This Is Not Watergate Redux

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People who compare Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey to the Saturday Night Massacre show a stunning lack of knowledge of history. Recent history, at that. This isn't ancient history.

If you want to talk about ancient history, let's go back a couple of centuries to the time when the Founding Fathers were designing the system of government for this new country. Chief among their concerns was due process for people who were accused of crimes. They realized that, no matter how utopian they believed their new land to be, people are still people, and some of them will commit crimes. They wanted a government that would treat all who were accused of crimes to be treated fairly.

There had to be an actual crime, not speculation about what may or may not have been done; there had to be evidence showing that a crime had been committed (if, for example, a person disappears under suspicious circumstances, that disappearance cannot be treated as a homicide unless a body has been found). Witnesses were probably considered the best evidence at first, and they're still valuable, but as forensic evidence gained credibility, its stock in criminal cases rose considerably. When I was in high school, DNA was still in a limbo state, legally speaking. Today it is the coin of the realm.

Fast forward to Watergate.

Where shall I begin? Well, let's start with the fact that the Watergate investigation really began when Bob Woodward was covering the arraignment of the Watergate burglars in June 1972 for the Washington Post — more than a year before the Saturday Night Massacre. Burglary is definitely a crime. Everyone knew a crime had been committed when five men were arrested in the Democrats' national headquarters in the wee hours of a Saturday morning. That was certainly a suspicious thing, but curiosity was really aroused when a paper trail revealed that some of the burglars were linked to Richard Nixon's White House.

That was the root of the investigation. A crime. Not speculation that a crime may have been committed but evidence of an actual crime. Just as the Founding Fathers intended. Facts were deciding the case. Not emotion. Not rumor. Not innuendo. Not hearsay.

And it was the question of how potential evidence in the investigation of that crime was to be handled that ultimately led to the Saturday Night Massacre.

Let's back up just a little here.

In July 1973, it was revealed during the Senate Watergate hearings that there had been a taping system in the Oval Office, a system that was activated by sound. Only four people, I think, knew of the existence of this taping system, and one of them was Richard Nixon.

Anyway, this system had been secretly recording conversations Nixon had with his top aides for a few years. Special prosecutor Archibald Cox issued a subpoena for tapes of conversations believed to be relevant to the Watergate investigation, mostly based on testimony from former White House counsel John Dean; fewer than 6% of the tapes related to Watergate — many of the recorded conversations, for example, dealt with plans for Nixon's trips to China and Russia — and thus were irrelevant to the investigation, but the tapes Cox sought were expected to prove or disprove Dean's testimony, which had been remarkably specific as to the dates of conversations and what was said in those conversations.

Until the existence of the tapes became known, there seemed to be no way to break the impasse, but the tapes could establish who was telling the truth, Nixon or Dean.

Nixon refused to comply and offered a compromise. Mississippi Sen. John Stennis — who was notoriously hard of hearing — would listen to the tapes and provide a summary for Cox. Cox rejected the compromise.

Nixon's attorney general, Elliot Richardson, had appointed Cox earlier in the year and was the only one who could dismiss him. At the time of Cox's confirmation Richardson had promised the Senate that he wouldn't use his authority to interfere; some five months later, Nixon asked Richardson to fire Cox, and Richardson resigned. Next in line was Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who also resigned rather than fire Cox.

Then it fell to Solicitor General Robert Bork, who carried out the order.

One thing that is not mentioned today — but was mentioned in Theodore H. White's book on Watergate, "Breach of Faith" — was the concern about Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was meeting with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow. In the Cold War atmosphere of that time, perceptions were critical on both sides, and a presidential order had been defied. Many in the federal government worried about what the Soviets would think.

That does not justify anything, but it helps to put the decision process into context.

That was the Saturday Night Massacre. If there is a comparison to be made between the Saturday Night Massacre and the firing of James Comey, certain facts must be addressed.

In October 1973 everyone knew a crime had been committed. What was the crime in this case? I'm not talking about speculation. I'm talking about anything that would stand up in court.

That is due process, and every American citizen is entitled to due process.

Even the president, whether you like him or not.

The Death of a Patriot

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"The thing that's so appalling to me 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."

Lawrence Hogan Sr. (1928–2017)

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One of my most vivid memories of the Watergate era is of Maryland Republican Lawrence Hogan, who died earlier this month at the age of 88 following a stroke.

Hogan was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1969 to 1975. He left the House to run for governor of Maryland in 1974 — and lost his bid for the Republican nomination.

Maryland is known as a blue state today, but it had two Republican senators and four Republican members of the House (half of its delegation) at the time — and a recent Republican governor, Spiro Agnew, was elected vice president in 1968 but had resigned less than a year before the House Judiciary Committee considered Articles of Impeachment against Richard Nixon.

There was considerable backlash against Republicans in the 1974 elections, and Hogan may well have been a victim of that — but Hogan, while regarded as a strong challenger to incumbent Democrat Gov. Marvin Mandel, may have been hurt in the primary by the stand he took against Nixon's behavior in office.

Hogan, as I say, lost the party nomination, not the general election. He may well have been a more effective candidate in the general election — Maryland was part of the 49–state landslide that re–elected Nixon in 1972, but it had never supported Nixon for president before that time, and there may well have been Democrats who would have supported him against Mandel.

But the members of his party apparently believed, in spite of all that had happened since the Judiciary Committee's hearings, that Hogan had abandoned the president.

His son, who carries Hogan's name, now occupies that office.

Hogan's political career was essentially over by then — although he did serve as county executive for Prince George's County for four years in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

But he left an impression on me in 1974. Although I now consider myself an independent, I definitely would have called myself a Democrat in 1974. I was raised by Democrats, and I shared their distaste for Nixon.

Then as now America was a polarized nation — just not quite as extreme as it is today. There were many Democrats who were eager to see Richard Nixon impeached, and there probably were just as many Republicans who tried to defend everything he said or did, even when defending Nixon made no sense. It does seem to me that there was more willingness on the part of some elected officials to seek compromise — on both the issues of the day and the question of Nixon's fitness for office.

On the latter, Hogan served on the Judiciary Committee, whose televised hearings were as widely watched as the Senate's Watergate Committee hearings, which laid the groundwork for the impeachment proceedings, had been the previous summer.

There were other members of that committee who gained more national notoriety, mostly Democrats — Peter Rodino, Barbara Jordan, Father Drinan, John Conyers — but I will never forget watching Hogan's anguished lament over the gaping difference between his belief in what should have been and his recognition of what was.

My memory is that Hogan was criticized by many in his party for being what would now be called a RINO — Republican in Name Only.

He didn't believe his obligation was to his party. He believed his obligation was to his country. He preferred principle to pandering — and most likely knew when he gave his eloquent speech denouncing Nixon that his political career was over.

He was vindicated when the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to release the infamous White House tapes — and the "smoking gun" that proved Nixon's involvement was discovered. Many House Republicans who had opposed the Articles of Impeachment then said they were prepared to vote to impeach the president — and he resigned.

But Maryland's Republicans were still furious with Hogan.

We need more Lawrence Hogans today.

The Difference It Makes

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"Tell people that there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."

George Carlin

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Unless your lifestyle is a reclusive one, like that of the Unabomber — and, if it is, then you most likely aren't reading this, anyway — you're bound to have seen the TV commercial in which the deejay is posing as a financial advisor. He got his hair cut. He put on a nice suit, and he threw around some impressive–sounding financial terms. Then he asked some unsuspecting dupes if they would trust him to handle their retirement planning. They all said they would. Then he revealed the truth about himself. "I have no financial experience at all," he confessed.

The unsuspecting dupes really shouldn't have been all that unsuspecting, though. It's the kind of sleight–of–hand that magicians have been pulling for generations. Sometimes people really should be hesitant based on what they know — and what they don't know. Nevertheless, there are always people who fall for scams.

And there are those who make up their minds and won't change, come hell or high water. In the words of Simon and Garfunkel, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

In my experience, people — particularly Americans — are too quick to give a second chance — and a third one and a fourth one and, well, you get the picture — to those of whom we have ample reason to be skeptical. Most of us have been guilty of it at one time or another. For some, it's just the way they roll — all the time.

Sometimes we are rewarded for giving a second chance; but just as often, if not more, we are disappointed.

Now, in the case of one Hillary Rodham Clinton ...

Most Americans think they have spent a lot of time observing the Clintons, but I've got them beat. I lived in Arkansas before Bill ever won an election. I wasn't familiar with Hillary when she was a legal adviser to the House Judiciary Committee during its impeachment inquiry; it was after that that she agreed to marry Clinton and move to Arkansas. They were both in Little Rock by 1977; Bill was elected the state's attorney general in 1976. And that is when I — and, I suspect, most of the people in Arkansas — first became acquainted with Hillary.

From that point on, Bill was a fixture in Arkansas politics, and Hillary was often seen with him — not so much in his attorney general days but after that when he ran for governor. Statewide officials were elected to two–year terms in those days, and governors sort of lived with the fact that, unless they were stepping down voluntarily in the next election cycle, they pretty much had to spend half of each term running for office. There was no season for raising money for those campaigns, either; fundraising was — and, I expect, still is — an ongoing process.

Arkansas changed that law in the mid–1980s. Statewide officers are elected to four–year terms today, but Bill and Hillary Clinton cut their political teeth on the old arrangement.

Anyway, having observed the Clintons for more than half my life, I've kind of gone beyond the point of being disappointed by anything they say or do.

Since we are all, to a great extent, the products of our experiences, it seems fair to assume that experience plays a significant role in the mindsets of both Clintons. Indeed, given their behavior in their political lives, it seems to be — to most reasonable people — a sight more than an assumption.

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Hillary Clinton: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans.

Sen. Ron Johnson: I understand.

Clinton: Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?

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In the matter of the Clinton emails, Mrs. Clinton and her supporters want the country to focus on the fact that her people have already gone through the emails and decided which ones to release.

Is that sufficient?

As I recall, it wasn't sufficient 40 years ago when the subject of the congressional investigation in which Mrs. Clinton took part — you know, the one involving President Richard Nixon — offered to release certain White House tapes after they had been screened or edited transcripts of the tapes themselves. I can't say that I know what Hillary Rodham said or thought about that, but I do know what just about every Democrat — and some Republicans — said when Nixon tried to pull that one. They didn't go for it. Nixon went ahead and released edited transcripts, anyway, but they were ridiculed to such an extent that no one really gave them any credibility.

As I recall, when the subject of edited transcripts was first brought up by the White House, special prosecutor Archibald Cox rejected it, saying that transcripts "lack the evidenciary value of the tapes themselves."

(There was something Nixonian in the way Barack Obama insisted he had learned of Hillary's private email through news reports. That, of course, is how Nixon claimed he had learned of the Watergate break–in.)

And now Hillary Clinton reaches into Nixon's playbook. But summaries of her email correspondences — or release of certain emails that were selected by Hillary and/or her staff — lack the evidenciary value of the emails themselves.

Of course, there is more to this than merely the resemblance to a long–ago scandal. There is the question of cyber security. In recent years, we have seen how easily the computer files of huge retail outfits can be hacked and private information can be compromised.

Doesn't that make it even more important that Americans be completely assured that the communications of the secretary of state — whose email correspondence may very well have contained sensitive classified information — cannot be intercepted?

What assurance can they have from a privately run server that sufficient security is in place?

We live in perilous times. It shouldn't be necessary to remind people of that, with all the grisly images we have seen on our TV screens — beheadings, people being burned alive and tossed from buildings — but, nevertheless, there are people who will ignore the facts.

Those are the people who will tell you that ISIS and its allies there in the Middle East are savages, primitive, medieval at best. And I will concede that they follow medieval texts and dress in medieval ways — and, most importantly, they think medieval thoughts. But that does not mean that they turn a blind eye to modern technology. They don't like the modern world, but they know that they must use the tools of the modern world if they are to defeat it. Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants turned modern technology against America in 2001, hijacking airplanes and using computers for all sorts of purposes — communicating with each other, financial transactions, reserving seats on the doomed airplanes.

Why should we think that modern jihadists would behave any differently?

We've heard the stories of their active efforts to recruit people from the West. Doesn't it make sense that they would be looking for people who know how to hack computer systems? It wouldn't surprise me if they already have recruited such people.

It wouldn't really matter where they were, either — although I am quite sure there are already sleeper cells across this country waiting for their orders. Computer hackers can be anywhere. As long as they can connect to the internet, they can go about their business.

What guarantee do we have that Mrs. Clinton's emails, which were not under the protection of the government, were not hacked while she was in office? Oh, I know, there are no guarantees anymore. But it still seems — to me — to be an inexcusable temptation of fate to obsessively control one's email records instead of doing as the law requires.

Fact is, under the law, Mrs. Clinton's email correspondence while secretary of state does not belong to her. Regardless of what it was — a highly sensitive official email to a foreign ally or a personal email to an old friend — it is the property of the U.S. government.

Upon entering office, a president swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. That means following the laws of the land.

Mrs. Clinton asks her audiences these days, "Don't you want to see a woman president of the United States?"

My answer to that is — yes. But I want it to be the right woman for the job. Not just any woman.

And the right woman for the job will not have a history of playing by the rules of her choosing, thoughtlessly putting others at risk. It is the same standard I apply to any man seeking the presidency.

I Beg Your Pardon?

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"As we are a nation under God, so I am sworn to uphold our laws with the help of God. And I have sought such guidance and searched my own conscience with special diligence to determine the right thing for me to do with respect to my predecessor in this place, Richard Nixon, and his loyal wife and family. Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."

Gerald Ford
Sept. 8, 1974

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Many presidents have been known as "His Accidency." It is a label that is generally reserved for those who were elected vice president and then became president after the guy who was at the top of the ticket when the people voted on the matter died. There have been eight presidents who died in office.

Sometimes the voters have been pleased with the accidental president's performance — well, pleased enough to give him a full term on his own. Sometimes they haven't been pleased, and they voted him out. Sometimes the accidental president sees the writing on the wall and decides not to seek a full term.

Gerald Ford was a unique case in American history. He must be the most accidental president of all because he only became vice president when he was appointed to replace the duly elected vice president in the first use of the 25th Amendment to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency. Then, when Richard Nixon resigned, he became president.

Maybe that unique role in American history was liberating for Ford. Maybe he felt he could do things differently than the three dozen men who had occupied the presidency before him precisely because he had not sought the presidency or the vice presidency.

"I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots," he said on the day he took office. A few minutes later, he pledged, "If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises."

The people believed him, even people who loathed his predecessor. They were willing to give him a chance. He came across as pleasant and sincere. It was a refreshing change. But it didn't last, largely because of what happened 40 years ago today.

It started out as a rather routine late–summer Sunday. Pro football would start its season a week later; college football had kicked things off with a bare–bones schedule the day before. For sports enthusiasts, the only thing of note besides baseball's pennant races was daredevil Evel Knievel's scheduled attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in the Skycycle X–2, a steam–powered rocket. He failed in the attempt, suffering some broken bones but nothing major.

But Knievel, who had been the recipient of considerable hype before the attempt, was knocked completely off the front pages. Ford, who had barely been in office a month, announced that he was pardoning his predecessor. The sense of betrayal showed in Ford's approval rating. A week after taking office, Ford's approval rating was 71% — nearly three times Nixon's approval rating when he resigned the week before.

But Ford's approval rating tumbled to 50% after the pardon, and many people — myself included — believe he never recovered politically. There were a few fluctuations, but, for the most part, his approval rating remained in the 40s for the rest of his presidency.

With the pardon, much of the good will that had accompanied Ford into office evaporated.

In the Wall Street Journal, Ken Gormley and David Shribman agree that the nation was "stunned" at the time. That would be impossible to dispute. "Now," they contend, "there's almost universal agreement that Ford was right." Personally, I have mixed feelings on that. Maybe I always will. I have come to believe that there was at least some justification for the pardon. Maybe it did allow the nation to heal. But even Ford must have known that the healing process would be long. The American people had been deceived — a lot — by their presidents for 10 years. They weren't going to be over it in a day or a week or a month or a year — or even two years when Ford would have to face the voters.

I don't know if Ford's pardon of Nixon hastened the nation's healing process, as Ford hoped, but it did resolve a dilemma for his Justice Department.

Memos show officials at Justice were wrestling with Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 of the Constitution, which said that a person removed from office by impeachment and conviction "shall nevertheless be liable to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to the law."

The Constitution, however, said nothing about a president who resigned from office. Ford's pardon effectively ended that discussion.

Nixon Leaves Washington

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"Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."

Richard Nixon
Aug. 9, 1974

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Five years ago today, on the 35th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation, my focus was on Gerald Ford, the man who succeeded him.

And that was as it should be, I guess. My memory is that the general attitude among Americans was a desire to look to the future after years of being deceived, first by the Johnson administration on the war in Vietnam, then by the Nixon administration on Watergate.

That has always been one of the remarkable things about Americans in general. No matter how tragic the circumstances, nearly all Americans are determined to persevere and to look ahead, not back.

But before Ford took the oath of office and power passed quietly from Nixon to his vice president, Nixon gave one final address to the members of the White House staff, and it was carried live on all three networks. That was to be expected, I suppose. Nixon's actions on that day were historic. He was the first president to resign.

Like the Lincoln funeral after the first presidential assassination, it may serve as the role model for future presidential resignations.

Ford, of course, already had his place in the history books as the first unelected vice president, appointed to replace Spiro Agnew in the first implementation of the 25th Amendment. After Nixon's resignation, Ford — now the first unelected president — was responsible for the second implementation of the amendment when he nominated New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to be his vice president.

If someday in the future another American president decides to resign, the protocols for his/her departure may be guided to a great extent by the record of what Nixon and Ford did 40 years ago today.

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On the 40th anniversary of Nixon's resignation, it is appropriate, it seems to me, to recall what Nixon did in his final moments as president.

Nixon gave his speech to the staff, then the Fords escorted the Nixons to the helicopter on the White House grounds that would take them to Air Force One, which would take them to California. During that cross–country flight, Ford took the oath of office; somewhere over the midwestern United States, Richard Nixon ceased to be president and the jet from the presidential fleet that was carrying him to California stopped being designated as Air Force One — until the next time it was assigned to carry a president somewhere.

The speech reportedly was made without notes, but it was not entirely spontaneous. It was, to an extent, choreographed. Viewers didn't realize it, but, as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote, "The family placed themselves on the small platform behind the president. Small pieces of tape designated where each was to stand. Mrs. Nixon was on the president's left, slightly closer to him than Julie, who was on his right. David and Ed stood by their wives. Ed was carrying a book. The applause did not stop for four minutes."

At times during Nixon's speech, the cameras scanned the East Room of the White House, and viewers could catch fleeting glimpses of some familiar faces. By and large, though, the faces were unfamiliar; many were staffers who had served several administrations, not just Nixon's, but there were those there who had been exclusively part of Nixon's staff. Many probably did not predate the Watergate break–in. Few, if any, of the people in that room probably testified before Senate and/or House committees.

In such a group of people, most had only a professional relationship with the president, not a personal one. Yet many of the people in the room were crying.

Nixon started his speech relatively composed, but, near the end, he seemed to be losing his grip. At least, it appeared that way to me. He began rambling, speaking of his father and his mother, their sacrifices and setbacks.

"[Nixon attorney Leonard] Garment thought, Oh, my God, he's beginning to break down," Woodward and Bernstein wrote. "A binge of free association. Money, father, mother, brothers, death. The man is unraveling right before us. He will be the first person to go over the edge on live television."

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That didn't happen, of course. Nixon got a grip on himself and concluded his remarks with advice that seemed, to me, to be very insightful. I always wondered if Nixon, in his off–the–cuff speech, understood at last in its final minutes what had been the undoing of his presidency.

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"Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."

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Cracks in Nixon's Stonewall

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"I want you all to stonewall it. Let them plead the Fifth Amendment, coverup or anything else if it'll save it, save this plan."

Richard Nixon
To his closest associates
March 22, 1973

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I suppose it's true what they say. Hindsight really is 20/20.

I say that because, in my experience as a writer/journalist, I have found that people almost never know the impact an event will have on their lives or the lives of others when it happens. Sure, sometimes you do. For example, I think most people understood on Sept. 11, 2001, that their lives had been forever changed by what happened that morning.

Still, most things only become clear with the passage of time — and that may never have been more accurate than when it was applied to Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal.

From the perspective of 2014, it is easy to see that, by Aug. 5, 1974, Nixon was being nudged toward resignation by forces that were beyond his control, but the final decision was still his, and it was anyone's guess at that point what his decision would be. All would know by the end of that week.

What was known was that the last couple of weeks had been frightfully bad ones for Richard Nixon. In a Gallup poll that was completed 40 years ago today, only 24% of respondents approved of the job Nixon was doing as president. Sixty–six percent disapproved. It was almost exactly the reverse of a Gallup poll taken the week after Nixon was re–elected in a 49–state landslide less than two years earlier.

First, there had been the Supreme Court ruling on July 24 that he had to turn over all records (tapes as well as notes) of White House conversations that were regarded as evidence in a criminal trial. His gambit to cloak them all in executive privilege had failed.

Then, within a week, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment that the House would consider and almost certainly approve. That would send the matter to the Senate, where Nixon and some of his diehard defenders believed they had the votes to survive the trial — if there was a trial, and many of the diehards didn't think there would be.

But most of the folks in Nixon's corner, including Nixon's own lawyers and Al Haig, his chief of staff, did not agree. They held a strategy session on Sunday, Aug. 4, 1974, and their preference was to be spared the task of defending an indefensible client on an extremely public stage. Increasingly, they came to the conclusion that it would be best for all concerned if Nixon resigned — especially for Nixon himself.

Apparently, he still had not made decision 40 years ago today. On Aug. 5, 1974, everything seemed as uncertain as it ever had during the Watergate investigation.

Hindsight, of course, is assisted considerably when there is new evidence or knowledge, and information about Watergate always came to light slowly, sometimes agonizingly so. Most of the time, it was by design, all part of the Watergate coverup, but sometimes it was simply the result of the wheels of justice grinding slowly.

Haig and the lawyers had new evidence in their possession on Sunday, Aug. 4 — the transcript of Nixon's June 23, 1972 conversation with H.R. Haldeman. It came to be known as the "smoking gun" of Watergate, and it was the last straw for many congressional Republicans.

"Read the conversations however one would," historian Theodore White wrote, "there was no doubt that on June 23rd, six days after the Watergate burglary of the Democratic Party's headquarters, the president had been told that his former attorney general and dear friend John Mitchell was involved in that burglary. And worse ... Nixon had used the federal machinery — namely, the CIA — to obstruct and halt the FBI investigation of that burglary.

"Nixon had been lying, therefore, for more than two years, lying to the public, lying to Congress, lying to his own staff, at times probably lying to himself."

Nixon was an enigma. In the words of the Pittsburgh Post–Gazette's David Shribman, Nixon was "[a]wkward in manner — but shrewd in judgment. Flawed in character — but peerless in vision. Much misunderstood — but possessed of a peerless understanding of human nature. Tarred with mendacity — but a political magus nonetheless."

Bob Woodward, who was responsible, along with colleague Carl Bernstein, for the early investigative reporting on Watergate for the Washington Post, recently reviewed John Dean's book, "The Nixon Defense," for the Post.

"The title is misleading," Woodward wrote, "because it suggests there is a case for Nixon's innocence. Dean quickly clears that up when he writes in the preface, 'Fortunately for everyone, his defense failed.'"

On this day 40 years ago, it was dawning on his loyalists — and possibly on Nixon himself — that his defense had failed.

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.

Supreme Court: The President Is Not Above the Law

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For two weeks in the summer of 1974, the eight Supreme Court justices who were deciding on United States v. Nixon had been reviewing the details of the case and considering the lawyers' arguments.

Executive privilege was given as the defense's argument for not turning over the tapes that had been requested. But the real issue was: Is the president above the law?

The justices answered that question 40 years ago today.

And while the Supreme Court considered the matter, all kinds of things were happening in the Watergate case.

The day after the justices heard arguments, the House Judiciary Committee released its own versions of transcripts of eight conversations that had been released earlier by the White House. When the White House transcripts were compared to the Judiciary Committee's transcripts, it was clear that several long Watergate–related passages had been omitted in the White House version.

A week later, Nixon refused to comply with the House Judiciary Committee's last four subpoenas. In an interview that day, he called Watergate "the broadest but thinnest scandal in American history."

The day before that, the White House had furnished some John Ehrlichman notes to the Judiciary Committee, portions of which were blacked out. A few days later, Nixon attorney James St. Clair assured the committee that the deletions had been made by mistake, but the public relations damage had clearly been done.

The Judiciary Committee also made public five volumes of evidence that challenged the White House's argument that national security was the reason for the wiretaps. Without identifying which ones, Vice President Gerald Ford said he had listened to portions of two of the tapes and had reached the conclusion that it was "very understandable" that different interpretations could be made of words that were spoken on them.

Volume upon volume of evidence was released to the public, and both the majority and minority counsels on the Judiciary Committee urged a Senate trial on one or more of five impeachment charges: (1) obstruction of justice, (2) abuse of power, (3) contempt of Congress, (4) failure to adhere to the pledge to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" and (5) denigration of the presidency through underpayment of income taxes and use of federal money for personal purposes.

In California, the president's press secretary said the majority counsel, John Doar, was running a "kangaroo court."

The minority counsel, Albert Jenner, was replaced a couple of days later — after saying the case for impeachment was persuasive.

A couple of days before the Supreme Court announced its ruling, St. Clair declined to say whether Nixon would comply if the Supreme Court ordered him to turn over the tapes.

The next day, House Judiciary Committee member Lawrence Hogan, a Republican from Maryland, announced he would vote for impeachment. Hogan had already decided not to seek re–election to the House and was instead seeking the governorship of his state.

Forty years ago today, Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski told the Baltimore Sun that he was "appalled" by the White House's refusal to say whether it would obey a Supreme Court order to turn over the tapes.

And such an order was handed down later that day.

By an 8–0 vote, the justices ruled that Nixon had to turn over the records of 64 Watergate–related conversations. They acknowledged that there was a constitutional basis for executive privilege but said that, when such a claim is "based only on the generalized interest in confidentiality, it cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of justice."

"In careful but clear language," Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote, "the Court ordered the president to turn over the tapes."

St. Clair, wrote Woodward and Bernstein, had been certain he would win the case. "He was shattered that he had lost. When he read the decision, it became clear to him that the tapes would have to go to [presiding Judge John] Sirica.

"'The president is not above the law. Nor does he contend that he is,' St. Clair had told the court. He hoped that the president understood what that meant. Nixon had never told him exactly what he would do if there were an adverse decision, but St. Clair knew that his own legal advice to the president had to be unqualified compliance.

"When St. Clair arrived at the residence, he told the president ... that he advised full compliance. The president was not convinced. He wondered if, in fact, to preserve the power of his office, he didn't have a constitutional duty to reject the court order."

Of Nixon's defenders, historian Theodore White wrote, "they were like German officers on the firing line in 1918 who knew long before the Kaiser that the time for surrender had come."

The president eventually agreed to a kind of compliance. He told St. Clair that he would need to time to review the tapes before turning them over — weeks, perhaps months. St. Clair wasn't sure he could arrange that. Jaworski was eager to get the tapes for use in the upcoming coverup trial.

Nixon also informed lawyer Fred Buzhardt that "there might be a problem with the June 23 tape."

U.S. v. Nixon: Is the President Above the Law?

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Forty years ago tomorrow, the Supreme Court heard arguments in United States v. Nixon, the landmark case that ultimately defined the limitations on the power of the president.

These were the issues:

1. Should the president be required to turn over the records of 64 conversations to Watergate prosecutors?

2. Did the grand jury act properly in naming Richard Nixon as an unindicted co–conspirator?

Underlying it all, though, was the real question: Is the president above the law? The prosecutors argued that the president was not above the law. Nixon's defense was, as it had been all along, that the chief executive is above the law — via the principle of executive privilege.

More than a year earlier, in fact, in February 1973, Nixon's own tapes showed that Nixon and two of his subordinates, H.R. Haldeman and John Dean, had discussed using executive privilege fraudulently — not to protect others but to protect themselves.

The executive privilege concept, while not addressed specifically in the Constitution, is based on the principle of separation of powers. A level of confidentiality is understood to be extended to a president and his aides in certain circumstances, particularly in matters involving defense and national security.

Then–Associate Justice William Rehnquist recused himself because he had served in the Nixon administration (in the Justice Department) prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court, leaving eight justices to rule on the matter.

They heard arguments from Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski and Nixon's lawyer, James St. Clair, after which they reviewed the facts of the case and returned to hand down their decision two weeks later.

"Jaworski seemed nervous," Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote. "He spoke awkwardly as he slowly recited the history of the grand jury's proceedings. He noted that the grand jury had named the president an unindicted co–conspirator, and then he moved haltingly to the heart of the matter. Who is the arbiter of the Constitution?"

"'Now, the president may be right in how he reads the Constitution,' Jaworski said. 'But he may also be wrong. And if he is wrong, who is there to tell him so? And if there is no one, the president, of course, is free to pursue his course of erroneous interpretations. What then becomes of our constitutional form of government?'"

The defense argued that executive privilege was absolute, but the prosecution said it was not and that any confidentiality that was extended to the president had to yield to the needs of the legal system in a criminal case. If the president were given absolute executive privilege, Jaworski said, it would be an unchecked power that could subvert the rule of law.

St. Clair argued that, under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the case shouldn't be heard in the courts at all because it involved a dispute within the executive branch of the government. He also contended, as I have said, that the president deserved absolute executive privilege and should not be forced to turn over his tapes.

Jaworski took issue with St. Clair's assertion about the matter being an internal dispute within the executive branch. "Jaworski cited the assurances of [Al] Haig, [Robert] Bork and Attorney General William B. Saxbe ... as to his indisputable right to take the president to court on the question of executive privilege," wrote Woodward and Bernstein. "It was up to the court, he said, to decide who was right, on the merits."

The justices retired to review the facts of the case — and, 16 days later, they handed down a judgment that would influence the course of history.

Through the Looking Glass ... Again

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"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

Mark Twain

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Forty years ago this summer, the Watergate scandal swallowed the presidency of Richard Nixon.

I was a boy when that happened, and I'll admit that I didn't understand all the issues involved, but there was one very simple fact that seemed obvious to me.

When Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the White House taping system in July 1973, it was obvious that there was a completely neutral eyewitness to the White House conversations about which lawmakers were asking — the tapes that had been made of those conversations.

Congressional investigators did not have to rely on flawed human memories. They could listen to the tapes, and those tapes could verify what was said and by whom. Anyone who had answered truthfully when asked about his involvement in the coverup would be exonerated. Anyone who had not answered those questions truthfully would be exposed as dishonest.

When the taping system's existence was revealed, I heard many of Nixon's defenders say that they wished he would release the tapes. They would prove he had been telling the truth, and the Watergate scandal would go away.

Well, that was the thinking, but Nixon steadfastly refused to release the tapes — and the longer he did, the more his support tended to erode. Then as now, perception was reality, and the growing perception was that Nixon had something to hide.

That perception turned out to be correct, but the American people, the vast majority of whom had voted for Nixon's re–election two years earlier, were hesitant to believe it. At the time — and still today — I believed that hesitance enabled Nixon to drag the scandal out a few more months.

If Nixon had been blessed with an engaging personality, like the present occupant of the White House, he might have been able to drag his feet long enough to finish his term. But Nixon's was a dark, brooding kind of personality, cold and prickly, not warm and fuzzy. He didn't inspire much loyalty — except from those who, for whatever reason, did his bidding (and paid for it).

Barack Obama, however, does have a warm and fuzzy personality. That is the real secret of his success. His ratings on that question about whether a president (or presidential candidate) cares about people like the respondent are always through the roof. That's what Obama's 2012 campaign was about, wasn't it? It was designed to persuade swing voters that Mitt Romney and the Republicans were elitist snobs who didn't care about ordinary folks — or, to be more precise, blacks, women, gays, immigrants, the poor.

Re–election campaigns tend to be about achievements, those that are finished and those that are works in progress. Well, that's the way they used to be.

While the fact that Obama made history as the first nonwhite president was a pleasant bonus, it wasn't the main reason why most people voted for him in 2008. He was elected mostly because of the terrible economy and the escalating jobs crisis, and Americans wanted to be out of two wars that were sucking up American lives and treasure at an alarming rate.

When times are bad, voters go for the other option.

In short, there were serious problems that needed to be resolved. Certain expectations came with the job, and voters decided, as they almost always do in such a situation, to go with the other party's nominee.

Economists later told America that the recession actually ended after about six months of Obama's presidency, and some kind of recovery should have taken place — but, if asked about it today, most Americans will say that they don't believe the recession ever ended — or, if it did, they don't believe there has been a recovery.

Obama couldn't run on his economic record. He had a more stable foreign policy record in September 2012 — and he may well have intended to run on that record — but then there was that attack on the embassy in Benghazi, and four Americans were killed, including the ambassador. He and Joe Biden continued to mention the fact that Osama bin Laden had been killed on his watch, but the race was close in the autumn of 2012.

Perhaps the Democrats felt the truth about Benghazi would undermine the case they had been making that Obama's foreign policy was succeeding. That is the argument the president's detractors have made, anyway.

That didn't work too well in 2012, but a lot has happened since then. Obama's second–term agenda hasn't been getting any traction — whether that is due, as the president contends, to obstructionism or his administration's own shortcomings, as in the rollout of Obamacare, is a subject for a different debate — and his party already is facing mounting problems in what always (from the perspective of history) figured to be a problematic sixth–year midterm election.

And now the release of emails from September 2012 have raised new and troubling questions about the administration's actions on the night of the attack — and how those actions may have been motivated by domestic political concerns.

House Republicans want to assemble a select committee to investigate, to ask the questions that the emails have raised, but their Democratic colleagues are not sure they will participate.

Seems to me that would be a lot like when Nixon refused to release the tapes.

My understanding is that the Democrats cannot be compelled to participate in the committee's hearings, but the Republicans still would hold them. Do the Democrats really want to let every assertion that is made go unchallenged? And in a midterm election year?

As I understand it, a select committee does not have the authority to charge anyone with anything, but, like the Senate Watergate Committee 40 years ago, it can call witnesses and issue subpoenas.

If no one is there to defend the administration, it will feed a perception that can only add to Democrats' electoral woes.

On the other hand, Republicans need to be careful. The wind is at their backs on this one, but they need to avoid appearing too political. If they make their argument about transparency and good, law–abiding government, it will help their cause.

As will Nixon's true legacy in all of this — the case of United States v. Nixon.

One Year of Watergate Was Not Enough

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"I would like to add a personal word with regard to an issue that has been of great concern to all Americans over the past year. I refer, of course, to the investigations of the so–called Watergate affair. As you know, I have provided to the special prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of material. I believe that I have provided all the material that he needs to conclude his investigations and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to clear the innocent.

"I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Watergate is enough."

Richard Nixon
Jan. 30, 1974

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Earlier this week, as Barack Obama was about to deliver his State of the Union address, George Condon wondered in the National Journal if the State of the Union ever really changes anything.

After writing of the successful State of the Union speeches — the ones that managed to set the congressional agenda — Condon observed that "the biggest failure to set the congressional agenda was Nixon's in his 1974 speech."

Forty years ago today, Richard Nixon delivered what turned out to be his final State of the Union address. It is not remembered for Nixon's assessment of the state of the union or his ideas for improving it — although those were offered on that night in 1974. History remembers that speech as the one in which Nixon urged an end to the Watergate investigations. "One year of Watergate is enough," he memorably said.

That is what the State of the Union speech was about in 1974. The agenda was Nixon's survival. Nixon had tried everything else to divert attention from Watergate. He wanted to shift attention to anything, but he couldn't do it.

One year of Watergate wasn't enough for the people who sat in that joint session of Congress 40 years ago tonight — and that was Nixon's fault. If he had been honest with the American people from the beginning, if he had confessed his involvement, admitted it had been a huge mistake and asked for forgiveness, I believe he would have been forgiven. The American people are a forgiving bunch.

But he insisted on concealing his involvement until he had been proven to be a liar — and that made his guilt even more difficult for his defenders to bear.

In that audience 40 years ago tonight were lawmakers who had participated in the Watergate hearings the year before and who would participate in the impeachment hearings in the House Judiciary Committee that summer. Their questions had not been answered satisfactorily. The evidence they sought had not been provided to them. There was more work to be done.

Back at the White House, Nixon's chief of staff, Alexander Haig, had been exploring endgame strategies, including the possibility of Nixon receiving a presidential pardon — even the possibility of Nixon granting one to himself.

Nixon must have known the stakes when he went to Capitol Hill to deliver his address 40 years ago tonight.

And I'm reasonably sure he knew, as he rode back to the White House later that night, that he had not made the sale.

Oh, he had a trick or two left up his sleeve, but Nixon's days were numbered.

Nixon's Turning Point

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Forty years ago today, it became much more difficult for Richard Nixon's defenders to argue against the barrage of Watergate–related charges he faced.

In my opinion, it was the point of no return for Nixon.

Through most of 1973, the Watergate story progressively ensnared Nixon, but, in those days, the talk was not so much about which illegal acts he might have committed but rather how and whether his presidency would be affected. I don't recall anyone suggesting, even in jest, that Nixon might not serve his full term.

That changed on this day in 1973.

Until this day, it had been relatively easy for Nixon to maintain plausible deniability, even after the existence of his taping system was revealed in the Senate Watergate hearings. It had been largely his word against former White House counsel John Dean's.

Naturally, those who were investigating the case wanted to have access to the tapes. After all, they could verify who was telling the truth and who wasn't. But Nixon refused, insisting the tapes were protected under the principle of executive privilege and because subjects involving national security were discussed in the conversations — and his defenders supported him as long as they could.

One of Nixon's solutions to the standoff over the tapes was to offer transcripts of the conversations to investigators. He would explore that option in greater public detail in the spring of 1974, but the job of transcribing subpoenaed tapes for that purpose began in 1973 shortly after the recording system's existence had been revealed. Transcribing the tapes was a task to which White House secretaries were assigned, including Nixon's longtime personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods.

It was while transcribing one of the tapes in late September 1973 that Woods claimed to have accidentally erased a portion of it while answering a phone call. Her original estimate was that roughly five minutes of a June 20, 1972, conversation had been erased.

Woods later amended her statement, saying that she might have accidentally erased as much as six minutes of the tape, but she strongly denied being responsible for the rest of the erasure.

H.R. Haldeman's notes (consisting of two legal pads of paper) suggested that the conversation, which was between Nixon and Haldeman, was at least in part about Watergate.

Nixon's lawyers had been told of the erasure before they sat down on Nov. 14, 1973, to listen to the tape, and they expected to find an erasure. But it went on longer than five minutes — many minutes longer, not seconds. Eventually, it was determined that 18 minutes and 15 seconds of the conversation had been erased — and the gap appeared to be the result of not one but several erasures. This could be determined by changes in pitch.

The inescapable conclusion was that the gap was not accidental.

This had been suggested earlier in the month by "Deep Throat," Bob Woodward's secret source in the early days of the investigation. Deep Throat told Woodward there were "gaps" in some of the tapes, implying they were the result of deliberate erasures.

At the time, there was some doubt among Nixon's lawyers whether the conversation was even covered in the subpoena. But, by the time they reported their findings to Al Haig, the White House chief of staff, the lawyers had determined that the conversation was, in fact, included in the subpoena.

The lawyers discussed their options and finally decided that, if they didn't tell the judge what they knew and the special prosecutor found out about it some other way, they could be suspected of destroying evidence.

Thus it was that, on this day in 1973, Nixon's lawyers informed the judge in the Watergate trials, John Sirica, of their discovery, which, in turn, was made public.

Sirica appointed an advisory panel of experts (nominated by Nixon's lawyers and special Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski) to examine the tapes. An "index and analysis" of the existing tapes was given to him five days later. The clamor for the tapes grew louder, not softer.

Nixon's defense was starting to fall apart — irretrievably.

What Was Gained From the Saturday Night Massacre?

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"Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people to decide."

Archibald Cox

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Of all the remarkable events that led Richard Nixon and the American people through the labyrinth of the Watergate scandal and coverup to Nixon's eventual resignation, the Saturday Night Massacre may have been the most astonishing.

The Saturday Night Massacre — in which the independent special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation was dismissed by presidential order and the attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned rather than carry it out — occurred 40 years ago today.

And it ignited a constitutional crisis — the very thing Nixon said he wanted to avoid. Of course, Nixon said a lot of things.

See, the special prosecutor was appointed by and operated under the auspices of the attorney general, Elliot Richardson, and could only be removed "for cause," which meant for improper conduct of some kind. In fact, when he was confirmed by the Senate in May 1973, Richardson specifically pledged that he would not dismiss the Watergate special prosecutor except for cause.

Nearly five months later, the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, issued a subpoena to the White House. The existence of the White House's taping system had been revealed in public hearings in July, and Cox wanted copies of certain tapes for investigators to examine. Nixon refused.

Instead, Nixon offered, on Oct. 19, 1973, to permit Sen. John Stennis (D–Miss.), who was in his 70s and hard of hearing, to listen to the tapes and sign off on summaries of them for the Watergate investigators. Nixon claimed that Stennis would be sensitive to national security issues raised in the conversations.

(I recall that TIME magazine, in one of its reports, ran a file photo of Stennis in some committee hearing cupping his hand to one ear. Stennis clearly had been signaling for whoever had been speaking to speak louder or repeat himself, but, given Stennis' known hearing issues, it was a clever illustration for the part of the story that dealt with what had been dubbed the "Stennis Compromise."

(To emphasize the point, TIME's caption read: "Technical assistance needed.")

Sens. Sam Ervin and Howard Baker of the Senate Watergate Committee agreed to the Stennis Compromise. But it was unacceptable to Cox, and he turned it down that evening. (I've always liked historian Theodore White's description of Cox's demeanor when he faced the press the next afternoon — "[g]angling, gentle and firm, combining the qualities of old Mr. Chips and Joan of Arc" — and tried to explain why he could not accept the president's offer.)

That Saturday, Ervin said a summary of the tapes would not be acceptable, that he had understood that he would receive verbatim language from the tapes (presumably a transcript).

Government offices were closed for the weekend, and my memory is that no one really expected any further developments until the next week.

Wrong.

Forty years ago today, after Cox's appearance before reporters, Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned in protest. Thus, the order fell to Richardson's deputy, William Ruckelshaus. He, too, refused and resigned.

Third in line was Robert Bork, the solicitor general and, now, acting head of the Justice Department. His predecessors had promised during their confirmations that they would not interfere in the Watergate investigation, but Bork had made no such pledge so he carried out Nixon's order.

Shortly before 8:30 p.m. Washington time, White House press secretary Ron Ziegler told reporters that Cox had been fired and the special prosecutor's office had been abolished. He also announced that Richardson had resigned and Ruckelshaus had been fired (Ruckelshaus' side of the story was that he resigned before he could be fired).

Cox's office had been sealed off by the FBI, Ziegler said, to prevent any files from being removed. In what was almost an afterthought, Ziegler announced that Bork, as acting attorney general, had fired Cox.

"Nixon's move to block the special prosecutor was for most Americans their first up–close look at what the Watergate fuss, by then more than a year old, was all about: naked presidential power," wrote Susan Brenneman this week in the Los Angeles Times.

Fourteen years later, when Ronald Reagan nominated Bork for a Supreme Court vacancy, Kenneth Noble reported in the New York Times that Bork said of his role in the Saturday Night Massacre that "I get a little tired of it being portrayed as the only thing I ever did."

I'm sure there were those who knew that — among them Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were Bork's students. For most people, though, I would say that Bork first came to their attention as a result of the Saturday Night Massacre. He was in his mid–40s at the time. He had been a practicing lawyer for nearly 20 years and a Yale law professor for more than 10. Clearly, he had accomplished things before being thrust into the national spotlight.

Supposedly, he was torn. He said that he believed Nixon's order was appropriate; nevertheless, he considered resigning as Richardson and Ruckelshaus had so he would not be "perceived as a man who did the president's bidding to save my job."

That was, in fact, a popular conclusion.

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Roughly 3½ weeks after Cox's dismissal, a federal judge ruled that it was illegal because there was no evidence of "extraordinary impropriety," as was specifically required when the position was created.

Nixon's lawyers were not eager for a repeat of the Cox episode with Jaworski. When Cox was fired, it produced an avalanche of letters and telegrams to Congress calling for Nixon's impeachment, and the president's approval rating slipped below 30%.

Only a few days after the Saturday Night Massacre, 44 Watergate–related bills had been introduced in the House, and nearly two dozen resolutions called for Nixon's impeachment. A dozen called for the appointment of a new special prosecutor.

Nixon did precisely what most people probably didn't expect. He decided not to abolish the office of special prosecutor after all and agreed to release the subpoenaed tapes. Leon Jaworski was chosen to replace Cox. Speculation at the time centered on whether Jaworski would confine his investigation to the Watergate burglary or try to expand it, as Cox had, to include other White House activities. As it turned out, Jaworski followed Cox's lead.

So it is fair to ask: What did Nixon achieve with the Saturday Night Massacre?

The special prosecutor still existed. The only real change was that a different person held the title.

(Upon reflection, I am inclined to wonder if perhaps that was the point. Nixon always felt snubbed by the Eastern establishment, and "intellectuals" from Harvard definitely were on that list. Maybe all he really wanted to do was replace the Harvard law professor with the Baylor law graduate.)

Nixon still had to give up the tapes — eventually. He tried numerous tactics to avoid handing them over, all of which failed, and the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against him. When members of Congress heard what was on those tapes, even Nixon's most ardent supporters on the Hill were persuaded to support his removal.

Less than a year later, Nixon resigned and went into virtual exile in California — and spent the rest of his life rewriting history.

Richard Nixon's S.O.B.

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"Every president needs an S.O.B. — and I'm Nixon's."

H.R. Haldeman

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My family was still out of the country when former White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman took the witness stand at the Senate Watergate Committee's hearings 40 years ago today so I didn't see him testify, but I'm sure he was quite a sight.

He always was in those days. He was kind of a Mephistopheles with a crewcut, I guess; with the German surname, he always seemed more sinister than the rest — to me, anyway. Maybe it was the influence of those World War II movies I watched as a child.

Haldeman and former White House aide John Ehrlichman were known as Richard Nixon's "Berlin Wall" because of their Germanic surnames and their tendency to restrict access to the Oval Office.

They also had the shared trait of unquestioned loyalty to their leader — even when that leader had forced them to resign only a few months earlier.

Haldeman's testimony had been eagerly anticipated because of his special position in the Nixon White House as chief of staff. The job was still new and evolving when Haldeman became chief of staff, but he appeared to relish its reputation as a presidential "gatekeeper."

It was said Haldeman was closer to Nixon than anyone else in the White House (with the possible exception of Nixon's wife). The word around Washington was that he was the first person to see Nixon each morning and the last to see him each night — and, because of the nature of his job, he saw Nixon many, many times in between.

It was to be expected, therefore, that he would be a Nixon defender on the stand. And he was.

"I have full confidence," he told the Watergate committee 40 years ago, "that when the entire truth is known, it will be clear to the American people that President Nixon had no knowledge of or involvement in either the Watergate affair itself or the subsequent effort of a 'coverup' of the Watergate."

Ironically, the Watergate figure with whom Haldeman probably had the most in common 40 years ago today — at least on the surface — was John Dean, who had testified a month earlier.

Both men delivered lengthy statements on their first days on the witness stand and answered questions on the other days. But that was where the similarities ended. Their stories were quite different.

In his statement 40 years ago today, Haldeman insisted that he and Richard Nixon had no knowledge of the Watergate break–in and that Dean had "badly misled" them. He also said he had listened recently to the tape of the March 21, 1973 meeting between Nixon and Dean in which Dean warned Nixon that there was a "cancer ... close to the presidency."

Haldeman observed that he had participated in part of that meeting but had missed the first hour — and the edited transcripts that Nixon released the following spring confirmed that.

Dean, Haldeman told the committee, "[had], in a number of instances, misinterpreted the intent or implications of things that might have been said."

Haldeman went on to say that "[h]aving observed the president all those years, in many different situations, it was very clear to me on March 21 that the president was exploring and probing; that he was surprised; that he was trying to find out what in the world was going on; he didn't understand how this all fit together, and he was trying to find out."

However, "It is impossible," wrote Theodore H. White, "to misinterpret the flow of [Dean's and Nixon's] conversation; the president [had] ordered Dean to buy time for him ..."

On the stand the next day, Haldeman vigorously denied participating in a coverup, then he wrapped up his testimony on the third day by describing his proposal to link Communist protests to the campaign for the Democrats' nominee, Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota.

But as each member of the committee took his turn questioning Haldeman, it was increasingly clear that Haldeman knew little (or said he knew little) of the important details of key events that other witnesses had described.

For example, Haldeman — a man known for taking meticulous notes on large legal pads — said he could not recall when he first heard of the Watergate burglary. Even Haldeman admitted that was "incredible."

Haldeman's opening statement may also have included the public unveiling of one of the most noxious justifications for Watergate that was offered by the Nixon White House. In an almost offhand kind of way, Haldeman alleged that the Democrats engaged in far more serious sabotage during the 1972 campaign than the Republicans.

Lowell Weicker, a Connecticut Republican (and an unsuccessful candidate for his party's presidential nomination in 1980) who loathed the Nixon White House and considered its behavior a betrayal of GOP principles, challenged Haldeman on that point. He produced a memo from Haldeman to Dean suggesting that Dean spread a story linking Communists to protests in which McGovern supporters also participated.

The inescapable conclusion — for anyone who had been paying attention to the hearings — was that the memo confirmed what Dean had said about paranoia in the White House in general and in Nixon's and Haldeman's minds specifically.

Perhaps the most astonishing revelation came when Haldeman spoke of the White House tapes.

In just a couple of weeks since they learned of the tapes' existence, the senators on the committee had clearly come to regard the tapes as crucial to their investigation, but they had been denied access to them. However, Haldeman spoke almost nonchalantly about keeping several of the tapes at his home in a 48–hour period earlier that month and listening to a specific tape at the president's request.

This was only a few months after Nixon had asked for and received Haldeman's resignation.

Haldeman's lawyer read into the record a White House letter instructing Haldeman not to discuss the contents of the tapes, but Haldeman seemed oddly eager to speak about them, anyway. He asserted that the tapes proved that Nixon did not know as much about the coverup as Dean had claimed.

Committee chairman Sam Ervin was skeptical, contending that the White House and Haldeman had done some "canoodling together" to leak a sanitized version of the tapes in the hearings while keeping the originals from the committee's scrutiny.

Weicker wondered aloud how the White House could justify letting Haldeman listen to the tapes while denying that privilege to Dean and the others.

Sen. Daniel Inouye was skeptical that anyone could be sure the tapes had not been tampered with while they had been unguarded in Haldeman's possession.

And majority counsel Sam Dash pondered the question of how Nixon could claim the tapes were confidential when he allowed Haldeman — a private citizen at that point — to keep some in his home.

There were no answers from Richard Nixon's S.O.B.

A Man's Home Is His Castle

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Sen. Herman Talmadge of Georgia

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There were many memorable moments during the Senate Watergate Committee's hearings in the summer of 1973. They call them "sound bites" today, which isn't a bad description since such quotes almost always bite someone.

If you talk to folks who remember the Watergate scandal, you'll get a lot of responses — but no clear consensus — to the question, "What was the most memorable moment (or sound bite) for you?"

That is kind of a difficult question for me to answer because my family spent most of that summer out of the country, and we missed seeing and hearing many of the iconic moments when they happened. We kept up with the news — as did most of the Americans we encountered — through foreign editions of the news weeklies (TIME and Newsweek) or, when my parents were especially eager to learn what was happening, through daily editions of the International Herald Tribune (which is published today — and, I suppose, was published 40 years ago — by the New York Times).

Over the years, I have seen video clips of most, if not all, of those moments — several times. And, although it is a tough choice, I have concluded that my personal favorite "sound bite" came 40 years ago today when Sen. Herman Talmadge of Georgia was questioning John Ehrlichman, a former aide to Richard Nixon.

It was the second of five days of testimony for Ehrlichman. On the first day, he had defended, on grounds of national security, the break–in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist — which, in fact, was intended to gather information that could be used to discredit Ellsberg in the eyes of the public. Ellsberg was a former military analyst who played a key role in the release of the so–called Pentagon Papers, an insider's history of American involvement in Vietnam.

Several senators objected to the break–in, but, as I say, Ehrlichman defended it. The next day, Talmadge was clearly wrestling with issues that had been raised earlier.

"Now, if the president could authorize a covert break–in [of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office] and you do not know exactly what that power would be limited," Talmdage said, "you do not think it could include murder or other crimes beyond covert break–ins, do you?"

"I do not know where the line is, senator," Ehrlichman replied.

"Where is the check on the chief executive's power as to where that power begins and ends, that is what I am trying to determine," Talmadge told him. "Do you remember when we were in law school we studied a famous principle of law that came from England, and also is well known in this country, that no matter how humble a man's cottage is that even the king of England cannot enter without his consent?"

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John Ehrlichman testifies in July 1973.

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"I'm afraid that has been considerably eroded over the years, has it not?" Ehrlichman asked with what could only be described as a snarky grin on his face.

That grin remained frozen as he listened to Talmadge's reply — and the thunderous ovation it received. Perhaps he knew the cameras were focused on him as Talmadge made his response.

"Down in my country we still think it's a pretty legitimate principle of law," Talmadge said as a wave of approving applause swept over the room.

All my life (which, I admit, was quite brief at that time), I had heard that "a man's home is his castle," but I never completely understood what it meant until I read this exchange in one of those periodicals I mentioned earlier.

It left quite an impression on me, formed the foundation of everything that I believe and hold dear as an adult.

A man must have some domain that is his and cannot be violated without his consent — unless a warrant is issued, and that requires pretty solid evidence that something illegal is going on.

That is freedom. No American citizen can be subjected to unreasonable searches and seizures. It is a privilege that cannot be found everywhere, but it goes with being an American. It is why so many people around the globe still want to become Americans — even when there are so many other people who would like to do us harm.

American citizenship is about more than a person's physical address. It is about being treated with common respect and dignity.

Even in America, though, there is not total freedom. There are rules we all must observe.

People like to believe they have unlimited freedom in America, but that is not, never has been true. With freedom comes responsibility.

When I am away from my home, I take it for granted that I will have to observe rules that are made by others. When the light is red, I have to stop and permit others to go past me, even if I am late for something. I must wait my turn for anything I want to buy — even if the people ahead of me showed no respect for the rules that restrict the number of items to be purchased in certain checkout lines. At work, I must follow whatever rules have been set by the boss — even if I think some or all of those rules are unfair and/or unreasonable.

But, when I am at home, I need only concern myself with my agenda. That can mean a lot of things, but mainly it means that I am in control of my particular patch of earth. It does not matter if I rent it or own it outright. It is my home.

I do have to be considerate of others. If I live in an apartment (which I do) and it is late at night, I can't play my stereo or my TV loud enough to keep people who are trying to sleep awake. But, as long as I do not intrude on other people's space — or break the law — I am free to do as I please in my own space.

A person cannot always explain or justify things he/she does in private, but it is someone's personal space, and justification is not necessary. Not even a king — or a president — may violate my personal space or demand justification of anything.

It was true in 1973, and it is still true today — even when surveillance is applied to things that didn't exist 40 years ago, like email and cellular phones.