John Ehrlichman Interviews John Mitchell April 14 1973

• Report rights infringement
• published: 08 Dec 2014
• views: 2506

The grand jury is meeting on whether to indict John Mitchell, Nixon's friend, former attorney general and head of his re-election committee, for obstruction of justice in the Watergate scandal. Nixon's top aide, John Ehrlichman, now meets with Mitchell to find out what he knows and what he's going to say to prosecutors. Points of conversation include knowledge of the initial break-in, the cover-up, the hush money, and other assorted incidents. There was an effort to keep the lid on a number of things, says Mitchell in one moment. Things, he adds, "that would have even been worse, I think, than the Watergate business." For me, the most notable moment occurs at 38:18, after Ehrlichman references "there were a number of occasions when Colson was on Magruder to do certain things, and they didn't all run to intelligence things", and Mitchell says, "Riots on the Capitol steps. A few other things." This can only be a reference to a disruption of an anti-war rally by some of the men who would later form the Watergate burglary team - and Mitchell appears to know of the direct connection before it became published in the papers, either through leaks in the on-going investigation or prior knowledge of the event. An excerpt from Daniel Ellsberg's Secrets: A Memoir http://pastebin.com/x4E6V3T2 A scan of an article on this revelation, published June 1, 1973, a month and a half after this interview: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg-Watergate%20Files/Dirty%20Tricks/Dirty%20Tricks%2025.pdf Audio file is from the Miller Center (audio featured here, leaving out ambient noise and no conversation begins at 0:42): http://web2.millercenter.org/rmn/audiovisual/whrecordings/ehrlichman/SR7304142ATC.flac Original transcript is from Miller Center: http://web2.millercenter.org/rmn/audiovisual/whrecordings/ehrlichman/ehrlichman-SR7304142.pdf Transcript featured in this clip, with additions and edits by the uploader, is on pastebin: http://pastebin.com/abfkQFMK Audio of the follow-up meeting between Nixon and his aides dealing with the information from this interview is also on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ5lWPIMvUQ