Watergate: A Brief History With Documents by Stanley I. Kutler

Author:Stanley I. Kutler [Kutler, Stanley I.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mom 04/05/2014
ISBN: 9781405188487
Amazon: 1405188480
Published: 2010-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

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senator talmadge: You are a lawyer, and I understand you are a good one.

mr. ehrlichman: Well, I am certainly not a constitutional lawyer, Senator.

Far from it.

senator talmadge: Do you remember when we were in law school, we studied a famous principle of law that came from England and also is well known in this country, that no matter how humble a man’s cottage is, that even the King of England cannot enter without his consent.

mr. ehrlichman: I am afraid that has been considerably eroded over the years, has it not?

senator talmadge: Down in my country we still think it is a pretty legitimate principle of law. [Applause.]

Now, you authorized this in the name of national security, I believe.

mr. ehrlichman: We believe that we had a serious national security problem at that time; yes, sir.

senator talmadge: What relationship did Dr. Fielding have with national security?

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9/15/2009 9:20:28 PM

Ehrlichman and Haldeman

mr. ehrlichman: Well, the CIA has perfected a technique, as I understand it, and again I am not your best witness on this, in which they can find out a lot about a foreign agent, a foreign official, someone who is the object of their investigation through the device of what they call a psychiatric profile. Two people in this special unit, Mr. Young and Mr. Hunt, had both had experience with the use of these profiles in the past, and they felt strongly that in this case, where there were so many unknowns, we did not know whether we were dealing here with a spy ring or just an individual kook, or whether we were dealing with a serious penetration of the Nation’s military and other secrets, in such an uncertain situation that a profile of this kind might, certainly, not positively, but might, add some important additional ingredient which would help to understand the dimensions of the problem.

senator talmadge: You do not think –

mr. ehrlichman: Sir, I cannot vouch for this. I have a kind of inherent personal doubt about the psychiatry in general, but I cannot second-guess, I cannot second-guess the investigation experts who have used this technique; and, as I say, the CIA maintains a staff, and they do this thing on a regular basis, and it is used in our Government.

Now, I understand from testimony before the McClellan committee that the CIA’s position is that they have not ever used it before in a case of espionage involving a U.S. citizen. I do not know whether that is so or not. But in any event, the people involved here were very concerned about what they were dealing with, and they felt that this would be a helpful technique.

senator talmadge: You did not think that Dr. Fielding was a security risk to the country, did you?

mr. ehrlichman: Of course not, no.

SSC, Book 6: 2509, 2522–53, 2601.

H. R. Haldeman Testimony, July 31, 1973

mr. thompson: Mr. Haldeman, let me ask you one more line of questions.

You have in your statement on page 28 the following paragraph where you make some allegations yourself.

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