The First Impeachment

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It was 150 years ago today that an American president was impeached for the first time.

It has been fashionable in recent years for those who lose presidential elections to start calling for the impeachment of the winner — even before the winner has taken office — but impeachment had never been attempted before this day in 1868. Only two American presidents have faced the genuine prospect of impeachment since that time, and only one (Bill Clinton) faced a trial in the U.S. Senate. The House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment against Nixon in the summer of 1974, but Nixon resigned before the full House could vote on them.

Four years earlier, Johnson (a Democrat) had been selected as the running mate for Republican President Abraham Lincoln in his bid for a second term. Not only was it unprecedented for a major–party nominee to pick someone from the other party to be his running mate (they actually ran under the National Union banner), but Lincoln's choice was the military governor of Tennessee, a state that had seceded and was still not a part of the Union (it was occupied by the Union army). Tennessee did not participate in the election of 1864.

Johnson was an inspired choice for a president whose mission was to preserve the nation. While a supporter of slavery, Johnson was an unapologetic Unionist who had been the only Southern senator to oppose his state's decision to secede.

I don't think vice presidents deliver inaugural addresses anymore, but they did in Andrew Johnson's day. At least, Johnson tried to deliver such a speech, but he wasn't feeling well so he drank some whiskey, believing that would help. Instead, he got gassed and gave a rambling speech. Thus, the inauguration of 1865, which is remembered in history for Lincoln's magnanimous call for "malice toward none" and "charity for all" in the North's treatment of the vanquished South following the Civil War, was an awkward introduction for Johnson to his fellow Americans.

That was particularly unfortunate since Johnson became the nation's leader a month and a half later.

Six weeks after the inauguration in 1865, Lincoln was assassinated, and Johnson became the 17th president. Things didn't go well for him, and by this day in 1868, 11 articles of impeachment, largely related to Johnson's efforts to dismiss the secretary of war, were adopted by the House. The case was sent to the Senate for trial — where Johnson was ultimately acquitted by a single vote.

Johnson failed to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1868 and left office in 1869.

He returned to the U.S. Senate in 1875 and died shortly therafter.

Beating the Rap

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"The vote itself was anticlimactic, coming three weeks after the close of my defense. Only the margin of defeat was in doubt. I was just glad the ordeal was over for my family and my country. After the vote, I said I was profoundly sorry for what I had done to trigger the events and the great burden they imposed on the American people, and that I was rededicating myself to 'a time of reconciliation and renewal for America.' I took one question: 'In your heart, sir, can you forgive and forget?' I replied, 'I believe any person who asks for forgiveness has to be prepared to give it.' "

Bill Clinton
"My Life" (2004)

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On this day in 1999 — 190 years after the birth of Abraham Lincoln — the U.S. Senate acquitted President Bill Clinton of charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

It was the first time in more than a century — since Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, survived by a single vote — that an American president had been impeached by the House and then managed to be acquitted by the Senate. Articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon were approved by the House Judiciary Committee 40 years ago this summer, but Nixon resigned before the House could vote on them. Obviously, Nixon never faced trial in the Senate.

A year earlier, in January 1998, Clinton famously declared that "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss (Monica) Lewinsky." He also insisted that he never instructed anyone to lie.

But it was later revealed that Clinton did have an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky.

And that was a big part of his detractors' case. From that act of deception sprang everything else.

Ultimately, they failed to persuade two–thirds of the Senate to convict, which is what the Constitution requires for the removal of a president. They fell short by a considerable margin. Clinton was correct when he wrote that the outcome was never in doubt. The bar was too high.

That was the calculating way that Clinton looked at things. It was something I picked up on when I covered one of his gubernatorial campaigns in Arkansas. I sat in on an interview with Clinton one day during his runoff with a former Arkansas lieutenant governor. It was observed to Clinton that supporters of the candidate who ran third in the primary were making noises about sitting out the runoff; Clinton, in effect, said he didn't care.

That may be hard to reconcile with the "I feel your pain" image that Clinton cultivated, but it represents merely one side of his political personality. That was the pragmatic, politically savvy Clinton, who understood that, in the most basic terms, if you took a voting bloc that large and that unpredictable, given the indifference most of that candidate's supporters had for both Clinton and his opponent in the runoff, he was better off if they chose not to participate. There was no telling which way they might go.

Clinton ran first in the primary, but he didn't quite reach 50%, forcing a runoff with the runnerup. The third–place finisher had received a lot of votes, but he didn't get enough to make the runoff. As I recall, there was only one other candidate in the primary; he ran fourth and attracted a relative handful of votes.

Therefore, if nearly all the people who voted in the runoff had voted for either Clinton or his opponent the first time, Clinton knew he would win — which he did.

In the Senate 15 years ago today, Clinton knew that the Republicans held the majority in the Senate. But, in order to reach the two–thirds threshold, they needed 12 Democrats to vote with them — and that wasn't going to happen. In fact, while Senate Democrats voted unanimously against conviction, some Republicans voted not acquit as well so the Senate's Republicans finished even farther from their goal than if the vote had been strictly along party lines.

After the vote, a number of Senate Republicans and their aides were quoted as saying they resented the fact that House Republicans had put them in that position. Perhaps they were right to feel that way. The next time the voters went to the polls, Republicans lost ground in the Senate but the numbers remained virtually unchanged in the House.

Twisting Slowly in the Wind

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Among other things, Watergate had a profound influence on American vocabulary.

A good example was John Ehrlichman's suggestion to allow acting FBI director L. Patrick Gray to "twist slowly, slowly in the wind."

It was one of those phrases that seemed appropriate for many people on many occasions during the Watergate scandal.

Perhaps no date was a better illustration of that than Aug. 7, 1974. If Richard Nixon had already decided, on that date, to resign the presidency, he appears to be the only one who knew his intentions — until he revealed his decision to his family at dinner.

But, until that time, no one really seemed to know what would happen, and speculation was rampant.

• Maybe the most notorious speculation on that day was Alexander Haig's suspicion that Nixon might kill himself.
  
  The morose Nixon contributed heavily to that suspicion, as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein recalled in The Final Days.

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"Over the past months, there had been certain references to death and suicide. At first, they were oblique and often expressed in Nixon's impatient manner; the President was thinking out loud, probably. This week, Nixon had finally approached the subject head on.

'You fellows, in your business,' the President began, meaning the Army, which he always seemed to consider Haig's real business, 'you have a way of handling problems like this. Somebody leaves a pistol in the drawer.' Haig waited.

'I don't have a pistol,' the President said sadly, as if it were one more deprivation in a long history of underprivilege. As if he were half asking to be given one. It was the same tone he used when he talked about his parents not having had any money."

The Final Days

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Haig did take the precaution of ordering Nixon's doctors to decline to authorize any prescriptions for the president and insisted that all pills already in his possession be taken away.

But Nixon's attorney, Fred Buzhardt, assured Haig that Nixon was not the sort of man who would commit suicide. At Nixon's insistence, Buzhardt had listened to recordings of daily reflections Nixon had made, sort of an oral diary. "The tapes provided a dark, almost Dostoevskian journey into Nixon's fears, obsessions, hostilities, passions and inadequacies," Woodward and Bernstein wrote.

And, from those recordings, Buzhardt had concluded that Nixon would not kill himself.


• Haig was dealing with a delicate balancing act. He felt confident that Nixon would reach the conclusion on his own that resignation was the wisest course he could take — sooner rather than later if handled correctly.
  
  And he was Nixon's buffer against a couple of interest groups that day.
  
  One was the GOP's Congressional leadership, Rep. John Rhodes and Sens. Hugh Scott and Barry Goldwater. They were lobbying for resignation, and a meeting with Nixon was arranged for that afternoon. Nixon, the men were told, wanted a frank assessment of how he stood in the House and Senate. And the outlook was grim.
  
  Haig tried to reassure them that Nixon was likely to resign. But he felt Nixon could respond defensively and decide to fight it out. "[H]e has almost been persuaded several times," Woodward and Bernstein recalled Haig telling Scott. "If you demand his resignation, he'll probably harden up again. Would you just tell him the situation? He knows it. But he needs to hear it from you. He needs to know there are no alternatives. Nothing else."
  
  Also that day, Haig was trying to fend off H.R. Haldeman, who was lobbying for an "overall pardon" for the men who had done Nixon's bidding during Watergate.
  
  Haig saw it as blackmail to which Nixon would be vulnerable, and he did what he could to keep the issue from the president.


• The greatest obstacle was probably Nixon's family. Nixon's sons–in–law had reached a level of acceptance, but Nixon's wife and daughters seemed to be more inclined to fighting it out.

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"[White House public relations aide] Bruce Herschensohn ... was talking to Julie, reinforcing her opinion that her father should never resign. Herschensohn wanted the President to go down in history as a fighter, and he was telling her that winning or losing in the Senate was not the important thing — that standing up for the office would assure the President his proper role in history."

The Final Days

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But when Nixon joined his family for dinner, he made it clear that he had made his decision. His daughters began to cry. His wife did not cry. Then the White House photographer was asked in to take some pictures.

It required numerous attempts before the photographer managed to snap a picture of the family that appears to show everyone smiling. But the photographer caught a poignant moment when Nixon and his youngest daughter, Julie, embraced, apparently unaware of the camera.

The two were weeping, Woodward and Bernstein reported in The Final Days, and standing next to them, Nixon's oldest daughter, Tricia, "broke down, her face contorted, arms dangling."


• After dinner, Nixon returned to the Oval Office, then retreated to the Lincoln Sitting Room, where he summoned Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
  
  It was during this meeting, about 24 hours before Nixon would speak to the nation and announce that he would resign the presidency, that Nixon broke down and cried and asked Kissinger to get on his knees and pray with him.
  
  "[Y]ou are not a very orthodox Jew," Woodward and Bernstein quoted Nixon as telling Kissinger, "and I am not an orthodox Quaker, but we need to pray."
  
  After the prayer, Nixon "struck his fist on the carpet, crying, 'What have I done? What has happened?' " And Kissinger did his best to console his president.
  
  Before the night was over, Nixon had one final request of Kissinger. "[P]lease don't ever tell anyone that I cried and that I was not strong."

Nixon's Crime

On Friday, Aug. 2, 1974, the noose really began to tighten around Richard Nixon's neck.

That was the day Nixon surrendered tapes of 13 conversations, among them the damning June 23, 1972, conversation with H.R. Haldeman that came to be known as the "smoking gun." Before he did so, chief of staff Al Haig gathered seven people — White House press secretary Ron Ziegler, Nixon attorney Fred Buzhardt, special counsel James St. Clair, Congressional liaison William Timmons, political counselor Dean Burch, speech writer Pat Buchanan and Haig's aide, George Joulwan — for a strategy session in his office in the early morning hours.

If any of those who attended the meeting came to it harboring any hope that Nixon could survive the crisis, that hope was quickly dashed.

The day dawned "overcast and muggy," Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein recalled in their book, The Final Days. Haig asked Buzhardt to give the group the bad news. When Buzhardt told them that there was "something fairly serious" in the subpoenaed tapes, Haig said, "I can hear the assholes tightening."

The general consensus of those at the meeting was that it was over for Nixon. Shortly thereafter, St. Clair met with Vice President Gerald Ford to give him a legal assessment.

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"Without going into great detail, St. Clair informed Ford that he considered the new evidence so damaging that impeachment was certain and conviction highly probable."

The Final Days

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In the 35 years that have passed since Nixon's resignation, there has been a certain amount of misunderstanding on the part of the public. What did Nixon do? Why was he forced from office? Some people have been under the false impression that it was all politically motivated — Democrats seeking revenge for Nixon's landslide re–election two years earlier.

So persistent was that belief that many people believed the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the late 1990s was Republican payback for the impeachment of Nixon.

It is possible that there was some political tit for tat involved in the proceedings against Clinton more than two decades later. But there was more to the impeachment of Nixon than political revenge. Something fundamental.

Perhaps no one else explained the situation better than political historian Theodore H. White in his book Breach of Faith:

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"The true crime of Richard Nixon was simple: he destroyed the myth that binds America together, and for this he was driven from power.

"The myth he broke was critical — that somewhere in American life there is at least one man who stands for law, the President. That faith surmounts all daily cynicism, all evidence or suspicion of wrongdoing by lesser leaders, all corruptions, all vulgarities, all the ugly compromises of daily striving and ambition. That faith holds that all men are equal before the law and protected by it; and that no matter how the faith may be betrayed elsewhere, at one particular point — the Presidency — justice will be done beyond prejudice, beyond rancor, beyond the possibility of a fix. It was that faith that Richard Nixon broke, betraying those who voted for him even more than those who voted against him."

Breach of Faith

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On Aug. 2, 1974, former White House counsel John Dean — the man whose testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee the year before irreversibly turned the public against Nixon — was sentenced to prison. He was slated to begin serving a one– to four–year prison term a month later.

Nixon never spent a day in prison, but the die was cast on his presidency on August 2.

Elsewhere in Washington, Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott met to discuss the situation. They felt they had 36 votes for acquittal if Nixon faced a trial in the Senate — two votes more than they needed — but 11 of those votes, including both Scott and Goldwater, were iffy.

By sunset on August 2, Nixon's support on Capitol Hill had eroded to well below what he needed to remain in office.

And the task that remained was for those in the White House who were still loyal to the president but were convinced of his guilt to persuade Nixon that he had no choice but to relinquish power.

The Smoking Gun of Watergate

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Today is the 35th anniversary of an important event in American history.

On this day in 1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved, by a 27–11 vote, the first article of impeachment against Richard Nixon. The article dealt with obstruction of justice.

In the great drama that was Nixon's impeachment proceeding in the summer of 1974, Saturday, July 27 was a significant day, both publicly and privately.

A few days earlier, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Nixon had to turn over the tapes he had been trying to keep to himself. That was really the beginning of the end, but behind–the–scenes work needed to be done,

Fred Buzhardt, Nixon's attorney, was worried about one tape in particular — the one of a conversation from June 23, 1972, less than a week after the Watergate break–in. In "The Final Days," Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote that Buzhardt was certain the tape "undermined" Nixon, but he needed reinforcement. So, acting on the instruction of chief of staff Alexander Haig, Buzhardt asked speech writer Pat Buchanan to come to his office. His objective was to solicit Buchanan's opinion without revealing what was in the tape.

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When Buchanan arrived, Buzhardt hedged. What would happen if there was a serious problem about the contents of one of the tapes? "Al told me to ask you," Buzhardt said.

Buchanan wanted to know what he meant.

"Well, what would you say if there was something that showed the President knew of the cover–up earlier than he said?"

"Is it an early tape or a late tape?" Buchanan asked. Before Buzhardt could answer, Buchanan finished the thought. "If it's something ambiguous, we can handle it. If it's in March (1973), well, it means he was wrong by a week or so. But if it's in June or July of '72, then that's the smoking gun."

Buchanan pressed for more information, but Buzhardt would say only, "It's pretty serious."

The Final Days

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And so it was.

When the tape was made public, Nixon's support "eroded significantly," in the words of Vice President Gerald Ford. The tape clearly showed Nixon instructing then–chief of staff H.R. Haldeman to order the CIA to halt the FBI's investigation into the break–in.

In other words, obstruction of justice.

On July 27, Ford said the failure of the House Judiciary Committee to produce any evidence against Nixon was a "travesty." Little did he realize that, on that very day, Buzhardt and Buchanan were having their conversation about the tape that ultimately became known as the "smoking gun."

And it devastated those who had defended Richard Nixon.

Illinois House Votes to Impeach Blagojevich

I guess it's appropriate that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached by the Illinois House today. The vote was nearly unanimous — 114-1.

Rep. Milt Patterson of Chicago was the only member of the House to vote against the resolution.

Today happens to be the 96th anniversary of the birth of Richard Nixon — who managed to avoid impeachment and conviction by resigning the presidency in 1974.

Blagojevich's trial will be one of the items of business the Illinois Senate will take up after it convenes next week. There are 59 members of the Illinois Senate. Forty are needed to convict the governor and remove him from office.

In spite of a lengthy history of corrupt politics, Illinois has never impeached a governor before.

Meanwhile, many Americans can't be blamed if they're more concerned about their own job prospects than Blagojevich's. The latest job report says 2.6 million jobs were lost in 2008, making it the worst year for jobs since the end of World War II.

The unemployment rate is 7.2%. That's the highest rate since January 1993, which is when George H.W. Bush was replaced as president by Bill Clinton.

Perhaps Blagojevich will join the ranks of the unemployed before long.

A New Call for Impeachment

In 1972, he was the Democratic nominee for president. He ended up losing 49 states in a landslide loss to President Richard Nixon, who resigned with the threat of impeachment hanging over his head less than two years later.

Today, George McGovern is a retired former senator. His wife Eleanor died almost a year ago. So did his original running mate, Tom Eagleton. And, in today's Washington Post, the 85-year-old McGovern says he has come to the conclusion that President Bush and Vice President Cheney must go. Now.

Based on the political calendar, of course, both men will go in another year. The Constitution prevents Bush from seeking a third term, and Cheney long ago ruled out running for the presidency on his own.

But that's not soon enough for McGovern, who rightfully points out that he remained silent when calls for the impeachment of President Nixon reached a crescendo in late 1973 and into 1974.

McGovern writes that "the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment" of Bush and Cheney.

Acknowledging that "the political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians," McGovern admits that "the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction are not promising."

Nevertheless, McGovern goes on to lay out his case for the removal of Bush and Cheney from office.

In what has to be a huge understatement, McGovern writes, "I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon administration."

In this instance, McGovern continues, "[T]he case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election."

From false claims of Iraq's possession of nuclear and other weapons to the assertion that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, McGovern says, "[T]he Bush-Cheney team repeatedly deceived Congress, the press and the public."

McGovern's criticism of the Bush administration does not end with foreign policy. Speaking of Hurricane Katrina, McGovern says, "[V]eteran CNN commentator Jack Cafferty condenses it to a sentence: 'I have never ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans.'"

Which leads McGovern to say, "Any impeachment proceeding must include a careful and critical look at the collapse of presidential leadership in response to perhaps the worst natural disaster in U.S. history."

McGovern admits that impeachment "is unlikely ... But we must still urge Congress to act."

McGovern concludes, "There has never been a day in my adult life when I would not have sacrificed that life to save the United States from genuine danger ... We must be a great nation because from time to time, we make gigantic blunders, but so far, we have survived and recovered."