Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 13, 1973 Testimony of Maurice Stans
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 13, 1973 Testimony of Maurice Stans
[00.07.17] Senator BAKER. Thank you. Mr. Stans, can you off offer the committee now or at a later date-and I know it is extraordinarily difficult to offer negative testimony or negative proof-but, can you offer the committee any other suggestions on bow We Might inquire into the meetings and your relationships to them with these people that I have named-- Mr. Ehrlichman Mr. Haldeman, Mr. Dean, Mr. Magruder, Mr. Sloan, Mr. Mitchell? I am thinking, for instance, of meetings at which other people, were present so that we could verify or dispute this information. I am thinking of other records, memorandums, or data that, you might know of that, could buttress your accounts. I apologize once again for as asking you to try to prove a negative fact, but if there is other and collateral information, 1 think the committee would like to have it. Mr. STANS. Senator, we have made available to the staff of the, committee all the files, They have examined my personal files; they have all of the correspondence and memorandums, that passed between me and the individuals you have named. I ha given you the best of my recollection on the various matters that I have been asked about, and I think from here on out, the answer is that it is up to the other witnesses that, you are going to call to tell what they know about, it. Senator BAKER. Thank you, Mr. Stans. One or two other questions, Mr. Chairman. Senator Inouye asked you about the conversation with Mr. Hugh Sloan which, according to Mr. Sloan, you told him when he inquired about, what Was going on, or something to that effect, "I don't want to know and you don't want to know." My recollection of your answer to Senator Inouye's question was that you indicated a similar response, something to the effect, that, I do not know and you do not want, to find out, or something to that effect. [00.09.36] Either version of that, -Mr. Stans, I think creates an inescapable curiosity on the part of this member of the committee. Why not? Why didn't you want to know or why didn't you want him to want to know? Mr. STAINS. In the context in which the statement was made, which was the context of the overall campaign, there Was no basis by which we could attempt to know the commitments made by the campaign people. And I think this is the place for me to go back to the budget, and tell how it was operated, because I think there may be some members of the committee and perhaps the public who think that in the budget committee meetings we talked about whether or not we were going to spend $25,000 with this organization Or $100,000 with that organization for a certain purpose. We never discussed in the budget committee meetings where money would go, and I have furnished the staff a copy of the budget which shows how it was broken down. The first item is "Advertising, $12,153,000." Now, within that, we might discuss whether some of that was going to go to billboards, and the conclusion was that there would be no billboards. There, may have been and there were discussions about how much to television as, against radio, but not which station or even at what time. "Campaign -Materials" was another item in the budget, This was for the buttons and bumper strips and things that are part of a campaign. But there was never any discussion in the budget Committee about who do we buy these or when do we get them delivered, that from sort of thing. There was an item in the budget of almost $7 million entitled "Research and Planning, Direct Mail and Telephone Operations." Now, $4 1/2 million of that was for direct mail and $1.9 million was for telephone operations. The discussions in the budget committee were about which States shall we use for direct mail operations, and in this, the campaign committee made the decisions. There were discussions in the budget. committee about which States shall we use telephone operations in. There were questions raised such as, why do you need to have three pieces of direct mailing to every householder in California, why couldn't you do it with two, [00.12.16]