Thread by @nimkef

30 March 2005

Attorney and entrepreneur K. Barry Schochet is new to Aspen but no stranger to the controversy surrounding W. Mark Felt, the former No. 2 man at the FBI who went public this week as "Deep Throat," Woodward & Bernstein's Watergate source

aspendailynews.com/watergate-atto…

At 25, Schochet was hired to be a Dem staff attorney for Select Senate Cmte on Pres. Campaign Activities, assigned to Sen. Herman Tallmadge. Schochet, an alumnus of UNC & Emory Law, admired Sen. Sam Ervin, the Democrat from South Carolina who chaired the Watergate committee.

As a staff attorney, he was in the midst of the investigation of the break-in by burglars linked to the CIA and the White House - and 1972 campaign finance irregularities connected to President Richard M. Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President, CREEP.

The drama played out on national TV after Nixon's re-election in 1972, with senators on the cmte emerging almost instantly as national figures.

The Daily News sat down with Schochet on Thursday to discuss his take on this week's revelation about Felt

Daily News:
Did you ever suspect that Mark Felt was Deep Throat?

Schochet:
I always did. I said so in public (to friends). I said Deep Throat had to be somebody senior at the CIA or FBI.

I was more inclined to think CIA because at the time most of the leaking going on was very early on, just after the break-in, July, August, and the people running the investigation were the CIA because Nixon didn't trust the FBI.

It was always my suspicion because senior people had the details. And the unusual commitment of Woodward and Bernstein not to disclose their source had to be to protect someone in government subject to being sued. Felt could have had legal problems.

I also suspected (FBI Director) L. Patrick Gray, even though he was a Nixon loyalist. He had the info. Felt was a name I had thought about because he was the #2 at the FBI & effectively running it and we knew he had been passed over (to head the FBI), and he had an axe to grind.

A lot of people knew that and thought he might be Deep Throat. But we didn't care about Deep Throat then. We were into much more exciting stuff than Deep Throat, though Woodward and Bernstein created the momentum that helped our investigation.

DN:
What did you do on the Watergate Committee?

S:
I was part of the counsel to the Majority, the Dems. There were 8 lawyers. I was assigned to Herman Tallmadge of Georgia, and it was my job to brief him in detail on everything that happened so that he was up to speed.

DN:
What was it like working for Tallmadge?

S:
The senators on the committee all played an active role. In addition to just working for the senators, we were each responsible for putting the Watergate Congressional Report together - an analysis on three major subjects:

The break-in and the cover-up
Improper financial activities related to CREEP
Dirty tricks in the 1972 campaign

I worked on sections of all of them. We all really shared everything we did. The main hearings on TV focused on the break-in and the cover-up (by the White House).

DN:
How did you get the job?

S:
My first job after I graduated from Emory Law School was at large ATL firm doing litigation, courtroom work. I had gone to UNC & one of my friends was Rufus Edmisten, had gone to DC to work for Sam Ervin on the Senate Judiciary

He became a staff director of the subcommittee on Constitutional Rights.

In late 1972 I got a call from Rufus, who later became AG of NC. At the time we had no idea what it would evolve into, that by the next spring it would become as large as it did.

It was a Select Committee to look into the Presidential campaign relating to Watergate. I interviewed w/ counsel Sam Dash and Sam Ervin, and I got the position in March 1973. I had tremendous respect for Sam Ervin.

We worked very closely with the Republican side, with Fred Thompson, the chief minority counsel.

DN:
Fred Thompson the actor?

S:
The actor & senator (R- Tenn). Sam Dash sat next to Ervin & Thompson sat next to Sen. Howard Baker, the highest-ranking Republican on the committee).

Thompson was not obstructive in any way. They were open with cooperating all along. Every now and then they'd be much more cautious but basically they were never obstructionist.

DN:
How did you find out what really happened at Watergate and in the campaign?

S:
When the June hearings started, nobody knew anything. But we had subpoena power so we started interviewing all of the players. In those days, it was done with stenographers and tape recorders. They weren't on camera and they weren't on television.

We interviewed everyone - including all the original guys who broke in: (White House Counsel) John Dean, (White House Chief of Staff Bob) Haldeman, (Nixon assistant for domestic affairs John) Erlichman. John Dean is somebody who stuck out as an interesting character.

He was a very complicated guy but he was much more forthcoming than Haldeman, Erlichman & AG John Mitchell.

I remember Haldeman vividly. He was combative, angry. Unfortunately, Haldeman lived across the street in DC from me so we had to see each other every day.

DN:
What was the big breakthrough?

S:
We had assembled a lot of things in area one (the break-in and cover-up), but what became much more important were all the activities that we found the White House had engaged in not related to the break-in but to the campaign:

abuse of power, the enemies list, the IRS was sicked on people. The FBI had files on foes of the Administration. And an AG had never been subpoenaed.

DN:
Do you remember when you found out about the White House tapes?

S:
Very clearly. Deputy Republican Counsel Don Sanders interviewed (White House aide) Alexander Butterfield. He went to Thompson right away with it and 15 minutes later Thompson came right to us. The world didn't find out until he came on the stand. But we knew.

DN:
What about the 18 1/2 minute gap in the tapes?

S:
We were getting to the point where nothing would surprise us any more. The tapes took it to a whole 'nother level. With the tapes you had transcripts of the President's men talking about these events.

[Ducked that one]

DN:
Was the staff of the committee out to get Nixon?

S:
There were a few people who clearly who did not like Nixon and tried to get rid of him, but most of the staff people approached it from an open point of view.

When the tapes came out and it was clear Nixon was personally involved, there were so many frightening conversations (on the tapes). We got a little angrier. We were concerned that a bunch of guys running the White House would act in this way.

DN:
Other than helping to bring Nixon down, what else came of the committee's work?

S:
Part of the function was to draft legislation that would hopefully change the problems of the '72 campaign. We drafted the first campaign finance reform.

We tried to limit individual contributions. At the time there were foreigners & US citizens making multimillion-dollar contributions. You still have Americans use 527s to do whatever they want. Those problems still go on. There are dirty tricks in campaigns that still go on.

DN:
What's one of your favorite moments from the hearings?

S:
I wrote all the questions for Tallmadge and one time he was interviewing the CREEP accountant who had lost $23M. I did some research and found out he was in the CPA Hall of Fame.

Tallmadge said: "You're in the CPA Hall of Fame, and you can't tell us where the money is?" (Comedian) Robert Klein used that on a cut from one of his albums.

DN:
What did you do when it was over?

S:
I was there for the whole year until the committee ended. Nixon was still in office. I decided to stay in DC and to go back into practicing law. A lot of us were radioactive after working on the committee, but I was actually hired by

the law firm of Tom Green, who represented the chief accountant for CREEP. Green also defended Denise Rich. A couple of years later, I went back to Capitol Hill to work in foreign relations for Richard Stone (D-FL), then to Middle East section of Senate Foreign Relations staff.

DN:
What are the biggest things that are different now, after Watergate?

S:
Obviously, the hearings propelled television news and investigative journalism to a much higher level for a whole new generation of journalists. It spawned active investigative journalism.

It also created a lot more oversight from Congress. They had committees that routinely viewed the activities of the government, but they focused much more on budgets than things going on in the executive branch.

Watergate also made stars out of media people and it ginned up the country to become much more interested in investigative journalism and the role of government and whether it was being excessive. Investigative news shows started like "60 Minutes" and "Nightline."

It was the first real extremely contentious partisan exchange that we've had on a national level. It set a tone for what would become more & more contentious, divisive, partisan, political atmosphere in the United States. It wasn't because of Watergate but it was a spin-off of it

The next one that followed was Iran/Contra. These senators had a taste of the limelight so when the next big crisis came everyone called for special committees, special prosecutors. Then there was Whitewater and all the activities.

Watergate was the watershed that opened up the entire era of active and public congressional investigations. Naturally it became very negative and divisive, and it turned the country on a path of antipathy. Now special prosecutions are never-ending.