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Ehrlichman's opening statement sarcastically challenged the portrayal by fired John Dean of a White House obsessively concerned about war protesters and the President's critics. "The President is not paranoid, weird, psychotic on the subject of demonstrators or hypersensitive to criticism," Ehrlichman said. There was no "White House madness." There was instead, he insisted, a legitimate concern about the bombings of buildings, organized attempts to shut down the Government, violent street demonstrations and a campaign "to force upon the President a foreign policy favorable to the North Vietnamese and their allies."
Throughout the questioning, Ehrlichman stuck stoutly to his denial of every illegal or improper act. That did not mean he refuted them convincingly. To believe Ehrlichman in every instance meant the Senators would have to disregard contrary testimony given either publicly or privately by an array of other witnesses. They include John Dean, Jeb Stuart Magruder, Herbert Kalmbach, John Mitchell, Hugh Sloan, Patrick Gray, Richard Helms, Lieut. General Vernon Walters, General Robert E. Cushman and David Young. If Ehrlichman spoke the truth, all these men had lied.
Forcefully and emphatically, Ehrlichman challenged charges that he had: TOLD HUNT TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY.
Dean has testified that on June 19, 1972, just two days after the original Watergate arrests, Ehrlichman told him to pass orders by telephone to E. Howard Hunt Jr., a White House consultant and member of the leak-plugging plumbers unit that reported to Ehrlichman, "to get out of the country." Hunt's name and phone number were carried by the arrested burglars. Ehrlichman flatly denied making any such suggestion; all he knew about the topic, he said, was that Charles W. Colson, a White House special counsel, claimed that Dean had made such a suggestion to Colson.
PRESSURED CIA TO INHIBIT FBI PROBE.
Former CIA Director Richard Helms, Deputy CIA Director Vernon Walters, Former Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray and Dean have all testified in various forums that Ehrlichman and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman (as well as Dean) tried to get the FBI to limit its investigation of Watergate on the theory that it might expose covert operations of the CIA.
Helms claims that he quickly reassured Ehrlichman and Haldeman at a meeting on June 23, 1972, that the CIA had no involvement at all with Watergate. Walters testified that the White House aides expressed special interest in the FBI's investigation in Mexico, where Nixon campaign funds used by the burglars had been channeled to conceal their source. Helms said Haldeman flatly ordered that the FBI not push the investigation into Mexico. Walters said he did ask Gray to go slow on the Mexican connection, but Gray insisted he could not do so without a written declaration that some CIA operation in Mexico could be compromised. Walters replied that he could not supply this because it would not be true.