go down to zero but it went close to zero in my mind, very low. From then on, i thought there was a small chance that the pentagon papers could affect nixon because showing what the democrats had done did not have much bearing. I did not think it would affect his policy. If i leap ahead, i would say it did not affect his policy when it came out in 1971. The media perception was that it affected mainly the democrats and as kissinger put it, it helps us a little bit. Nixon saw the same. In fact, he wanted it out faster. Why did i put it out at all . Because i the spring of 1971, i was feeling that with the attack from the fall of 1970, with the san tei raid, i saw the escalation which had been foreshadowed in cambodia as speeding up and moving toward probably an allout escalation which i wanted to avoid at all cost. S. There was the smallest chance of having some effect on the wall of the war and that was worth me going to prison for the rest of my life. I was urged to do that by mark Raskin Andy Dick Burnett of the institute of policy studies to whom i had given 1000 pages of the pentagon papers when your earlier for an historical project they were putting out, book project. They suggested that i have it to the newspapers. By that time, i had just given up on fulbright, not until then. Until then, i had hoped he would put it out in hearings. I had that i hope in cambodia but it went away the lapsing of political pressure to get out after they took the troops out of cambodia. In the fall, i became desperate. I was working in every way possible. I could go into a lot of activities i was doing all of which seemed more relevant than the pentagon papers. I thought the pentagon papers, might as well throw them into the pot, too, and get them out. For what its worth, maybe it will have some effect in discrediting the war. That was especially true after the laos invasion. I approached senator mathias. I approached senator mcgovern in the spring after a given up on fulbright. I did them to neoshim with no expectation that the times and put them out. He did not tell me they were working on them for reasons that are not clear to me entirely. He chose not to tell me that the times was moving ahead very rapidly though it took him several months as they sought to get it in order. During that time, i continued to see mccloskey in hopes he would put them out, senator mathias. I train out i tried out senator gaylord nelson. Mcgovern and Mccloskey Matthias were all very favorable to putting them out it worst. Then they thought better of it and delayed. In retrospect, they all thought let ellsberg put it out and whatever negative facts will come out. What people think of as watergate generally, the dirty tricks, the campaign contributions, the enemies list, the entry into the watergate itself these are things none of which has ever been traced conclusively or directly to nixon himself. Its partly because people like mitchell and haldeman did not talk basically or lady liddy about what they knew and essentially took blame for these moves. Whether nixon actually knew it in advance or directed them is still not clear, it certainly was not proven against nixon. None of that would have forced him to resign or could have led to his impeachment. As i understand it, what made him vulnerable to impeachment and even to prosecution and conviction were actions that word were known to be directed by the oval office and those were particular actions that involve me. It was the Antiwar Movement but in particular, against me. It has often been understood that those actions were impulsive, somehow or somehow reflected his psychology, personal psychology in some way. Essentially, they were overreactions of some sort. Certainly, it is not understood that they were related to vietnam. To say that is to say that watergate is not usually seen as related to vietnam. In fact, i would say that what nixon to the point of resignation or impeachment was very much close to his vietnam policy, his secret policy and particularly, to how i fit in or related to that policy. The pentagon papers was related to it. It was not really so much the pentagon papers themselves which reports on the democrats. What i think worried nixon about me was what he thought i might know about his secret policy in vietnam and what i could reveal with documents. In other words, my understanding is that he became very concerned about what i might reveal beyond the pentagon papers about his own administration and that i might well have documents to back that up. That would very much undermine his ongoing via nonpolicy. From that point of view, the actions he took or direct in which were in fact it illegal criminal actions in many respects, were, i believe in his mind and with some reason, seen as National Security matters. When he wanted to achieve it as motivation to his National Security, i dont think that was a cover story in his mind. I think he really thought of me as threatening National Security as he understood it. Obviously in going after me with the plumbers and my Doctors Office, obviously, that had nothing to do with his Campaign Like so many other matters of watergate. It clearly wasnt the campaign. It was not political in general. I think it was National Security as he saw it and which depended on his success, his ability to be successful in carrying out his policy, his vietnam policy. He understandably saw it was best for the country and best for our National Security. I threatened that by threatening to make it public. He understood and kissinger understood from the beginning that his aims in vietnam called for tactics that the public would be scared of at rest. They would see it was reckless and totally wrong. There would be if not majority opposition, there would be major minority controversy and opposition which he wanted to avoid that would increase the political cost of his policy and make it harder to achieve at best. It might make it impossible. Very specifically, he had reason to believe that i knew of his Nuclear Threats to North Vietnam as early as the spring of 1969 and the fall of 1969 and later and of his threats to escalate in terms of the dikes and other matters, in other words his threats to escalate. In fact, i know of them to some extent. I did not have documents to demonstrate them but i could have. The documents were available to people like roger maris who wrote a number of them or tony lake or bill watts or larry lynn all of whom resigned at the time of cambodia. He had strong reason to fear that in resigning, they might well have shared those document with me and pass them on and i might turn them up at some point. What i did do was to give National Security memorandum one , the notes on that, to senator mathias who unlike the others i dealt with, was a republican senator. And who wanted to keep his credentials, to some extent which the republicans, even though he was a dissenter on the vietnam war. What i learned in 1973 and 1974 is that on june 13, the day the pentagon papers came out in the times or possibly june 14, mathias called up his colleague John Mitchell and said who was then no longer attorney general. He was the head of the committee to reelect the president. 1971 . He was still attorney general. He called him up and said john there is something you ought to know and revealed to mitchell that he had topsecret documents from me, Daniel Ellsberg, in his office and all of this turned out to be critical he did not agree immediately to turn them over just informed them that he had them and say they could look at them in his office which they did not do right away. In retrospect, there was a period when nixon and kissinger understood that must i us have documents i should say that i had documents that i had not yet released. They were on vietnam. They were on nixons policy in vietnam and they were from the National Security council. Thats what matthias told mitchell. But they did not know exactly what they were. If they had known exactly what they were, kissinger would have said perhaps thats all he had. I had written the questions for someone. I had gone over all of the answers and i had written the summary. For the president. It was very plausible that i had all the documents on that and that was all i had. That was the only project i worked on for nixon. It was all i had for nixon. As it was, they did not know what matthias had and had every reason to believe that there was a mole in the National Security council who was providing me with who knows what. It could have been anything. As they discussed on the tapes tony lake essentially knew everything. He resigned at the time of cambodia. Lord help her and knew a lot but did not lord halperin but did not reveal anything. Anyone of them could have given me documents. Even though watts or larry lynn who also left. I could turn up with documents on Nuclear Threats, on mining or invasions or anything, all of which was totally secret from the American Public and congress and for most people in the government. The tapes show that in a him shows a great deal of concern about this print what do they know . What did halperin no question mark what might i come out with . All of this is coming out at the end of june, beginning of july in the tapes which is after the Supreme Court decision, after they have gone ahead with the pentagon papers which makes him is basically fine to have out. In fact, he wants hearings on them increment it in the public. Now as he says to kissinger, this changes the picture. We thought all he had was on the democrats on this shows who could have had it. What about hai fong which is mentioned specifically . It had not yet happened. These were plans that happened been late as early as 1969 but had not yet been carried out. They were not carried out until 1972, a year later. It would show them when they were carried out, 1972, they were presented as an ad hoc response to the north yet and amaze offensive what was taking place to the North Vietnamese offensive which was taking place for it to come out that late as early as 1969 would put in question his whole strategy and also what his aims were. In other words, things that implied how long this will go on. How big can this get . In fact, let me go ahead 1972. I had been on trial now, under indictment for one year at that point. I called up with the mioning of hai fong and called up mort hal perin and i said what he revealed to me in 1969 has been played out. Whats next question mark he said no,. He has not bombed hanoi yet. Mort had said to me in 1969 it was his judgment this administration will not leave office after its first term without having on hanoi. Having armed hanoi. They will have tried that in order to get his maximum objective which is to get North Vietnamese troops out of vietnam. If he has not tried that, he will try it. If he has not done it yet and thats what actually did happen. I went to the nixon convention, the Republican Convention in miami in 1972. At a press conference wants her by Pete Mccloskey who was running against nixon and got one vote that week in miami, he sponsored me a press conference. There he could reveal what nixons secret plan was print i said to the convention, i should say to the generals, all of whom were present because they had very little news to report on that convention. Mixon was unopposed except for mccloskey. There was very little news coming out of it they all appeared for Daniel Ellsbergs press conference and i said four years ago, nixon implied that he had a secret plan. It has been widely believed since then that he did not have a secret plan. Most histories say that to this day. But he did. I said he did have a secret plan essentially for winning the war or at least stabilizing it at a level that would represent an american success. I do not think you should vote he should be voted again for by the republicans on the public without knowing what his secret plan was. By this time, i have the outline of it. I proceeded to tell. I said part of this plan involves threatening and, if necessary, carrying out the bombing of hanoi which had not happened yet. I was reported on respectfully for one day. Essentially, no one believed me. I do not have documents ruling that. As i said earlier, if i had such documents in 1969 or 1970, i would have put them out then but i still do not have them and without documents, people were not willing to believe that nixon had a plan, had a strategy. They could not imagine a strategy that would make any sense. They just did not credit me and they did not think he had a strategy and the escalations that had occurred by that time, they still cannot believe reflected prior planning. They saw them as impulsive. They saw them as reactions to escalations by the other side or did not have an explanation. Generally, there were very few people in the country who could have answered the question why are we still in vietnam . Starting from a starting point that they accepted, nixon is trying to get us out. Why hasnt he . They did not know and most people dont have an answer to this day white as long. Why it took as long. When nixon died, his obituaries set his intention was to get us out as fast as possible. Nixon ended the war. They went on to other things with very little attention to the fact that mix in dropped much more bomb tonnage on indochina than johnson or kennedy had altogether. Johnson and kennedy 3. 2 million tons of bombs. Nixon4. 5 million tons of bombs two world war iis plus korea. Nixon dropped 4. 5 million tons on indochina. About 30,000 people died somewhat less, under johnson. Close to that died, 58,000 under nixon. If his policy was to get us out as quickly as possible, what went wrong . Why did it take these extra years . Essentially, almost nobody has an answer. The answer i would give is this he was going to continue air support, that was his objective. When duc huk was not carried out, they went into a different year gear, that their threats would he wrote the other side and they would get neutral withdrawal. That was an unrealistic belief that by now, they were quite invested in their approach. From an American Point of view, they should have turned around into a next occasion strategy but they were still hoping to get neutral withdrawal they never did get it. By 1972, however, they got the demonstrations that american b52s and Close Air Support of the saigon army could in fact hold off the North Vietnamese regime. That was an experiment that had never been done in history. It was a duel between highaltitude strategic bombers at 30,000 feet and ground armies. There had never been anything remotely like that before. I could not predict how that would come out at the time. The thought of actually putting out the pentagon papers do not come to me until essentially until the day i did it. Tony russo who did not know that i had the pentagon papers or that i had worked on them, when i mentioned that i was working on some studies that revealed a lot of lying, had said to me toward the end of set timbre, you should put those out. Toward the end of september you should put those out. He no longer had a clearance. If he thought of putting anything out, he would not tell anybody else but he was gone from rand but thats not mean that i would do it. Up until that point, i was now i had come to a point where i was ready to do anything in terms of selfsacrifice, going to prison or whatever, to help end the war. Putting out the pentagon papers do not look to me like a very plausible way of doing that because it dealt with the democrats. A week later or so when i became struck by the lies that were occurring over the special forces, it goes into my immediate motivations for putting them out which is a long story. When i became aware that some of lying had gone on, i thought whether it has a big effect or not, it may have some of the act some affect on blaming this on the democrats which may be helpful. And anyway, i was sick of the lying in part and i was ready to see those documents put out along with the other things i was doing in terms of trying to end the war. In terms of putting them out through the newspapers, that did not come to me i did not even think of copying them until this point and then i was going to give them to the congress. Here is what i now understand happened nixon, pursuing a policy in 1971 which involved the possibility of continuing to escalate the war in terms of bombing hai fong and possible nuclear escalations, a policy that would be quite obstructed and undermined if the public understood the ambitious mess of his aims rich were to keep the ambitions of his office and to keep cities under control indefinitely, had to shut me up and keep me from revealing documents that a might still have or he assumed i did have, that would reveal his planning going back to 1969. The plumbers, at this point who had earlier been complemented to put out more documents to undermine ted kennedy, now had the task of neutralizing ellsberg not simply in terms of my credibility. I was already on trial. I was accused. Ultimately of having been guilty of 12 felony counts, basically, which challenges my credibility already. I had to be influenced or coerced into not putting out any more documents that would deal with. Nixon. The first step they took was to try to get information from my former psychoanalysts office, dr. Lewis building in beverly hills, that i would not want out. It was not information in the main to begin out immediately to discredit me but to threaten me with being put out if i did not cooperate by shutting up, by ceasing to describe what next and policy was in by not putting out any doc documents. They wanted information they could blackmail me with on the psychoanalysts office seemed to be the place for it they did not find information that they could blackmail me with. There would not have been any. I dont think i could have been black held but it was a lack mailed but it was a good try. It made sense for it later then when they were about to mine hai fong on may 8, 1972 when they were planning for that in the midst of the North Vietnamese offensive in 1972, they knew that i was now putting out more documents and probably all that i had. They knew that because senator gravelle attempted to put into the congressional record memo 1 which i had given them was blocked by republican senators and there were two sessions, closed sessions, in the senate to see whether they could legitimately receive such documents. Meanwhile, i had arranged for gravelle to represent ron dillon s who put them in the house record, these 500 pages of topsecret documents. They knew at the end of april and early may that i was now apparently foreseeing the mionin g of haio fong which i was openly predicting and they wanted to stop me from that. They brought 12 assets of the cia including all the people who had been involved in the breakin to dr. Fieldings office earlier in 1969 and a number of others, all the ones who were later involved in the watergate reagan. They were all brought up on may 3, 1972 with orders to incapacitate Daniel Ellsberg totally. This is not a matter of peak but a fairly rational although criminal attempt to silence me and put me in the hospital. Or as the prosecutor thought, to kill me. I dont think the intention was to kill me. It was rather to make sure that i was silent for the next couple of weeks during which they were going to mine hai fong. These were orders passed on from Charles Colson to Charles Mcgruder to the liddys that the orders came from the man upstairs in the oval office. As mcgruder put it to his aid when colson says that, sometimes he is telling the truth. It really is from neck sin. They carried it out. I think it was from nixon, in fact. These were orders to assault me at least if not to kill me. On the steps of the capital on may 3, 1972. They did not do it for reasons we could go into, they thought there were getting set up to be caught. Instead, they blew the attempt. They did not assault me. They got into the crowd and were led away by police giving them an excuse for not attacking. They spent that night, several of them, reconnoitering their next objective which was the watergate. They went into the watergate three weeks later. On a second attempt, for reasons we still dont know anyone who feels confident that they know exactly what the raid into the watergate offices work or the second raid was for, does not have an adequate basis as far as i know. As far as any documents we know that remains something of a mystery with various hypotheses. How much that in new and so forth remains unclear. How much nixon knew and so forth remains unclear. How much people knew of the physical attempt to assault me weeks earlier on the capital and the burglary of my psychoanalysts office both of those had a very rational motive connected to nixons vietnam policy. I actually believe that any president we have seen who had that policy which was threatened to that instant desk to that extent by an insider threatening to release new documents would have done pretty much the same. It was not just tricky deck dick this administration would have done it in a minute also johnson and possibly kennedy would have done much the same certainly, i was overheard on wiretaps during this time. The use of the cia against me is the sort of thing johnson had done before next and. Before nexen. Nixon. Breakins were done under previous president s. In other words, i dont see it as nixons pathology. It was his political, white house reaction to a threat, to his secret and very controversial, potentially controversial Foreign Policy at that point. Now he had people arrested who knew of these earlier white house crimes and they had to be kept from talking. First before the election and then after the election. They were successfully kept quiet by various bribes during the election under deans direction but as he pointed out, more and more people were learning about it. Hunt was demanding large amounts of money to keep quiet about the other crimes, the ellsberg affair as nixon put it, and he had to be paid off. Any of the president s and the situation wouldve done this. These were new crimes, and obstruction of justice and is dean described it, a cancer on the presidency because they had a tendency to metastasize toward the more people knew, the more people had to be kept quiet and had to be paid off. These were new crimes. It was metastasizing. In the end, it was dean himself trying to avoid having the entire responsibility for the coverup loaded on him which was the Nixon Haldeman ehrlichman plan to blame dean for the coverup, he was willing to go to prison for the president but not for haldeman and ehrlichman. Also coming was not willing to perjure himself or. He was a fairly unprincipled person and i think has learned a lot of runcibles now. I like him a lot coming as a friend of mine. I believe he is a great truth teller. At that time, he was still a white house man, as he put it, blind ambition. He was not willing to perjure himself. He revealed in the course of plea bargaining the break into the Doctors Office. I will condense that greatly. Nixon did his best which is pretty good to keep that from going to my trial for 13 days or so, from the 13th26. Nixon cap the knowledge of the yielding fielding breakin which was clearly his responsibility to inform the judge of this breakin and the nsa wiretaps. He ordered the material not go to trial. The lawyers on april 25 went into him and imply they would have to resign because they would be guilty of obstruction of nixon on the 25th, then authorizes them to give the information to my judge, to tell the judge that it wasnt National Security, which i think he believed, meaning he does not have to give it to the defendant and kept under wraps if possible. He hoped the judge would obey that because he was offering, at that time judge matthew, another obstruction of justice, he was offering the head of the fbi something that he had wanted since he was a little boy. Someday to replace hoovers head of the fbi. He was offered that on april 4 and then again on april 5. During my trial, which was and was going on and discussing possibly becoming head of the fbi without telling us. That leaked out from the washington star i think it was. He did not win burned to be head of the fbi. Burn to be head of the fbi. So, graduate you had a whole lot of leaks coming out oh, burn did have to give it to us on court on april 26, i believe. What was your reaction . Tremendous. Burn offered to keep it secret. He looked me in the eyes for two years. The first time he addressed me in court, and he said, i do not have to put this out. Meaning, i do not have to reveal to the world that you had a psychoanalyst ar. Anyway, the white house had done a burglary of my Doctors Office dr. s office. I said to him, are you kidding . There was a rush from the journalist for the first time, a front page scene where they dash to get out the word of watergate needs the pentagon paper trial. They have been having the trial for months at this point. Suddenly they were all envying their colleagues in washington who were covering watergate. Suddenly, they were covering watergate. They were very excited by it. That led to a wonderful 10 days for us because, if you want to know my mood, the rest of the trial was a combination of boring tedious stressful, and frustrating. It was time that i did not want to look back on or relive. The last 10 days were notorious. Each day there was a revelation. Cia profiles, the break into the Doctors Office, the tops come out the taps come out. The fact that they destroyed the material to me in his own fireplace 1 [laughter] it was one revelation after another. It was leaked out from the offer of the fbi to the judge, who had not revealed it to us, and the judge dismissed that as a grounds for dismissal. We made a motion for dismissal in the trial at that point. That offer did not effectiveness judge. He said he had not discussed the trial at all or had not discussed the fbi directorship. That was not true and was later revealed. Lying, criminality, obstruction, it was just tumbling out at this point. These were essentially the crimes that put nexen in great trouble that put nixon in great trouble of going to prison. They were crimes that directly involved in. After impeachment, there was every reason to expect prosecution. He needed that pardon which forgave him as a condition of becoming vice president. So a pardon, which of course for gave him as a blanket pardon for whatever crimes he might have committed and not knowing what the crimes were at all, he knew this at this time. I believe they could of given a dozen other crimes and i could hypothesize some of them. Dr. Fielding had not told you about the break in. No, he had not. Did you have a chat . Oh, yeah. I had a discussion. I had seen him during the trial. Not as an analysis, and all he did was classical analysis, but really, i wanted him to have some part of a feeling of what i was doing. Psychoanalyst do not give you much feedback like that, but i thought, i am under a lot of stress here. Maybe there are signs that im not aware of. That he would note and cautioned me on. I did see him every week or every couple of weeks during the trial to tell him what was going on. He never told me. What he did say was i cannot guarantee to you that this office is security more. It might be bugged. I said, no. You are paranoid. [laughter] no i do not think they bugged your office. Why would they do that . I would like to say, when we moved out of the apartment at bunker hill, the weekend we moved out was the end of the trial. A cbs crew comeame in to shoot and the wall plug was not working when they try to plug the cameras in. The cameraman took apart fixtures and found a bug in it. I said, how did you know it was a bug . He said he was encountering terrorists he said he was in counterterrorism and he looked around and found another bug in the bedroom. So we did have bugs throughout the trial in our living rooms and bedrooms. So that was never mentioned. Anyway, i do not know why he would have had such a suspicion. Well, when it came out that they had broken into his office, and i did discuss that with them, and he said he knew it was the white house and they were after me from the beginning. This will time with some of your interviews, it was it had almost always been said that nothing was found with my name on it and they had photographed nothing in fieldings office. Actually barker had mentioned that they had photographed documents in the office and martinez had also mentioned in one interview, i think it was his harvard interview, that he had photographed things from the office. Well fielding told me along paper that i had written called escalating in a quagmire, was lying out for my file. It was on the file cabinet. The file drawers were open and the document was sitting on top of the file as if you were meant to notice as it he waws meant to notice. This document could have been of interest to him because it was a long study that i did of Decision Making on vietnam which were not based on the pentagon papers. In fact, it had quotes. I had the said without identifying, i have said very provocatively, i wanted to see what had happened since i wrote it in 1970. I had said annette i had said in it that i had access to classified documents. People write papers on this stuff. To see if people would pick up on that, i copied the papers one year earlier. I tried to get them out to the senators. I now wanted to put out a lot of the subjects of what i learned in the documents. Maybe the story will get out that way . Nobody was willing to publish it because it was turned down by everybody. Even if i offered to shorten it. You gave it to your psychoanalyst . I gave it to my psychoanalyst. But i gave it to lots of people. Many democrats kissinger people were interested. They said it was interesting stuff. Nobody commented on the fact that it obviously was based on classified documents. Although people were always writing memoirs based on classified documents, they never said that erie it was fairly challenging. They never said that. It was fairly challenging. It upset dr. Fielding very much. I remember this was 1969 and they had not cannot yet but he knew what i had been doing. I told him what i was doing. I left him in, let me see, when i went to cambridge, july of six july of 1969, is that right . 1969. Im sorry. Yes, he saw the file cabinet was broken into Labor Day Weekend in 1969. Labor day weekend of 1971. 1971. Sorry, that was 35 years ago. Wait. There we go. Yeah, ok. The pentagon papers i come out in june and he now knows the white house is very interested in this. Somebody has burgled his office and he was certain it was the white house. But i was not seen him then. I was in cambridge. He was not in direct touch with me. Something else happened but let me come to this point. He talked to a lawyer about it and though lawyer advised him and the lawyer advised him, do not get involved. It is a white house operation. He said he had apologized to me. He said that he felt like he wrong to me and he felt guilty. From a professional point of view, he certainly had. Everything had turned out fine in that time, of course. However, it bothered him so much that he got a bleeding ulcer and at one point it hemorrhaged and he went to the hospital, the emergency room. It bothered him enough he already had hypertension, so it bothered him enough that it was not his hypertension that gave him a bleeding ulcer, but not enough to tell me. Not a wonderful performance, but it was pretty much like everybody else i had dealt with. I could go into a dozen examples. They are all very much the same. Other analysts used to tell me, you were blessed in your analyst that he did not cooperate with the fbi when they approached him. That is why they went into his office. How could he cooperate question mark he is my psychoanalyst. Others how could he cooperate . He is my psychoanalyst. You stop seeing him when he went to cambridge. What year was that . 1970. So, i got an estimate. They set about 90 of psychiatrist would have operated would have cooperated with fbi given the National Security matter without telling me. Perhaps 75 of the psychoanalyst, a smaller number, and everybody gave the same percentages. Their hope that they would get something out of it, now, people thought they were polish to think they would get notes. They did not know much about psychoanalysis, of course. I wondered what it meant for them to be going out against a fellow collegiate member in the field. When i asked them separately, croag is now a friend of mine, and i ask, how did you feel going after a christian friend . They did not know. That i was. It was not secret. I gave them papers. He was a fanatic christian scientist. They had a whole room filled of documents that somehow never picked up that i was a fellow christian scientist. I asked croag and them how they would have felt. They said they would have felt very strange. It would not have gone unnoticed. It was much easier for them to imagine that i might be a soviet agent not knowing that i was a christian scientist than knowing. Anyway, what they were after was information that could blackmail someone into silence. That was not likely to be in the notes. In fact, fielding told me, after talking to him and i asked him did you keep notes . He said no, no. I would take down names of relatives, critical people in order to understand relationships. And then, when i memorize those i would tell my notes. He said, i was general Pattons Third Army medical officer in the third army. A biographical detail. There is a character. He was a black slave as far as im concerned. I was telling all of the stuff i was doing to general pattons medical officer. You remember that you connect six degrees of separation. Nixon went up to the invasion of cambodia by watching pattons six times. The later date Administration Breaks into pattons administration office. Yeah, well that would of given nixon something to think about. They were just as interested in getting information on fielding and they in fact, i think martinez, who was a cpa, was he not . No. One of them was. One of the people in the group was in fact parker . He was in real estate. Well anyway, they looked at his income tax returns and he said he got the impression that the good doctor was not reporting all of his income tax. Why did they care about that . Fine, just as good as getting stuff on me. They wanted to be able to blackmail fielding into telling them about what i had told him. Stuff that was not written down. Squeeze fielding who was one of the 25 of psychoanalyst who would not cooperate and they wanted to get him to cooperate. I think that is what they had in mind when they thought of going into his home. They propose going into his home. Maybe he kept his notes there . If he did not, they could get stuff on him there that they could blackmail him with, now why did they put the document on top of the file . Why did they leave it in such a mess . Why did they make it so obvious that the place had been broken into . They broke the file open, the jimmy duncan the door oh no, they broke open a window. They scattered pills to make it look like a drug addict was coming in. There was another mysterious point here. Martinez and parker barkerr were supposed to come back and tell him what had happened. Barker was waiting with champagne to celebrate the breakin. He opens the champagne anyway because it is a celebration. One of them says, what are we celebrating . We did not find anything. Which was not quite true. And hunt says, we know that, but he does not know that. Tonight on the civil war, the burning of columbia. On february 17 1865, they surrendered to the union army under sherman. The university of South Carolina recently hosted a panel of historians who discuss colombian distraction, fall, and recovery. That is tonight on the civil war at 6 p. M. Eastern time on American History tv. Up next on American History tv, they dedicate a statue at the u. S. Capital of barry goldwater, often called the father