The Watergate Files - Senate Hearings: February 1973 - July 1973

Transcript of Film in "Senate Hearings" Section

On February 8, 1973 , the Senate forms a committee to investigate the event coined “Watergate.” Three high-ranking Republican Party figures are implicated in the break in and subsequent cover up. Former Attorney General John Mitchell, Jeb Stewart Magruder, and John Dean, Counsel to President Nixon. President Nixon appears on national television to assert that members of his White House staff kept him in the dark:

“…I repeatedly asked those conducting the investigation whether there was any reason to believe that members of my administration were in any way involved. I received repeated assurances that there were not.”

The administration is in apparent disarray. Responding to criticism, the White House appoints its own Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, to investigate. Loyalties crumble, as the Senate Select Committee begins its televised hearings:

…John Wesley Dean, III, fired last April by President Nixon as White House Legal Counsel, told the Senate Watergate Committee today that the President was involved in Watergate wrongdoing:

“…I began by telling the President that there was a cancer growing on the Presidency. And if the cancer was not removed, the President himself would be killed by it.”

Good evening. There was a surprise witness at the Watergate hearings today and he made a dramatic disclosure. Alexander Butterfield, former aide to H. R. Haldeman, said that President Nixon ordered secret electronic listening devices installed in his offices and on his telephones:

“…I was aware of listening devices. Yes sir.”

Source: The film reels are drawn from contemporary television network news coverage of the events.