Susan Stamberg

I thought ahead, how am I going to do this interview?

How will I do it?

If I do it in a prosecutorial fashion...

It'll be, you ever see two dogs worrying over a towel?

You know, each gets the towel and they shake their heads back and forth.

And that's what it'll be.

Plus, I don't have that kind of mind.

I cannot commit to memory every page of the White House transcripts and be able to say to him, but Mr. Ehrlichman on the 3rd of June, you said blap it on the 27th.

I just can't.

My mind doesn't work that way.

So I sort of discarded all of that and thought, I'll do what I can do.

And that is ask him extremely soft-sounding questions, which ended up, you know, things like, Mr. Aragon, tell me what happens when you go, you live in Santa Fe, and you drive up to a gas station for gas.

You drive your car and you say, fill them up, and they realize who you are.

What's the reaction you get?

Questions, just real personal ones like that.

Not, aren't you ashamed of yourself for leading the nation down this thorny path?

None of that.

Just, you know, what's it like for you?

How's your life?

And it ended, I don't remember the specific question that I asked, but it ended with something that he said that was more revealing to me about Watergate than I could have gotten with seven hours of, you know, really mean questions.