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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 26, 1973)
Ex-aide details Nixon role in Watergate cover-up . . . WASHINGTON (UPI) — John Dean III said in explosive testimony Monday that President Nixon conducted no investigation of the Watergate scandal—as he said he did—but joined H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman in an effort to maintain a cover-up. Dean testified that Nixon told him March 13 that payment of at least $1 million in hush money to the Watergate defendants would be “no problem, and he also looked over at Haldeman and repeated the same statement.” When asked by the President how the money could be paid the defendants. Dean said he told Nixon “the money was laundered so it could not be traced, and there were secret deliveries.” But Dean said that at another meeting April 15 Nixon said that he had “only been joking.” It was the strongest testimony yet about Nixon, whose administration has been wracked by the scandal growing out of the 1972 bugging of the Democratic national headquarters. In a 245-page statement read at the nationally televised Senate Watergate hearings, the fired White House counsel told of a series of meetings with Nixon in late February and throughout March and April. At the March 15 meeting, Dean said Nixon told him and Haldeman that he had discussed the matter of executive clemency for E. Howard Hunt Jr., former White House aide convicted as a master mind of the Watergate bugging. Dean said he suggested a meeting with Nixon on April 15 in order to tell the President that he had gone to federal prosecutors with the story of the White House cover-up, and that Nixon arranged a meeting within 45 minutes. “The President almost from the outset began asking me a number of leading questions, which made me think that the conversation was being taped and that a record was being made to protect himself,” Dean said. “The President recalled the fact that at one point we had discussed the difficulty in raising money and that he had said that $1 million was nothing to raise to pay to maintain the silence of the defendants. He said that he had, of course, only been joking when he made that comment,” Dean said. “I became more convinced that the President was seeking to elicit testimony from me and put his perspective on the record and get me to agree to it. ” Two days later, Nixon issued a statement saying that “major developments” had come to his attention recently and that he was starting his own investigation. “In short, the President, Haldeman and Ehrlichman commenced to protect themselves against the unraveling of the cover-up,” Dean said. Dean testified that Egil “Bud” Krogh, former head of the White House “plumbers group,” told him he got his instructions to burglarize the office of Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist “right out of the ‘Oval Office’.” “I was so surprised to hear this that I said, ‘You must be kidding.’ And he repeated that he had received his instructions out of the Oval Office,” Dean said. The 34-year-old former presidential counsel said that Ehrlichman, former White House domestic adviser, and Haldeman, who was chief of staff, had held discussions with him early in April “about pinning this entire matter on (former At torney General John) Mitchell.” Dean said he passed this information on to the prosecutors with whom he was meeting. He also said that on April 16 Nixon handed him drafts of two letters in which he, Dean, resigned or took leave of absence because of “involvement in the Watergate matter.” “After reading the letters, I looked the President squarely in the eyes and told him that I could not sign the letters,” Dean said, “He was annoyed with me, and somewhat at a loss of words.” — • Dean said that when he asked if Haldeman and Ehrlichman had signed letters offering to resign, Nixon “was somewhat surprised . . . and said no they had not but had given him a verbal assurance . Dean testified that after the November election. Haldeman told him that Nixon “wished to get rid of the Watergate.” He said Haldeman asked him to write a report that could be made public, a written version of the so-called Dean investigation that Nixon had announced Aug. 29. Dean, speaking calmly and without emotion, prefaced the reading of his 245-page statement by saying extemporaneously: “It is my honest belief that while the President was involved, he did not realize or appreciate the implications of his involvement, and I think that when the facts come out, I hope the President will be forgiven.” ... and other flack finally hits the fan WASHINGTON (UPI) — In his statement to the Senate in vestigating committee yester day, Dean also testified that: — White House aide John Caulfield sent an investigator to Chappaquiddick July 18, 1969, within six hours after Mary Jo Kopechne was killed in Sen. Edward Kennedy’s car accident. — In the winter of 1971 when Nixon expressed displeasure at a demonstrator across the street from the White House, presidential appointments secretary Dwight Chapin offered to get some “thugs” to remove the man. Later, however, the park police convinced the man to move to the back side of Lafayette Square out of sight of the White House. — Caulfield told him that after the 1971 publication of the Pen tagon Papers, Charles Colson proposed the burglary, and fire bombing if necessary, of the Brookings Institution, a Washington “think-tank,” to see if it possessed leaked documents about the U.S. involvement in the Viet War. — Former Attorney General Richard Kleindienst refused to spring the Watergate defendants from jail after their arrests. Dean admits he had his own hand in till WASHINGTON (UPI) — Former White House counsel John Dean III said Monday he removed $4,850 in cash from a safe in his office to pay for his wedding and honeymoon and for personal expenses. But, he said, he never intended to keep the money, and placed his personal check for that amount in Nixon to stick to ‘No comment’ SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. UPI — The White House said Monday it would remain silent on the testimony of former counsel John Dean III before the Senate Watergate investigating com mittee. Press secretary Ronald Ziegler told reporters: “We do not plan to have a comment as the Ervin committee proceeds.” Ziegler also said that Nixon has no plans “at this time” to hold a news conference in California. Several Republican governors have urged Nixon to hold a press conference to answer Watergate scandal questions. Vice President Spiro Agnew in a published interview has recommended that Nixon face the press in a limited way, by restricting the number of representatives of the news media. the safe at the time he removed the money. Dean told the Senate Watergate Committee that the money was part of a $15,200 cash fund that he had been asked to hold by Richard Howard and Gordon Strachan, lieutenants of White House aide Charles Colson. Dean said he had been told the money was part of an ex penditure authorized by Haldeman, which had not been needed. He did not say what the expenditure was to have been for. Dean said the money was placed in his safe on June 20 or 21, 1972. “The cash remained in my safe untouched until Oct. 12, 1972, when I removed a packet of bills amounting to $4,850. Congress calls halt to Indochina bombing WASHINGTON (UPI) — In the first congressional demand that President Nixon end residual U.S. involvement in the In dochina war, the House joined the Senate Monday in voting to cut off all funds appropriated for the bombing of Cambodia. The measure, part of a $3.3 billion supplemental ap propriations bill, was returned to the Senate for routine final action before it goes to the President for his signature or veto. The legislation forbiding Cambodians reopen vital supply line PHNOM PENH (UPI) - The Cambodian high command said Highway 5, the country’s vital rice road to the western provinces, was opened to military traffic Monday for the first time in 10 days. The command said the road northwest of the capital should be ready for use by civilian traffic “very soon.” American warplanes flew support raids Monday against rebel positions as close as seven miles from Phnom Penh. Air strikes by U.S. Air Force Fill swingwing bombers hit Cambodian Communist con centrations 11 to 12 miles south of the capital overnight and throughout the day. The attacks were clearly audible in the city. To the northeast, other bom bers flew missions in support of government troops fending off a series of attacks along the Mekong River, from seven to 13 miles from the capital, field reports said. Black official raps FBI nominee WASHINGTON (UPI) — A spokesman for 12 elected Kansas City officials Monday described Clarence Kelley, President Nixon’s nominee to be FBI director, as “a bureaucratic machine insensitive to human compassion.” Bruce Watkins told the Senate Judiciary Committee, at con firmation hearings, that as Kansas City police chief, Kelley ignored complaints of police brutality and spied on political and black militants. Watkins, president of Freedom Inc., which represents all 12 elected black officials in Kansas City, also said Kelley’s “unyielding” law-and-order stance during the 1968 riots led to further violence and ultimately to the deaths of six blacks. Uo seeks end to all whale killing LONDON UPI — The United States called for a “complete moratorium” on the killing of whales Monday to save the warm-blooded, aquatic mam mals from extinction. American delegate Robert White told the 14-nation In ternational Whaling Commission at its 25th annual meeting, “these views stem from a deep-rooted feeling of the people of my country that the time has come when the killing of whales must stop.” He disputed data produced by the IWC’s Scientific Committee showing some types of whales were not in danger, saying the figures had “a large and unknown measure of un certainty.” In a gesture to the Japanese, who depend on whales for 10 per cent of their meat, White said the United States was prepared to back a gradual phase-out of whale catching. further spending for the bombing cleared the House after a dramatic 204-204 tie vote that defeated an amendment to delay its effect for 60 days. The measure declares: “None of the funds herein appropriated under this act or heretofore appropriated under any other act may be expended to support directly or indirectly combat activity in, over or from the shores of Cambodia or in or over Laos by United States forces.” Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D Mo.), author of the amendment, warned that if Nixon persists in the bombing “in the face of this vote he will be throwing our nation into a constitutional im passe — an impasse that could destroy the very fabric of our system of government.” If Nixon vetoes the bill, as administration spokesmen have indicated he will, many agencies will face severe budget cutbacks, since they would be denied funds in the supplemental bill. If he signs it, he will be prohibited from that moment on frorr’ bombing Cambodia unU" Congress decides otherwise. The Eagleton amendment was approved by voice vote. High court rules out indirect aid to church school WASHINGTON (UPI) — The Supreme Court Monday prohibited the states from helping Catholic and other church schools by subsidizing parents with tax credits or similar tuition reimbursements — a program advocated by President Nixon on the national level. Striking down laws in New York and Pennsylvania, the justices also ruled that state payments to parochial schools for such non-teaching expenses as maintenance, testing and record keeping also violate the con stitutional requirement for separation of church and state. The Court, without comment, upheld lower court findings that similar tuition laws in New Jersey and Ohio were un constitutional. The ruling against tuition subsidies for parents of children attending church schools was 6 to 3, with Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist dissen ting. 'the vote striking down New York’s payments for non teaching costs was 8 to 1, with White the lone dissenter. Justice Lewis Powell Jr., who wrote the majority opinions in the school cases, cited a provision in the Constitution which declares that Congress and the states “shall make no law respecting an establishment of a religion or the free exercise thereof.” New York authorities argued their legislation was specially designed to enable low-income families to send their children to parochial schools by helping them meet tuition costs. Penn sylvania argued that its tuition reimbursements, taken from the state’s cigarette tax funds, was a way of keeping thousands of parochial school children from burdening the financially hard pressed public schools. However, Powell declared, “Special tax benefits...cannot be squared with the principle of neutrality established by the decisions of this Court.”
