Taking a Step Closer to Impeachment

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For a student of history and politics, even one as young as I was then, the Watergate period was a fascinating time in America.

In hindsight, it seems so different than it did when it happened. It turned out to be a textbook example of how the system should work — a confirmation, really, of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers.

But at the time, no one really knew how it would play out. Right up until Richard Nixon decided to resign — a conclusion that, I believe, became inevitable when he lost U.S. v. Nixon — no one really knew what he was going to do. I don't think even he knew what he would do. Certainly, if his original plan had gone as he expected, the whole matter would have been a distant memory by this time in 1974. But my sense was that, after the existence of the White House taping system was revealed to the public, he was winging it.

Maybe that was appropriate. Nixon was such a loner, anyway. He never really seemed to take anyone into his confidence, and I have always believed that he came to the conclusion that he had to resign on his own, using whatever logic and reasoning had guided his steps as an adult.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress were put in an uncomfortable position — having to defend a president who was liked by few and increasingly appeared to be guilty. The anguish of Republicans was evident in the words of Rep. Lawrence Hogan of Maryland, the only Republican on the committee to support all three of the articles of impeachment that were approved.

"The thing that's so appalling to me," Hogan told his colleagues, "is that the president, when this whole idea was suggested to him, didn't, in righteous indignation, rise up and say, 'Get out of here, you're in the office of the president of the United States. How can you talk about blackmail and bribery and keeping witnesses silent? This is the presidency of the United States.' But my president didn't do that. He sat there, and he worked and worked to try to cover this thing up so it wouldn't come to light."

Hogan may have felt freer to vote his conscience than his other Republican colleagues. Although his district had given Nixon 57% of its vote when he sought re–election in 1972, it was and is a heavily Democratic district (Steny Hoyer has represented the district for more than 30 years and was the majority leader under Nancy Pelosi), and it seemed likely to vote Hogan out in what was shaping up to be a Democratic year.

Anyway, Hogan was leaving the House to run for governor; he was unsuccessful.

In the summer of 1974, he was the only Republican to vote for all three articles of impeachment that were adopted by the Judiciary Committee.

Forty years ago today, as the nation watched, the House Judiciary Committee approved an article of impeachment against the president of the United States. It would approve three articles altogether. On Saturday, July 27, 1974, the Judiciary Committee voted, 27–11, in favor of the first article of impeachment, charging Nixon with obstruction of justice for his role in the Watergate coverup.

"It was almost 7 in the evening when [chairman Peter] Rodino called for the vote on Article One," wrote Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. "As the camera moved from one member to the next, down the order from senior to junior, each face was an emotionless mask."

On Monday, July 29, 1974, the members of the committee voted, 28–10, for an article of impeachment charging Nixon with abuse of power for his misuse of the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service and the Department of Justice.

On Tuesday, July 30, 1974, the members of the committee voted, 21–17, for a third article of impeachment charging Nixon with contempt of Congress.

A Cold Case Turns 40

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It was 40 years ago today that a man known to history primarily as D.B. Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines 727, demanded $200,000 and parachuted from the plane into legend somewhere between Portland, Ore., and Seattle.

The conventional wisdom for these last four decades has been that Cooper (who actually purchased his ticket under the apparent alias of Dan Cooper, but, because of miscommunication, is remembered almost exclusively as D.B. Cooper) couldn't have survived the jump, given the terrain and the weather at the time — and the fact that he was wearing an ordinary business suit that offered little protection against the subzero temperatures.

But, if he did not survive, no sign of his remains have been found, and neither has any sign of the money he jumped with — except for a few thousand dollars found in 1980 that are said to have been part of the ransom that was paid to Cooper.

The balance — nearly $195,000 — remains unaccounted for.

So, 40 years later, Cooper still commands the attention of the FBI, which has maintained an active investigation and continues to follow up on leads, however remote they may seem. Special Agent Larry Carr has been heading a citizens' research unit for nearly five years; that unit recently caused a bit of a stir when it was revealed that traces of pure titanium, aluminum, stainless steel and bismuth had been found on the neck tie Cooper left on the airplane.

There was also a claim made by a woman that Cooper was her uncle.

As Gar Swaffar of Digital Journal writes, those traces did provide some clues — not about where Cooper was when he leaped into popular lore on that cold, stormy night 40 years ago but where he came from.

"The primary use of pure titanium at the time was in the chemical industry," notes Swaffar, "and the other place it would be found was in the facility producing the titanium."

Swaffar doesn't really talk about bismuth, which may be the least familiar to most people. It has recently been found to be slightly radioactive, but that would not have been known to the people of 1971 — so, while the introduction of radioactivity into the conversation may invite all sorts of sinister thoughts, one must remember to focus on how bismuth was used in the early 1970s if one expects it to serve as a legitimate clue to Cooper's origin.

Its presence on anything in 1971 suggests to me a link to possibly cosmetics and some over–the–counter medicines like Pepto–Bismol (in which small traces of bismuth can be found).

Anyway, the examination of that trace evidence appears to have yielded nothing that could help close the book on the story of D.B. Cooper — and the woman's claim to be the niece of a man her family always called "L.D." appears to have been discredited as well.

Today, 40 years after his daring jump, D.B. Cooper's fate is still as mysterious as it was in 1971. Did he survive the jump? If he did, did he get away with the rest of the money? And, if he did not, what happened to the money? And what happened to his remains?

The world may never know.

Hate Crimes Decline

David Gibson, the religion reporter for Politics Daily, wrote last month that, according to the FBI, "the number of reported hate crimes dropped significantly in 2009 from the previous year, to their lowest point in more than 15 years."

This happened, Gibson observed, "despite the deepening recession and growing social tensions."

And that's a good thing — if you can verify that hate–inspired crimes actually did drop, but that isn't as easy to verify as you might think.

I'll grant you that sometimes it's obvious — like that case a dozen years or so ago when the black man was dragged to his death by a group of white men in a pickup truck.

Sometimes it's a matter of suspicion. You may think that a crime was motivated by hate because the victim(s) belonged to a particular race or religion or gender — but suspicion alone is not sufficient to charge anyone with a crime, whatever the motivation.

I would argue that, at least to a degree, all crimes are hate crimes so I'm not sure how I feel about the special designation in the criminal code for hate crimes.

I understand what lawmakers are trying to do, but it seems to me that it is an invitation for the implementation of George Orwell's Thought Police — and I really don't believe that is what anyone really wants in America.

The laws already regulate — as much as is possible — the actions of the citizens. Do we also want to regulate the people's thoughts?

Gibson reports that the faithful are hailing the news, which is to be expected, I guess, in this season of love and hope and joy.

"[R]eligious groups are giving thanks for the decline," Gibson writes, "even if they have no clear explanations for the drop."

I guess no explanations are needed — except, perhaps, in Room 101.

The Death of Deep Throat

For three decades, he was a man of mystery, known only as "Deep Throat," the man who blew the whistle on the Nixon White House.

The world speculated endlessly about his identity until he made the decision, with input from his family, to reveal it in 2005.

Three and a half years later, Mark Felt died Thursday at the age of 95, apparently of congestive heart failure.

When Felt broke his silence, "Vanity Fair" broke the news to the world in an article headlined "I'm the Guy They Called Deep Throat."

Felt's family insisted on calling him an "American hero" for his contributions to the Watergate investigation as "Deep Throat" while associate director of the FBI, and he was praised by others as well. Among his motives, reportedly, was the belief that the revelation would be lucrative, helping to pay for his grandchildren's education.

Still others were not nearly as charitable, alleging less than altruistic reasons for blowing the whistle. They claimed that Felt — a known admirer of and loyalist to J. Edgar Hoover — had personal motives for his actions — including resentment for being passed over when Hoover's replacement was chosen after he died in 1972.

"[I]t is true I would like to have been appointed FBI director," Felt said, but he insisted that "I never leaked information to Woodward and Bernstein or anyone else!"

I don't know what the truth is, whether Felt was motivated by patriotic or personal reasons. Does it matter? As an amateur observer of human psychology, I'm kind of inclined to apply my favorite Forrest Gumpism to it: "I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time."

Richard Nixon, who died in 1994, believed Felt was "Deep Throat," perhaps in part because, as Nixon's own tape recordings revealed, Bob Haldeman, his chief of staff, told him that Felt "knows everything that's to be known in the FBI." Nixon never revealed Felt's identity, perhaps because he knew he would have been hurt more by the revelation than Felt.

"If we move on him, he'll go out and unload everything," Haldeman told Nixon.

In hindsight, it's hard to imagine Nixon being hurt more than he was. He resigned in August 1974.

The Washington Post's managing editor, Howard Simons, was the one who made the early decisions in 1972 for the paper to follow the story and to assign Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to cover it, according to Barry Sussman, a former Post editor and author of "The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Watergate Scandal."

And Simons was the one who dubbed Felt "Deep Throat" — which was a bit of word play, using the name of a popular pornographic movie of the day and the fact that the celebrated source in the story was on what is known in the newspaper business as "deep background."

I don't know if Simons knew Felt's true identity. Woodward and Bernstein always claimed that only three people on the newspaper knew who "Deep Throat" was — the reporters and editor Ben Bradlee — and that they had made an agreement with the source not to reveal his identity until after his death — or unless he voluntarily chose to reveal himself.

Interestingly, it has been suggested that Felt may have believed he could plausibly deny revealing information to "Woodward and Bernstein" because he never met Bernstein.

(Bernstein confirmed, in an interview with CNN, that he did not meet Felt until this year.)

It is my understanding that, with the possible exception of some of the earliest articles, Woodward and Bernstein shared the byline credit on the Watergate-related stories — which would have led to the natural (although erroneous) assumption that any information source that one reporter knew, the other also knew.

It appears likely to me that only Felt's name was known to Bradlee as well — unless the esteemed editor accompanied Woodward on one of his late-night parking garage rendezvous with Felt.

I was a teenager in the Watergate years, and I've read many books and articles about Watergate, but I've never seen descriptions in any of the accounts of the meetings between Woodward and Felt of any additional people being present.

If Felt wasn't known to many people at the time, it seems certain that his name will be known to future generations of history students.

And his portrayal, by Hal Holbrook, as the shadowy source in the Dustin Hoffman-Robert Redford film "All the President's Men," may not be the only time his character is depicted on screen. After Felt's true identity was revealed in 2005, Universal Pictures and Tom Hanks' production company bought the movie rights.

To my knowledge, such a movie has not been started yet, but Felt's death may renew any flagging interest in the project.

And Woodward's rapidly written 2005 book about his relationship with Felt, "The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat," may see an uptick in sales following Felt's death.

DEBKA Reports Holiday Threat Against Penn Station

Here's something to think about while the focus of the rest of the world is on the victims of today's al Qaeda attacks in India.

DEBKAfile, the Jerusalem-based intelligence website, says "Penn Station was crowded with NYPD Counter Terrorism Squad and Amtrak cops ... after the FBI received a 'plausible but unsubstantiated' report that in late September, al Qaeda discussed attacking the subway systems in and around New York City."

"Suicide bombers or explosives" was mentioned in the warning.

Yesterday, I referred to reports from DEBKAfile about a "Directive to All Fighters in Arabia" from al Qaeda's Yemen base earlier this month. This directive spoke about plans for a major operation in the United States. This operation, the notice said, was "very near."

The threat to Penn Station sounds more immediate.

"The warning comes as hundreds of thousands of tourists arrive in New York for the long holiday weekend," writes DEBKAfile. "If the explosion went off in Penn Station, it would affect transportation of Amtrak's northeast corridor between Boston and Washington, LIRR service and New York City subway service."