Mr. EHRLICHMAN. Not according to my logs.
Senator BAKER. Where was the meeting held?

Mr. EHRLICHMAN. In his office.

Senator BAKER. In the EOB or in the Oval Office?

Mr. EHRLICHMAN. I would have to check.

Senator BAKER. Would it have been in one or the other?

Mr. EHRLICHMAN. It would have been one or the other.

Senator BAKER. Do you have any reason to believe that that conversation would not be recorded on those tapes?

Mr. EHRLICHMAN. I have no way of knowing, Senator.

Senator BAKER. I think I saw you on television the other day on an interview say that you hoped or you thought the President ought to release those tapes. Do you think that the access to those tapes to this committee would aid and assist in the evaluation of this testimony? Mr. EHRLICHMAN. I do not know, Senator. I do not know what you saw on television. I did not see that show. [Laughter.]

I just gave it. What I intended to say

Senator BAKER. It is double jeopardy, you know, to do and to see. Mr. EHRLICHMAN [continuing]. What I intended to say was that as far as I am personally concerned, I would have no objection, because I do not have anything to worry about in terms of what is liable to be in them in this setting.

Now, the President has much heavier concerns and obviously, a much broader area of responsibility. I am just looking at it from my own narrow personal standpoint and he has to call this from the standpoint of the Presidency.

Senator BAKER. Mr. Ehrlichman, thank you very much. My time has almost expired and there is a vote signal on the clock. I want to ask you one last question, if I may, and I will reserve the balance of my questions until I have another opportunity.

Is there the slightest doubt in your mind that as of that meeting with the President on June 20, 1972, based on your knowledge of the newspaper accounts, the television coverage, and your understanding of the White House staff procedures whereby the President was briefed on current affairs; through a compilation of press dispatches, the supplying of newspapers, magazines, periodicals, and the like, is there the slightest doubt in your mind that the President, on June 20, 1972, did not know that major and significant officers and employees of the CRP had been apprehended in connection with the surreptitious entry of the Democratic National Committee headquarters?

Mr. EHRLICHMAN. I do not know about major officers, because I do not know whether he knew about Liddy at that point in time. Senator BAKER. Or McCord?

Mr. EHRLICHMAN. I am sure he must have known about McCord. Senator BAKER. McCord was security officer. We are haggling over

terms.

Mr. EHRLICHMAN. Sure.

Senator BAKER. Is there any doubt in your mind that he knew at that time?

Mr. EHRLICHMAN. No.

Senator BAKER. So the question, what did the President know and when did he know, can be answered in part that he must have known on June 20 that certain major figures were involved?

Mr. EHRLICHMAN. He certainly must have known it was in the news. Senator BAKER. Before I get back for my other round of questions when my other colleagues complete theirs, I want to have you search your memory for any information you can give me about what the President knew, if anything, prior to June 17 or June 20, 1972. As the chairman pointed out in the lightning bug theorem, sometimes hindsight is better than foresight. I would like you to examine what you know now as distinguished from what you may have suspected then. I want to know-as best you can help me discover what the President knew and when did he know it.

Mr. EHRLICHMAN. Prior to the 17th of June?

Senator BAKER. Yes.

Thank you, sir.

Senator ERVIN. Mr. Wilson, tomorrow I get another turn and I will give you an opportunity to tell me why this statute has any relation to this matter. I am frank to state as a lawyer that I do not think it has any more to do with this than the flowers that bloom in the springtime and I want to give you an opportunity to convince me of the error of my ways, if they are wrong.

Mr. WILSON. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. I shall take advantage of that.

Senator ERVIN. The committee will stand in recess until 10 o'clock in the morning, unless some member objects.

[Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the hearing was recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, July 25, 1973.]

WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 1973

U.S. SENATE,

SELECT COMMITTEE ON

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ACTIVITIES,

Washington, D.C. The Select Committee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:15 a.m., in room 318, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr. (chairman), presiding.

Present: Senators Ervin, Talmadge, Inouye, Montoya, Baker, Gurney, and Weicker.

Also present: Samuel Dash, chief counsel and staff director; Fred D. Thompson, minority counsel; Rufus L. Edmisten, deputy chief counsel; Arthur S. Miller, chief consultant; Jed Johnson, consultant; David M. Dorsen, James Hamilton, and Terry F. Lenzner, assistant chief counsels; R. Phillip Haire, Marc Lackritz, William T. Mayton, Ronald D. Rotunda, and Barry Schochet, assistant majority counsels; Eugene Boyce, hearings record counsel; Donald G. Sanders, deputy minority counsel; Howard S. Liebengood, H. William Shure, and Robert Silverstein, assistant minority counsels; Pauline O. Dement, research assistant; Eiler Ravnholt, office of Senator Inouye; Robert Baca, office of Senator Montoya; Ron McMahan, assistant to Senator Baker; A. Searle Field, assistant to Senator Weicker; Michael Flanigan, assistant publications clerk.

Senator ERVIN. The committee will come to order.

I understand that Mr. Wilson wishes to address the committee on the legal question I was discussing with Mr. Ehrlichman and Mr. Wilson yesterday, and without objection on the part of any member of the committee, I will extend to him an opportunity to do so at this time.

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to say sincerely I am very grateful to you for giving me this opportunity. I have a feeling you have your own thoughts about this, and this may turn out to be an exercise in mental calisthenics but it will be fun anyway.

I cannot quote the Bible like you can but I am reminded of the high school physics anomaly and what happens when the irresistible force meets an immovable body, and I do not know which is which at the moment. Thank you, Senator.

Now seriously, if I may, in connection with section 2511, our exchange yesterday was so rapid that I was not able to get across to you the genesis of my thinking. To me, 2511 is a symbol. I would not rely upon 2511 as a source of power. It is a recognition of the possibility of a source of power, and I want to make a distinction immediately between domestic security because I want to take my text from the Supreme Court's decision of last year in the case which has been variously called the Keith case because it involved a mandamus against

Judge Keith in the Eastern District of Michigan, or the Plamdon case, because he was the principal of three conspirators in that action. The case formally is known as United States, petitioner v. the US. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. It is found in 407 United States, and 92 Supreme Court. I am sure the chairman and maybe all members of the committee have a familiarity with this decision. It is a tremendous decision written by Mr. Justice Powell with concurring opinions by Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice White. Now, the state of the law today is that the point which I am arguing has not yet been passed upon by any court that I know of, but the Supreme Court has left the question wide open, if you please. I thought I had before me, and I do not want to take too much time because I promised Senator Talmadge that I would not take more than 20 minutes to get through this because I am usurping his time at the moment, but there is a Senate report, 1096, I think it is, on the Safe Streets bill of 1968 of which 2511 is a portion and, of course, as far as the chairman is concerned, I know that this is old hat to him, but there is in the report a section on national security which recognizes a reservoir of power in the President of the United States with respect to foreign intelligence, foreign leaks, this sort of thing.

Now, I anticipated that if anybody has inquired into some of the things which I have done in the practice of the law, 21 years ago I was in the Steel Seizure case. I filed the first suit on behalf of Youngstown Sheet & Tube, and the case today bears the name of my client. In that case I fought vigorously against the inherent power of President Truman to seize the coal mines. We were met with the defense, and I had a good deal to do with the argument before Judge Pine which was the decisive, first decisive opinion, I carried the whole matter to the Court of Appeals for a day or two, whatever it took, and then there were 35 of us lawyers who wanted to argue in the Supreme Court and we all agreed upon Mr. John W. Davis, who I would call the greatest, and the Supreme Court, as you know, sustained our contention, that there was not a package of inherent powers in President Truman to make that seizure.

Now, this case is unlike that case because there is a reservoir of constitutional power recognized at least hypothetically by the Congress, by your own committee, sir, by the bill which was passed.

In the Keith or Plamdon decision, both Senator McClellan who, I believe, was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and Senator Hart, were quoted in their debates on the floor, and they make it plain that section 2511 was not intended to restrict or extend the power of the President. It was simply a reserving clause with respect to whatever power he had.

Now my proposition is, and I want to come to the Plamdon case, my proposition is, succinctly stated, on the basis of my reading of the Supreme Court's decision in the Plamdon case is that in a domestic security case, and that was that case despite the fact that Plamdon bombed the CIA headquarters in Chicago, it was treated by the Supreme Court time and time again as a domestic security case, and I do not have to rely upon inferences when I tell you that the Supreme Court said: "We are not passing upon the power of the President with regard to foreign intelligence."