Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 5, 1973
Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 5, 1973
[00.54.02] Senator ERVIN. What senior members of the White House staff would Mr. Magruder meet with at the White House? Mr. REISNER. Here, to be precise, he did not meet that frequently. He probably talked On the. phone more with senior members of the White House staff. I think that he met with virtually all of the senior members of the White House staff that were concerned with either political activities of one kind or another or the campaign. Senator ERVIN. And who would those senior members be? Mr. Reisner That would have been Mr. Colson, Mr. Dent, Mr. Ehrlichman, perhaps later, after the campaign got going and the platform was important, Mr. Haldeman, perhaps. All of these men, Of course, were extremely busy. When Mr. Magruder went over there I was not certain whether in fact he had been able to see them or not. There were others. Senator ERVIN. Which members of the White House staff came down to the committee headquarters of the Committee To Re-Elect the President to see Mr. Magruder? Mr. Reisner It would have depended upon the subject of the meetings If the meeting concerned something that one of them was directly involved in--Mr. Timmons was the man who oversaw the convention. He would have come probably to the committee offices and met with Mr. Magruder and other people concerned with the convention. I would say that the more senior the member of the White House staff the less likely he would have had time to come to the committee and, therefore, they would have come less frequently. Senator ERVIN. Did Mr. Dean ever come to the Committee To Re-Elect the President and consult Mr. Magruder? Mr. Reisner Yes, he did, and he did not come that frequently, he came on several occasions that I saw him there. Senator ERVIN. Did you receive any instructions from Magruder about the shredding of documents after June 17, 1972? Mr. Reisner Well, yes, sir. I received instructions that related to documents that were later destroyed. What I received were instructions to look through the files and to try to centralize documents that were sensitive politically. The purpose-the instruction was not, 0 find political things and shred them, the instruction was "Go find the sensitive political documents that we have in our files and bring them to me." And that is what I did. Some of these were subsequently destroyed, because they appeared in his outbox and were marked "destroy" and others I didn't see again. Senator ERVIN. What was the general nature of them? Mr. Reisner Virtually anything--well, I think Mr. Magruder's secretary and I looked through his own files. I think other people On the committee did similar things and virtually anything that concerned the opposition, contenders, that sort of thing, that would have been awkward or politically damaging to-well, no, even broader than that. Anything that would have concerned the opposition. Senator ERVIN. As I understand one of the files that you gave to Mr. Odle at the time that Mr. Magruder called from California was a file relating to the seven opposing contenders? Mr. REISNER. I believe it was, yes, sir. Senator ERVIN. In other words, that, was done on candidates for the Democratic nomination ? Mr. REISNER. To be specific, I gave Mr. Odle two files, one that was contained inside another. One file was the file that has become known as the Gemstone file, and I don't, know what, the contents were. I know from reading the newspaper now what I presume them to be. The other file was a file concerned--it was called "attack" or "attack strategy." That, concerned materials, that, contained materials concerning the opposition, but I am not, certain of exactly what was there on the 17th. Senator ERVIN,, Did you receive any documents from Mr. Liddy on June 16, 1972. Mr. REISNER. Yes, I did, Senator ERVIN. What were they? Mr. REISNER. I received an envelope that, I believe was similar to the one I identified as saying sensitive material on it. Mr. Liddy at that time gave me this envelope, which was sealed and said to me, "Here is an extra" or something like that-- Magruder wanted a copy, Magruder wanted an extra. That, is the document that I received. Senator ERVIN. And you gave that, to 'Mr. 'Magruder? Mr. REISNER. -No, I didn't. Senator ERVIN. N. What became of it? Mr. REISNER. Here is what happened to it. I put it in my drawer and that clearly would have fallen in the category, I presume, of documents similar to the one I have called the Gemstone file, The reason it would have by that it came in a similar envelope and Liddy had called it a copy. On Monday morning, I discovered that I had not given that to Mr. Magruder- I mean to Mr. Odle--as I had been instructed to do. it was a copy, I presumed, of the material 1 had given to Mr. Odle and it was not with it. In fact, I guess I hadn't done what I was asked to do, to get that Sensitive material out of the office. At that point, I did not know Mr. Magruder was going to return that Monday morning, it turns out he was already In to Washington. And thinking that it was, a copy and sensitive material that, should have been gotten out of the office, I destroyed it. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Magruder came by into the office and I realized could have turned it over to him, so I realized it was a mistake on my part. I am sure he is learning for the first time about this. Senator ERVIN. That was destroyed by shredding? Mr. REISNER. Yes, sir. [00.59.41]