New and events of the Philadelphia Bar Asso.
Issue link: https://thephiladelphialawyer.epubxp.com/i/574228
the philadelphia lawyer Fall 2015 39 Headquarters (Committee to Re-Elect the President), and a few blocks from the then unknown, but soon to be legendary Watergate Hotel and Office Building. Just seven days after I arrived in Washington to work for this president, a number of his "employees" were caught burglarizing and bugging the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate on the evening of June 17, 1972. I, along with most of the country, did not appreciate the significance of all the police lights, sirens and activity taking place near my new home that evening. As an innocent 17-year-old, for all I knew this was a normal hot summer night in our nation's capital. Woodward and Bernstein were soon on the case, and, as they say, the rest is history, eventually leading to the resignation of the president for whom I had just started working. Maureen "Mo" Biner left the commission in early 1972 and married John Dean that October. She gained fame the next summer as she appeared on TV at the Senate Watergate Hearings, the icy blonde, calmly, coolly standing by her man, as her husband proceeded to spill the beans about Nixon's involvement in and knowledge of the Watergate burglary/bugging and cover up disclosing "the cancer on the presidency." Dean has written that it was Mo who prompted him to tell the truth about Nixon. She had secured her position with the NCMDA, as many do in Washington, not due solely to her qualifications and credentials, but because she knew someone, or at least was the girlfriend of someone who knew someone. John Dean was friends with Mike Sonnenreich, the NCMDA executive director, and had had Sonnenreich appointed to that position. So when John Dean, counsel to the president, asked him to find a job for Mo, it was a done deal. I had to perform in public for the commission to get my job. In 1972, Washington was a small, intimate town with little security. One could walk into almost any building, including the U.S. Capitol, with no security screening, and one often encountered the famous and powerful. One night on my walk home from work, as I stood on a corner of Pennsylvania Avenue, a long, blue limo pulled up to the light right in front of me. Not two feet from me, with window down, sat U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell and his not yet infamous wife, Martha. I said "Good evening, Mrs. Mitchell and Mr. Attorney General," to which they graciously responded, "Good evening, young man." Three years later he would be convicted of obstruction of justice, conspiracy and perjury for his role in the Watergate break-in and cover up. Martha would earn the moniker "Mouth of the South" for her odd statements to the press about Watergate, though much of what she said turned out to be true. The commission issued its final report to the president the next year in March 1973, including some of my work. By that time, Nixon was distracted daily with new revelations about Watergate and the final withdrawal of the last U.S. ground troops from Vietnam. As he did with the first commission report, Nixon shelved his copy. To my knowledge, few if any of its recommendations were ever implemented. It is, however, nice to see at least one, the decriminalization of marijuana, being resurrected 43 years later. M. Kelly Tillery (tilleryk@pepperlaw.com), a partner with Pepper Hamilton LLP, is a member of the editorial board of The Philadelphia Lawyer. One could walk into almost any building, including the U.S. Capitol, with no security screening, and one often encountered the famous and powerful.