by Michael Liss
Damp and clammy. Last week was the 49th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation. Go back to your half-forgotten copy of Woodward and Bernstein’s The Final Days, or John Dean’s Blind Ambition, or Teddy White’s Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon, turn pages, browse a bit, and see if you don’t feel just a little damp and clammy.
Then, do as I did and try RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, where the former President gives explanations that are a lot like wargaming, and have those feelings intensify. If you are of a certain age, you can recall your own memories and emotions as history was being made. Perhaps you will also recall the sense of confusion, a growing anger, and then relief, as the “System” sputtered and lurched, moved backwards and forwards, and finally, with all its mightiness, resolved itself and decisively brought it all to a close.
There stood Richard Nixon, less than two years after a smashing landslide of a reelection victory, a solitary figure on a helicopter’s steps, his hands outstretched for last time, to be carried away to political oblivion.
What brought him there?
We are never really going to understand it all. We know he was a Cold War warrior who chased Communists; we know he was a law-and-order type; we know he could be defensive, paranoid, self-pitying. We know he was capable of real accomplishment—Nixon’s foreign policy achievements were hard-earned and real, and, despite his generally conservative views, he was probably the most environment-friendly Republican President outside of Teddy Roosevelt. We also know he was capable of picking very able men—Elliot Richardson, George Herbert Walker Bush, and Henry Kissinger. But too often, he reached out for those of lesser quality, men who would be team players, with Richard Nixon the team. One of the tragedies of Watergate is that it exposed what can happen to a government when it is managed by people who see their duty to something other than the Constitution.
If Nixon remains, and will continue to remain, a bit unfathomable, consider that his times were different. Taking office in 1969, he found a country seething with anger on cultural issues, race, and an unpopular war, and prone to violence and even assassination. He’d harnessed some of that dark energy in getting elected, and then he had to tame it. It’s not that difficult to see how this hard-headed man with a taste for autocracy would have used those conditions as an excuse to abuse his power.
This is a good moment to talk a bit about what Congress was like, since it was about to play an unexpected role. As a body, it was a much more cohesive, much less reflexively partisan place than anything we’ve since come to experience as a norm. Democratic holds on the House and Senate were made possible by a large cohort of very conservative Southerners. At the same time, there were still a substantial number of Republican moderates, particularly but not exclusively from the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states. Passing legislation meant compromises, regardless of actual raw numbers. Congress was still very much a private men’s club—the 93rd Congress, the one that would eventually decide Nixon’s fate, contained just 16 women, all in the House. A lot of the men were veterans, and, despite their political backgrounds, they shared certain experiences that bridged ideological barriers. Coalition-building was not only essential, but also seen as desirable. One of the most striking aspects of the Congressional approach to the Watergate investigation and the ultimate movement towards impeachment was that it involved the contributions of more than just the headliners like Howard Baker (“what did the President know and when did he know it?”). While there were plenty of partisans, people took their obligations seriously; they examined the evidence carefully; they tried to distinguish between mere politics and potentially criminal activity.
To view Nixon’s descent, we have to start somewhere, and a good place is June 13, 1971, marking The New York Times’ publication of the first leaked excerpts from the Pentagon Papers. Within a few days, Nixon proceeds to authorize the creation of a special investigation unit, headed by his White House Domestic Affairs Advisor John Ehrlichman, and including, among others, H. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. Also in the know are H.R. (Bob) Haldeman (Nixon’s Chief of Staff), and John Dean (White House Counsel). Although no one could possibly have foreseen it at the time, a butterfly has just flapped its wings. It would take years, but a hurricane would result.
The group’s informal name is “The Plumbers.”
August 11, 1971. Ehrlichman approves a memo written by two other members, Egil Krogh (his Deputy COS) and David Young (a Special Assistant to the National Security Administration) to obtain the “leaker” Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatric records. On September 3, 1971, Hunt, Liddy and a former FBI and CIA operative, Bernard Barker, with two others, break into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. Along for the ride are some James Bond-like spy goods from the CIA.
January 7, 1972. At a meeting in then-Attorney General John Mitchell’s office attended by Jeb Stuart Magruder (head of the Committee for the Re-election of the President), Liddy, and Dean, Liddy floats a $1 million plan which, according to Mitchell, includes “mugging squads, kidnapping schemes, prostitutes to compromise the opposition, and electronic surveillance.” To the other listeners, this seems a bit extravagant, and they urge him to come up with something more “realistic.” The four are back on February 4th to discuss a pared-back approach that includes wiretapping and photography. Mitchell doesn’t yet greenlight it, but, according to Magruder, he does select as a target the Democratic National Committee’s office in the Watergate. There is yet a third meeting and a third Liddy plan, this one for $250,000, which Magruder later says Mitchell approved (Mitchell disputed this).
Where were they getting all this money (and, for 1972, it’s a lot of money)? From all kinds of sources. Two stand out. Contributors in Texas sent $89K, routed through a Mexican bank to avoid disclosure rules. $200K came from Wall Street financier Robert Vesco, then under investigation for fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The money moved around. The $89K, plus an additional $25K (probably from Vesco’s money), went to a firm in Miami run by Bernard Barker. Barker apparently withdrew the money in $100 bills, to be used for next steps.
May 28, 1972. While Nixon is in Moscow, his plumbers are doing some renovations. The DNC’s office is penetrated by the Hunt-Liddy teams and eavesdropping devices are installed.
June 17, 1972. For whatever reason, they press their luck, and five men, including Barker and James McCord, a former CIA agent now head of security for Nixon’s Reelection Committee, make a second visit. A private security guard in the building discovers them, calls the police, and arrests are made. The police recover cameras, more eavesdropping equipment, and, from Barker, $2,300 in cash, mostly in sequenced $100s. Two days later, Press Secretary Ron Ziegler refuses to comment on what he calls “a third-rate burglary.”
Whatever rate of burglary the June 17th break-in might have been, the White House now knows it has a problem. On June 19, Maurice Stans, formerly Commerce Secretary, then CRP’s finance chief, hands over $75,000 to one of Nixon’s attorneys, Herbert Kalmbach. Kalmbach needs that cash (and a lot more) to pay hush money.
While all this is going on, George McGovern takes the Democratic nomination and becomes an exemplar for campaign incompetence. Nixon’s approval rating is 56-33, he’s running away with the election, but the waters are beginning to rise, and the press is getting interested. On June 21st, Herblock, the great political cartoonist for The Washington Post, publishes one depicting Mitchell, Nixon, and Richard Kleindienst (then Attorney General), titled “Remember, We Don’t Talk Till We Get A Lawyer.” Around the same time, a couple of green, under-30 reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, are assigned to investigate the break-in.
August 29, 1972. Nixon, in response to questioning, insists that John Dean has been tasked with investigating inside the White House, and has pronounced everyone clean. “What really hurts is if you try to cover it up.” This so-called Dean investigation had never occurred.
Nothing is stopping the Nixon re-election train. On September 15, Hunt, Liddy, McCord, Barker, and three others present in the June 17th break-in are indicted by a federal grand jury. No impact. On October 10th, The Washington Post reports that the Watergate break-in was part of a comprehensive plan of sabotage and spying conducted on behalf of Nixon’s campaign, at least partially run out of the White House. A few days later, they identify Haldeman as having been authorized to draw from a secret slush fund to pay for it. No impact.
An “October Surprise” occurs—Kissinger, who has been negotiating with the North Vietnamese, announces that “peace is at hand.” It isn’t, but the announcement surely doesn’t hurt the campaign. The Nixon-Agnew ticket absolutely crushes McGovern-Shriver. Yet, the Democrats remain in control of the House and even flip a few Senate seats, including one in Delaware (I’ll leave the identity of that new Senator to you). Two more things that are to have significant repercussions: First, on October 16, 1972, Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs, then House Majority Leader, is on a fundraising trip in Alaska with Representative Nick Begich when their plane goes down, never to be found. Boggs is ultimately declared dead, and his Deputy, Tip O’Neill becomes Majority Leader in the new Congress. That changes the leadership dynamic a bit, making it slightly more partisan. Second, also in the new Congress, was Elizabeth Holtzman, who had done an “AOC”—she had primaried and defeated Brooklyn Congressman Emmanuel Celler, a 50-year veteran of the House, who also, coincidentally, had been the Chairman of the House Judiciary. Swapping in Holtzman not only brings in a more liberal, less go-along-get-along personality, it also means the 93rd Congress would have a new Judiciary Chair, a quiet, fairly obscure, not terribly partisan gentleman from New Jersey, Peter Rodino.
At the turn of the new year, Nixon should have been riding high. His landslide was one of the greatest in history. By the end of January, the Vietnam War is effectively over, and his approval rating hits 67%. But, inside courtrooms, the White House, and now in Congress, a second war is going on.
On January 3, 1973, Hunt demands more money and a pardon. Not getting it, he pleads guilty along with Barker and three others. On January 11, 1973, at the behest of the White House, a security operative named Jack Caulfield meets with McCord on a Virginia parkway to offer him clemency. Three days later, they meet again. In the second conversation, Caulfield apparently tells McCord that he needs to play ball because the scandal could bring down the government. On January 30, 1973, Liddy and McCord are convicted. Through all this noise, one additional quiet moment that would have enormous future repercussions—Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina agrees to chair the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities.
February 2, 1973. Judge John Sirica, who had presided over the trial of the Watergate burglars, announces he’s not satisfied that the entire story has been told. On March 19, McCord privately writes to Sirica, asserting that pressure to stay quiet had been brought to bear on the defendants from higher-ups and that perjury had been committed. Sirica releases this on March 23rd, but, in between—on March 21st—Hunt has a White House meeting, after which arrangements for a $75,000 payment are made. Also on March 21st, John Dean meets privately with Nixon, informing him: “We have a cancer within, close to the Presidency, that’s growing.”
Just for a moment, remember where we are in time—April Fool’s Day, 16 months to go in Nixon’s Presidency. There are a lot of wheels spinning, all asynchronously. Sam Ervin is just getting started; the House hasn’t been heard from; newspaper reporters are nipping at people’s heels. Yet, right now, what’s public is news of some possible campaign finance violations, a cranky judge who knows he’s been lied to, and a lot of what looks like unconnected cloak-and-dagger activity done by some very motley types. Of course, there is a connection, and, as Dean indicated to Nixon on March 21st, “one, we are being blackmailed, two, people are going to start perjuring themselves.”
Something has to change, and it does. On April 12th, Magruder, tortured by his conscience, drinking heavily, and taking tranquilizers, confesses perjury to federal prosecutors and begins to cooperate with them.
On April 17th, Nixon announces new progress in an investigation, still maintaining the fiction that whoever did these things is remote from the center. Later that day, Ziegler creates an enduring meme when he says all previous White House statements about Watergate are “inoperative.”
Unfortunately for both Ziegler and Nixon, things have started to move. Ordinary citizens, beyond the partisans and the conspiracy junkies, are starting to take notice. They may not know anything hard, but they sense a stench. Nixon’s approval rating drops to 48%. On April 30th, he announces that Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Kleindienst have resigned, and John Dean fired. Alexander Haig becomes the new Chief of Staff. Seeking closure and the appearance of probity, Nixon makes a mistake (in hindsight) by nominating Elliot Richardson, the then-Secretary of Defense, as new Attorney General. Richardson announces he will appoint a special prosecutor. A couple of weeks later, Archibald Cox is named to the position.
May 17, 1973. Senator Sam Ervin gavels in the (televised) Senate Watergate hearings. Again, there is still not enough public information to make this into much more than a normal Senate hearing looking over a scandal, but for those who tune in, its formality, its tone, and the wonky pleasure of Senator Sam brandishing his copy of the Constitution makes for good viewing. It also makes for a critical revelation: On June 16, 1973, a breakthrough. Alexander Butterfield, a White House aide, casually testifies that there is a White House recording system…and there are tapes.
Tapes! A chance to hear what was actually going on when the President was involved in a conversation. Cox makes an immediate request, and is denied, with Nixon talking about separation of powers. Instead, on August 22nd, Nixon holds his first press conference in five months, accepts full responsibility, but characterizes it as “blood under the bridge.” Nixon is looking to compartmentalize, to preempt further discussion.
While all this is going on, Nixon has a bit of excruciatingly bad luck in his own backyard. In April, his pugnacious (and one of his most effective surrogates) Vice President Spiro Agnew informs him he’s under investigation for taking kickbacks. He assures Nixon it’s all politics, there’s no “there” there. The problem is that Agnew had been getting a piece of the action from Maryland contractors involved in public works projects for years—and into his Vice-Presidency. The news becomes public in the first week of August, after Agnew receives formal notice from George Beall, the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore.
Agnew denounces the charges as politically motivated, claims he has the support of the White House (he doesn’t, in fact, Haig had rather pointedly asked him to resign). The White House is mortified, not just because of the spectacle of corruption, but also because Agnew is saying he cannot be indicted while in office. This last is unhelpful to Nixon, as he knows it is a potential line of defense for himself, and he does not want it tested (and possibly wasted) in the courts.
Running parallel to these concerns is one of deep significance to Richardson. Richard Nixon is not immortal, either physically (he’d had a health scare in April) or politically. He is less than a year into his second term; imagine the implications of Agnew (who Richardson knows is provably guilty) succeeding to the Presidency for the last three years.
We have a tendency now to look at Agnew as an obnoxious clown, but he was actually a clever man. He knows he has a constituency—polling among Republicans show him leading in a hypothetical primary for the 1976 nomination. He also knows his lawyers can try to drag out the Maryland proceeding, and the only ways he can be pushed out of the office are either to be impeached and convicted by the Senate, or (perhaps, it wasn’t entirely clear) to be convicted in the Maryland case. Both these paths would take time and neither would be an absolute certainty. But he makes a mistake—in late September, at a speech before the Agnew-friendly National Federation of Republican Women, he lashes out at the DOJ (fine), but goes off script, gets personal, and names a name, Henry Peterson.
What Agnew doesn’t know is that he has chosen his target particularly poorly. Peterson (inappropriately) had been acting as a quiet backchannel between Nixon and the DOJ, giving him intelligence about DOJ thinking and findings and particularly regarding the Watergate Grand Jury. Upon hearing about Agnew’s remarks, Nixon is furious, and the message from the White House is quick and curt: get going on going—or there will be no deals in the criminal case. Agnew takes the hint, sends his lawyers back in, and a deal is struck. Agnew will resign, not face jail time, and the DOJ will have its investigatory report made public. On October 11th, Agnew, in court and flanked by his lawyers, brings another phrase into the American political lexicon—“Nolo Contendere.” At the very same time, another of his attorneys is handing Henry Kissinger Agnew’s resignation.
Two days later, Nixon nominates Gerald Ford, quite possibly the most popular thing he’s done in some time. He follows it with his most controversial moment—the October 20th Saturday Night Massacre. In response to Cox’s refusal to back down on access to the tapes, Nixon cleans house. He orders Richardson to fire Cox, but Richardson resigns in protest, and then the next in line, William Ruckelshaus, is fired for refusing. A limo is sent to fetch the Solicitor General, Robert Bork. Bork is sworn in as Acting AG, and promptly fires Cox. Ziegler then announces the firings and resignations…and the elimination of the Special Prosecutor’s office.
The whole thing has been an incredible misjudgment. Nixon has ignored the advice of his only real adult advisor, Haig, and has instead kicked a hornet’s nest. The public’s attitude swiftly shifts (polling now shows that half the country supports Impeachment, and Nixon’s general approval sinks to 27%). Firing the Special Prosecutor radically alters the contours of the debate, and certainly impels the House Judiciary Committee to get more serious about discussing possible impeachment procedures. Nixon tries to calm the waters—he appoints William Saxbe as his fourth AG, and Saxbe appoints Leon Jaworski as Special Prosecutor. And the White House agrees to provide the tapes—some tapes, as it turns out.
New Special Prosecutor or not, the tapes continue to be a flashpoint and things go from bad to worse. First, the White House announces that two of the nine tapes due to go to Judge Sirica—have been lost. Then, on November 14th, White House lawyers learn of what would become yet another meme, the “18 ½ minute gap.” Through what sound technicians later reported as five separate erasures, 18 ½ minutes of what had to have been a crucial meeting between Nixon and Haldeman on June 20, 1972 are gone. June 20th was just three days after the break-in, and right after Campaign Finance Chief Maurice Stans had delivered $75,000 to Kalmbach for hush money.
The White House bungles it further by sending Rose Mary Woods, the President’s private secretary, to explain how she might have accidentally caused the erasures. A picture of her, stretched out like a second baseman on a steal reaching for the ball with one hand and the incoming runner with the other cause more mockery than anything else.
Congress (mercifully) goes on recess, but, when it returns, it begins anew, and, on February 6, 1974, the House votes 410-4 to proceed with the impeachment investigation and to give the House Judiciary Committee subpoena powers. The margin is quite extraordinary and should have been seen by Nixon as a harbinger of bad times ahead.
There is too much for the White House to handle. While an actual impeachment vote taken on February 6th might have led to an acquittal, the hits keep coming in. March 1st brings the indictment of seven former Administration officials, including Mitchell, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman, on charges of conspiring to cover up the Watergate burglary. This is a key shift—we are no longer with the operatives who broke in. Instead, these are the men, often operating from inside the White House, who afterward tried to bury the story. It is learned later that the grand jury has also named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. A few days later, more indictments are issued, for the burglary of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. Finally, a massive public relations misjudgment that might have been avoided with better staffing: On April 30, 1974, seven months after the Saturday Night Massacre, 1239 pages of redacted transcripts are released, and new memes like “expletive deleted” enter the national vocabulary.
It’s very difficult to go back half a century and recreate the public’s reaction to this, but the transcripts are devoured, diced up, excerpted in the print media, and read out loud on television. They aren’t necessarily comprehensively incriminating, but there is a coarseness, a meanness, that show the President and his men as petty, small, casually cruel people, unfit to lead the country.
The White House clearly thought putting out material in bulk would be exculpatory and seems surprised by the reaction. Worse news follows as word comes in from Congress that Nixon’s support is slipping in both chambers. On May 7th, the President’s new lawyer, James St. Clair, announces that no more tapes will be turned over to either Jaworski’s office or the House Judiciary Committee. St. Clair invites a confrontation, and he gets it. On May 24th, Jaworski goes directly to the Supreme Court to ask it to decide whether a President can withhold evidence. SCOTUS agrees to take the case a week later.
Early June brings another blow to Nixon’s image, as his status as an unindicted co-conspirator is reported. One more unpleasant phrase passes into the public vocabulary. In the meantime, while the high-level battle between the President’s counsel and the Special Prosecutor continues, the other wheels of justice keep grinding, and they grind on increasingly big fish. More guilty pleas, more adverse judgments, more sentencings for more people for more crimes. Kleindienst, Magruder, Colson, Ehrlichman (again). People at or very close to the center of power.
The country waits on the Supreme Court. There is debate in Nixon’s inner circle over whether an adverse decision should be obeyed. Nixon still clings to Executive Privilege and separation-of-powers arguments. St. Clair expresses optimism about the success of his presentation before the Justices.
July 24th is a shocker for Nixon. The Supreme Court, by an 8-0 margin, including three of his own appointees, rules for Jaworski. 64 tapes have to be released, 63 of them containing conversations between Nixon and White House staff. The same day, the House Impeachment Committee begins debate on the resolutions, each person limited to 15 minutes. Nixon diehards make their last stand, but others, who had been sympathetic to him, recognize that his conduct went too far. On July 27th, the Committee starts to vote. 27-11 on obstruction. 28-10 on abuse of power to violate citizens’ constitutional rights. The vote on defying Congressional subpoenas is much narrower, 21-17, and two counts peripheral to Watergate are roundly rejected. The Committee has made important distinctions between the types of conduct charged, and it has done its duty. The full House would vote on it, and House Minority leader John Rhodes (privately) estimated that there could be up to 300 opting for impeachment, where only a majority would be needed.
While this is going on, Nixon is frozen. He says he will comply with the production order, but seriously considers burning the tapes. His office announces he would need time to go through them before releasing them to the public. He is drinking heavily, probably medicated, and literally talking to pictures of ex-Presidents hanging on the walls. There are concerns he will try to involve the military in maintaining himself in office. His erratic behavior alarms everyone; some worry he will take his own life. His Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig, who had basically been keeping the government together over the prior few months, is now also being inundated with requests for pardons.
The end is very close. It has crept up on Nixon, and now it grabs him by the shoulders and shakes. He is, essentially, alone. A man with few intimates, and, as President, no peers, he had largely surrounded himself with second and third-raters who were yes men. August 5th brings a huge blow. He finally releases three more transcripts, from June 23, 1972. Conversations between him and Haldeman clearly show that Nixon had personally directed efforts to hide the involvement of the White House and key aides in the break-in, and devised strategies to mislead the FBI in their investigation. This is the smoking gun, and it blows apart his defense.
On August 6th, his remaining support collapses. Angry House members and Senators call for his resignation, others express their disgust at being misled for so long. Nixon informs his Cabinet that he wants to see the process through to the end, but John Rhodes tells a news conference that the June 23rd transcripts have convinced him to vote for impeachment. The 10 Nixon diehards on the House Judiciary who voted against all counts jointly announce they have flipped and would vote in favor of at least one charge.
August 7th, the final blow. Rhodes, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, and Barry Goldwater, perhaps the most respected Republican in Congress, arrive at the White House to deliver the final word from Congress. To save face, they deny having taken the head counts they all made before coming (perhaps 10 “no” votes for impeachment in the House, perhaps 15 votes for acquittal in the Senate), but Nixon understands the numbers would be grim—a macabre landslide.
If Nixon has any hope left, the three men take it from him. On the evening of August 8th, Nixon makes his 37th and last speech from the Oval Office. He will resign, effective August 9th.
From such heights to such an end. How did it all happen? Perhaps the journalist Haynes Johnson said it best: “The tragedy lies in Nixon himself. When America finally began to trust Richard Nixon, Richard Nixon found himself incapable of trusting America and its institutions.”
Notes: There is an enormous bibliography of Nixon and Watergate-related material. In addition to the books I cited at the top, you might also want to look at a more recent one by Garrett Graff (Watergate: A New History), recommended by Professor Phillip Klinkner of Hamilton College.
There are also digital archives where you can access articles and hear those tapes, including:
UVA’s The Miller Center https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/secret-white-house-tapes
The Richard Nixon Presidential Library System https://www.youtube.com/@RichardNixonLibrary/videos