On a hot summer day in 2011, I stood on the front porch of Senator Fred Thompson’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, and rang his doorbell. I had traveled to Alexandria from Memphis to interview Senator Thompson for a book I was writing about his mentor, Senator Howard Baker. I was accompanied by UT Law Professor Carl Pierce, who was then director of the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy, and I hoped his presence would give me a little credibility. After all, I am neither a journalist nor a scholar, but just a Tennessee trial lawyer who likes to tell stories. In this case, I wanted to hear stories from Senator Thompson about Howard Baker so that I could share them in my book.

Senator Thompson greeted Carl and me, and noticed that we were perspiring as if we were emerging from a sauna. Like the good Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, boy that he was, Senator Thompson offered us two glasses of iced tea.

We then sat down in his den for the start of the interview. Senator Thompson leaned back in his lounge chair and said with that booming voice, “I understand you’re here to talk about Howard.”

At this point I impulsively decided to have a little fun. In mock-seriousness I said, “Well, Senator, I know I told you that’s why I wanted to speak with you, but quite frankly, that’s not true. I’m not even writing a book about Senator Baker.”

At this point, Senator Thompson looked perplexed and frankly, irritated. Carl Pierce, who was not in on my joke, also looked somewhat stunned. I then said, “Senator, I’m actually writing a book about reverse mortgages.”

With that, Senator Fred howled in laughter and said, “Well, Bill, you’ve come to the right place!”

I was referring, of course, to the series of television commercials that Senator Thompson did over the last few years telling how senior citizens could supplement their retirement by cashing in on the equity in their homes.

But after this ice-breaker, the Senator and I got down to business, to discuss his hero, mentor and friend, Senator Howard Baker.

It was an easy interview. I just asked the Senator to tell me about how he had met Senator Baker and to share with me some stories about his friendship and work with him.

For the next couple of hours, I sat enthralled, sipping iced tea, as I listened to Senator Thompson tell the remarkable story about how he and Senator Baker shared a moment in history in the summer of 1973. Earlier that year, Fred Thompson was a young lawyer in Nashville trying to establish his private law practice. He had formerly been an assistant United States attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee and had served as Senator Baker’s Middle Tennessee campaign manager for the Senator’s re-election in 1972.

In early 1973, Senator Baker invited Senator Thompson to attend a speech he gave in Nashville to the Tennessee Accountants Association. At the conclusion of the speech, Senator Baker asked future-Senator Thompson if he would ride with him to the airport. Thompson then recalled the conversation he and Senator Baker had in route:

“It was a short ride to the airport, and the Senator came right to the point. ‘Fred,’ he said, ‘I’ve been appointed vice chairman of the Watergate Committee.’ My mind raced for facts I felt I should have known. I remember something in the papers about the resolution that had created the committee.”

Thompson recalls that Baker then went on saying, “I’m considering several people for minority counsel of the committee, and you’re one of them. I don’t know what the pay is, but it won’t be enough. It should last just a few months.”

Senator Thompson recalled that he was hesitant. He knew that “a few months” in Washington could be “a major career setback.”

He had no idea that his service as minority counsel of the Watergate Committee would lead to a fabulous career in law, politics, and even Hollywood.

While he really didn’t want the assignment, Senator Thompson told Senator Baker, “If you want me for the job, I’ll do it.”

Senator Thompson then told me the story about his work with Senator Baker on the Watergate Committee and how it ultimately led these two Tennessee lawyers to cross-examine two witnesses, asking each a very important question. That cross-examination of witnesses before the Watergate Committee ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

The first question was asked by Senator Baker on the morning of June 28, 1973. The witness was John Dean, former White House Counsel to the President. In what would become the most memorable moment of the hearings, Senator Baker asked Dean: “What did the President know, and when did the President know it?”

Senator Thompson would recall the moment: “It was kind of like ringing a bell on a cold winter morning. There was clarity there, and it was a common sense question, because that’s what everybody wanted to know.”

But the next important question was asked a few weeks later, on July 16, 1973, not by Senator Baker, but by minority counsel Fred Thompson. The witness was Alexander Butterfield, a former special assistant to President Nixon whose job had been to maintain a presidential log containing the notes and memoranda related to staff conversations in the Oval Office with the president.

“Mr. Butterfield,” Senator Thompson inquired, “are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?”

The Senate Caucus room grew silent as the witness waited a few seconds before responding. He then said, “I was aware of listening devices, yes,” Butterfield responded.

He would then testify that listening devices had been installed in the Oval Office, the Executive Office Building and the cabinet room. There were also listening devices on the telephones in the Lincoln Room and at the president’s office at Camp David.

The young Tennessee lawyer then continued his examination. “In as far as you know, are those tapes still available?”

“As far as I know,” Butterfield said.

Being the effective Tennessee lawyer he was, Fred Thompson knew the answer to the question before he ever asked it.

Thompson, and the Watergate Committee’s deputy minority counsel, Don Sanders, had developed a hunch during the Watergate investigation that President Nixon might have bugged his own office. The hunch came about when Fred Thompson had a long conversation with Fred Buzhardt, President Nixon’s lawyer. Buzhardt had given Fred Thompson in great detail the White House version of the president’s conversation with John Dean to discredit his testimony. Thompson thought it sounded a little too detailed. How, he wondered, could Buzhardt provide such specific information about the president’s supposedly private conversations with Dean and other aides? Had these conversations been recorded?

Continuing his investigation, Senator Thompson had met privately with Alexander Butterfield and asked him the question he would ultimately ask before the Watergate Committee, “Do you have any basis for the implication in John Dean’s testimony that conversations in the Oval Office were recorded?”

After hesitating a moment, Alexander Butterfield replied, “Well, I was afraid you might ask me that question.” Butterfield then went on to disclose the testimony he would give when Senator Thompson cross-examined him in a nationally televised hearing of the Watergate Committee.

The two questions by these Tennessee lawyers led ultimately to a legal battle over the production of the tapes at issue and the United States Supreme Court decision in United States v. Nixon, and then of course to President Nixon’s resignation on Aug. 8, 1974.

In 1974, Thompson returned to Nashville where he would re-ignite his successful career in the private practice of law.

In 1977, he would represent Marie Ragghianti, the former Tennessee Parole Board Chair, who was fired for refusing to release felons after they had bribed aides to Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton to obtain clemency. Thompson’s lawsuit on behalf of Ragghianti helped expose the pardons-for-pay scheme that led to Governor Blanton’s removal from office in January of 1979.

In 1994, Fred Thompson would follow his mentor, Howard Baker, to the United States Senate, serving there until 2003.

And after leaving the United States Senate, he found the role of his lifetime, playing Manhattan District Attorney Arthur Branch in the NBC television series Law & Order.

I decided to end my interview with Senator Thompson the way it began — with an attempt at humor. I asked him, “Senator, have you seen that commercial in which an actor says, ‘I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV’?”

Senator Thompson responded that he had. I then added, “Well maybe on those reverse mortgage commercials you ought to say, ‘I’m a lawyer and I play one on TV!’”

The Senator laughed once again, and we said goodbye.

Fred Thompson died on Nov. 1 at the age of 73.

Millions of Americans will remember him for his political career, his legal career — both real and fictional — and yes, for his commercials for reverse mortgages.

But I will remember him and his hero, Senator Howard Baker, as two great Tennessee lawyers who made history in the summer of 1973 by the cross-examination of witnesses in a nationally televised hearing. Yes, these two Tennessee trial lawyers made history by asking, “What did the president know, and when did he record it?”

BILL HALTOM is a shareholder with the firm of Lewis Thomason. He is a past president of the Tennessee Bar Association and a past president of the Memphis Bar Association. Read his blog at www.billhaltom.com.