Word: petersen
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...office and discarded them in a "burn bag" to be destroyed. Although some other FBI officials do not believe him, Gray claimed he did not even look at the papers to see what he was burning. Gray contends that he learned their contents only last month from Henry Petersen, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division. According to Gray, Dean told Petersen that the papers included 1) some of Hunt's reports on Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy's accident at Chappaquiddick Island, and 2) some fake State Department cables contrived by Hunt to implicate President...
There was a rising clamor within the Justice Department itself for Petersen, at least, to remove himself from the case, as Attorney General Richard Kleindienst had done. A Democrat and former FBI clerk, Petersen shifted to the Justice Department in 1951 and rose steadily, especially under the more recent direction of former Attorney General John Mitchell...
Several career attorneys in the department told TIME that Petersen will be asked to testify as a witness in any trial involving White House aides because he had regular discussions with them about Watergate in the course of his investigation. Thus it is wrong for him, they argue, to continue to direct the probe and to read the transcripts of the secret grand jury proceedings. In his present position Petersen will have a decisive role in determining who shall be indicted and on what charges. So far, Petersen has rebuffed all suggestions from his subordinates that he withdraw...
After these charges and revelations by Magruder, the three Justice Department attorneys prosecuting the case?Earl J. Silbert, Seymour Glanzer and Donald E. Campbell?set up a meeting on Sunday, April 15, with their Justice Department superiors, Kleindienst and Petersen. The latter two, in turn, immediately asked to see Nixon. Explained one Justice official: "These findings had to be brought to the attention of Nixon to give him the opportunity to salvage the presidency from the shambles of the Watergate evidence...
...meeting with Kleindienst and Petersen in the Executive Office Building apparently moved Nixon to make his announcement of "major developments" two days later. The meeting also resulted in Kleindienst's decision to remove himself from further supervision of the case. He tried to keep this secret, but the word got out, and Kleindienst conceded that he had withdrawn because "persons with whom I have had personal and professional relationships" were being implicated. Newsmen took that to refer to 1) Mitchell, for whom Kleindienst had served as a deputy at the Justice Department and to whom he was greatly indebted...