The Lever

People of consequence are questioned on the issues of our time by Elizabeth Drew on 30

minutes with.

It was September 7, 1972, about seven months after President Richard Nixon had signed the Federal Election Campaign Act.

30 Minutes With was a weekly public affairs program that broadcast on a newfangled TV network called PBS.

Tonight, John D. Ehrlichman.

Mr. Ehrlichman is the top assistant to the president for domestic affairs,

I'd like to ask you some questions, beginning with what the Nixon administration might do if it's

re-elected and has four more years in office. The host, Elizabeth Drew, was a Washington correspondent

for the Atlantic Monthly. Her buffet hairdo and bright green blouse created a stark contrast to the

man in the dark suit sitting across from her. Like all political journalists, Drew had been

closely following the various scandals and questionable activities cropping up around President Nixon

in the months since he had signed the nation's first major anti-corruption legislation

in decades.

You gave an interview to the Christian Science Monitor earlier this year, and you said that

in his campaign, the president was going to be able to point with pride to having, quote,

gotten Washington away from the Bobby Baker syndrome.

Bobby Baker was Lyndon Johnson's top Senate aide, who had to resign in 1963 in a bribery scandal.

Drew is basically asking if Nixon kept his promise to drain the swamp.

There have been various controversies now around this administration,

the break-in of the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate.

Do these things keep the president

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