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.

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.

Rose Mary's Boo-Boo

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Rose Mary Woods re–enacts the "Rose Mary Stretch" for photographers.

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The official accounts of the Watergate break–in and its subsequent coverup all say that the Oval Office conversation in which the so–called "smoking gun" was found to be in Richard Nixon's hand occurred 40 years ago Saturday.

But it's possible — if not probable — that the gun had been smoldering for a few days.

Actually, all the evidence and testimony suggest that the Nixon White House's damage control machine was humming the day of the break–in, but Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, were in Florida. There were things that could not be done until they returned.

On this day 40 years ago, the men who were ultimately held accountable for the coverup conspiracy held a series of meetings that were dedicated to damage control. The first newspaper story that linked White House operative Howard Hunt to the Watergate burglars had been published that day, and the president's men were determined that culpability for the break–in would stop with Hunt.

In mid–morning that day, Nixon had a phone conversation with his campaign director and former attorney general, John Mitchell, then he met for an hour with Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, a top adviser. The burglary was only three days old at that time, but Ehrlichman already had met with just about all of the principals by that time.

Nixon and Haldeman, as I say, had been out of Washington at the time of the break–in. On Tuesday, June 20, 1972, they were back in the White House and allegedly being brought up to speed on what had happened in their absence — and there may have been no one else who knew as much about Watergate at that point as Ehrlichman did.

Consequently, it made sense to many observers that Nixon learned many of the details of the break–in from Ehrlichman on that occasion, but the evidence that might support that theory was incomplete.

There was a recording of that conversation, and investigators subpoenaed the tape when the existence of the White House taping system was revealed in the summer of 1973, but, in November, it was learned that a portion of the tape had been mysteriously erased before Nixon's lawyers first listened to it.

The White House's position was that Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who had been with Nixon for more than two decades and was decidedly loyal to her boss, had accidentally erased about five minutes of the tape.

According to her account, Woods had been transcribing the tape when the phone rang and she reached to answer it. Her feet controlled basic functions like stop, play and record with pedals that left her hands free for typing; she insisted that, somehow, while she was answering the phone and then carrying on a five–minute conversation, she stepped on the record pedal, erasing that section.

Her side of the story was met with quite a bit of skepticism. A rather short woman, there was no conceivable way that Woods could comfortably pull off the maneuver that she described (dubbed the "Rose Mary Stretch") — even if she was a contortionist.

But things were considerably worse than that.

The actual gap turned out to be more than three times as long as the one for which Woods claimed responsibility, and she denied that her erasure was anything like the 18½ minutes it turned out to be.

Because the pitch of the buzzing noise that was made by the erasure changed several times, the unavoidable conclusion was that several separate erasures had been attempted.

Privately (and, in some cases, not so privately), it was suggested that the tape had been deliberately erased. Alexander Haig, Nixon's chief of staff at the end of his presidency, openly suggested Nixon may have erased it himself, either accidentally or intentionally.

Nixon, he said, was never comfortable with mechanical devices, and he might well have erased a portion of the tape when he was trying to listen to it.

That provided a possible, unintentional explanation, but unless that can be proven, the alternate possibility — that someone, possibly Nixon himself, deliberately destroyed evidence — cannot be dismissed.

The tape of the June 20 conversation has always intrigued me. Of all the tapes of White House conversations, it is the only one that was destroyed — at least in part.

Ultimately, it was a tape of a conversation between Nixon and Haldeman on June 23, 1972, that came to be known as the "smoking gun." That was the tape that caused Nixon's base in Congress to crumble — and led him to conclude that resignation was his only option.

What must Nixon and Haldeman and Ehrlichman have said to each other 40 years ago that prompted whoever it was to repeatedly record over the tape until that portion of the conversation was entirely erased rather than risk having it revealed to the public?

Was it worse than anything else that was revealed in those tapes?

Could it have done any more damage to the relationship between the American people and their government?

Twenty years ago, in a TV program that commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Watergate break–in, I heard Woodward talking about the 18½–minute gap.

With all the evidence of a huge criminal conspiracy that went deep into the White House, Woodward said, Nixon would have needed something like an 18,500–minute gap to successfully conceal his involvement.

I believed that when I heard it. Twenty years later, I am even more convinced that is true.

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.