Shadow

Five Presidents And The Legacy Of Watergate

Bob Woodward

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781471104725
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Twenty-five years after Richard Nixon's resignation, investigative journalist Bob Woodward examines the legacy of Watergate. Based on hundreds of interviews - both on and off the record - and three years of research of government archives, Woodward's latest book explains in detail how the premier scandal of US history has indelibly altered the shape of American politics and culture - and has limited the power to act of the presidency itself. Bob Woodward's mix of historical perspective and journalistic sleuthing provides a unique perspective on the repercussions of Watergate and proves that it was far more than a passing, embarrassing crisis in American politics: it heralded the beginning of a new period of troubled presidencies. From Ford through to Clinton, presidents have battled public scepticism, a challenging Congress, adversarial press and even special prosecutors in their term in office. Now, a quarter of a century after the scandal emerged, the man who helped expose Watergate shows us the stunning impact of its heritage.

PART ONE

GERALD FORD1974–77

1

AUGUST 1, 1974, was a hot Washington summer morning with the humidity heavy in the air, but inside Richard Nixon’s air-conditioned White House it was unnaturally cool. The president looked thin, battered, at times almost like a stroke victim. His chief of staff Alexander M. Haig Jr.’s eyes were red. Early that morning Nixon had summoned Haig, a 49-year-old Army general who had been his right-hand man for the previous 15 months, the most grueling, emotionally exhausting and politically unstable of the Watergate scandal. The incessant hangover of sleep deprivation had become a way of life for both.

“Al, it’s over,” Nixon said in a surprisingly impersonal, even matter-of-fact tone. Nixon, ever the political realist, said he simply couldn’t govern. His presidency was collapsing. He could almost hear the air rushing out of it—power leaving. All three branches of the federal government had turned against the president. Although Special Watergate Prosecutor Leon Jaworski worked for the executive branch that Nixon headed, he was conducting an independent, relentless investigation. A week earlier the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, had ruled in the special prosecutor’s favor that Nixon had to turn over an additional 64 secret White House tape recordings. Two of those tapes, once released, were going to undermine Nixon and show he ordered the Watergate cover-up. In the legislative branch, a lopsided bipartisan majority of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives had days earlier voted three articles recommending his impeachment based on information that Special Prosecutor Jaworski had provided through the grand jury to the House committee. Governing had been reduced to a series of stopgap pretenses.

Typically, Nixon had a plan. He intended to announce his resignation in four days, he told Haig. He needed the weekend to take his family to Camp David, the presidential retreat in the nearby Maryland mountains, and prepare them. He expected his wife and two grown daughters, Julie and Tricia, to resist and fight his decision with every bone in their bodies.

“It might be better to resign tomorrow night and leave town immediately,” Haig proposed.

“No,” Nixon answered. Nixon’s tone was at first gentle. Then he shifted and became gruff, waving a forefinger at Haig as he so often had, demanding his orders be followed. “This is my decision and mine alone,” Nixon insisted, warning that he would not succumb to political pressure from Republicans, the Congress or his cabinet. “I’ve resisted political pressure all my life, and if I get it now, I may change my mind.”

“Understood, Mr. President,” Haig answered.

Nixon directed Haig to inform Vice President Gerald Ford that he should be ready to assume the presidency, but not to give him all the facts. “Tell him I want absolute secrecy. Tell him what’s coming. Explain the reasoning. But don’t tell him when.”

Watergate had put the presidency in play. The president’s hold on the office was loosened as Nixon contemplated resigning. It was a singular moment in American history, creating a dangerous new space in which Nixon, Ford and Haig had to operate. Where exactly was presidential power at that moment? Nixon held the office, according to the law and Constitution. Ford was stumbling to the presidency. For his part, Haig, mindful of his multiple and competing loyalties to Nixon, Ford and the country, was to be the broker and go-between.

There was no steady hand. Nixon was consumed by a simmering, explosive anger that he was getting a bum rap. He was emotionally disabled, depressed and paranoid. Ford had acquired none of the armor that comes with brutal presidential or vice presidential campaigning. He had no real executive experience. He had never run for a national office, having been appointed vice president by Nixon—and confirmed by Congress under the 25th Amendment—to replace Spiro Agnew, who had resigned the previous year in a financial scandal. He was a man of the House of Representatives, where from 1948 to 1973 he had represented his Grand Rapids, Michigan, district.

Haig also was somewhat ill-equipped. He had no legal, constitutional or political standing as a staff man. But as an Army officer he was used to taking orders and getting the job done. He had received his basic bureaucratic education in the school of maneuver and deception run by Henry Kissinger in the National Security Council staff where he had served as deputy.

That same day, Kissinger, now the secretary of state, told Haig, “We’ve got to quietly bring down the curtain on this charade.”

Before he saw Ford, Haig met in his West Wing corner office with Nixon’s White House Watergate lawyer, J. Fred Buzhardt, a diminutive, soft-spoken Southerner who had previously worked as Pentagon general counsel. Both were West Point graduates—Haig class of 1947, Buzhardt class of 1946. They had become close over the last year. It was a partnership in survival, forged in one surprise and crisis after another. What was the legal situation if Nixon resigned? Haig asked.

Buzhardt had been working on the issue and had a set of options to present to the vice president. All, with one exception, focused on Nixon—not Ford.

Haig felt it was sensible to concentrate on Nixon. He was still president. They served him, and, as Haig knew, Nixon was an exhaustive explorer of alternatives.

Buzhardt had thought out six possibilities. Five of them were actions that Nixon might take, and two of those included granting a pardon to himself. The sixth alternative: Nixon could resign and hope his successor, Ford, would pardon him. This last one was fleshed out more than the others, spelled out in detail.

“Here’s what you should give him,” Buzhardt said, handing Haig two sheets of yellow legal paper for the meeting with the vice president.

Ford was on the cusp of assuming the highest office in the land, the leadership of the free world, and Buzhardt was focused on what could be done for Nixon. Haig realized that Buzhardt might be planting a pardon suggestion.

Before 9 a.m., Haig went to Ford’s office.

Ford, then 61, had been vice president only eight months. A warm Midwesterner, whose speech was slow, deliberate—and at times awkward—Ford had been grafted onto the Nixon administration as a necessary afterthought. Under the Constitution, Nixon had to have a vice president. Nixon deemed his preferred choices too controversial, ideological or dynamic to win confirmation, especially former Texas Governor John Connally. “This left Jerry Ford,” Nixon wrote in his memoirs. Nixon knew that Ford was loyal, a creature of the Republican Party, having served 24 years in the House, nine of those as Republican minority leader. To Nixon, Ford was basically a party chore boy who undertook unsavory tasks such as leading the unsuccessful effort in 1970 to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. With Nixon bogged down in his Watergate defense, Ford had been almost on his own as vice president, peripheral to the administration.

Ford had Robert Hartmann, a top aide and former newspaperman, with him when Haig arrived in the office. Haig detested and distrusted Hartmann. He had received reports from the Secret Service that Hartmann would drink late at night in his office. So Haig told Ford only that a new tape recording about to be released would present grave difficulties for Nixon in an impeachment trial.

Later in the day Haig called the vice president and asked for a second meeting, this time alone. Ford agreed. At 3:30 p.m. Haig entered the vice president’s suite. He looked troubled and on edge. He had just read the transcripts of two tape recordings made six days after the June 17, 1972, Watergate break-in. Nixon ordered the cover-up. His case would collapse when the tapes were made public. There was a decorated screen in one corner of the room. Haig later said he was certain that Hartmann was stationed behind the screen to take notes in secret and to protect Ford, a charge both Hartmann and Ford categorically deny. But the air was filled with distrust.

“Are you ready, Mr. Vice President, to assume the presidency in a short period of time?”

Ford, absolutely stunned, said he was prepared.

Haig wanted his assessment of the situation, but Ford did not have a lot to say. “These are what the lawyers think,” Haig told Ford, taking out the papers Buzhardt had given him.

The options for Nixon and others in the White House were numerous. Nixon could step aside temporarily under the 25th Amendment, he could just wait and delay the impeachment process, or he could try to settle for a formal censure. In addition, there were three pardon options. Nixon could pardon himself and resign. Or he could pardon the aides involved in Watergate and then resign.

Or, Haig said, Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that the new president would pardon him. Haig handed Ford the papers. The first sheet contained a handwritten summary of a president’s legal authority to pardon. The second sheet was a draft pardon form that only needed Ford’s signature and Nixon’s name to make it legal.

Haig asked for Ford’s recommendation about what course Nixon might follow. Haig privately believed that this was a time for mercy if ever there were one. A pardon would be an act of simple humanity. It would spare the country a Senate trial that would create a destructive heritage of hatred and resentment. It would be patriotic and courageous, in his eyes.

Even if Haig offered no direct words on his views, the message was almost certainly sent. An emotional man, Haig was incapable of concealing his feelings; those who worked closely with him rarely found him ambiguous. In fact, Haig not only was incapable of hiding his feelings, he didn’t try. It was part of his style—to convey his attitude, and not just through words.

Ford dwelled on the pardon possibilities.

“It is my understanding from a White House lawyer,” Haig said, “that a president does have authority to grant a pardon even before criminal action has been taken against an individual.” Of course, Nixon was the only major Watergate player against whom the special prosecutor had not taken criminal action.

At the end, the general stood up. The two put their arms around each other and shook hands.

“We’ve got to keep in contact,” Haig said. “Things could break so fast that we have to be accessible to each other.”

Haig then reported to Nixon on his meeting with Ford, mentioning that he had presented Ford with the six options as drafted by Buzhardt.

Nixon did not comment.

Ford summoned Hartmann. He extracted another solemn pledge of secrecy.

Hartmann promised.

Ford said Haig had reported that Nixon was going to resign because of new, damaging tapes. Haig had listed some alternatives for the endgame, among them the possibility that Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that he, Ford, as president, would pardon Nixon.

“Jesus!” Hartmann said aloud. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him I needed time to think about it.”

“You what?” Hartmann fairly shouted. Ford’s willingness to entertain a discussion of a pardon was probably all Haig and Nixon wanted or needed. Even entertaining any agreement of resignation for a pardon, Hartmann believed, was outrageous. Ford had already committed a monstrous impropriety and the damage that had been done was irreversible. Hartmann felt it could taint a Ford presidency forever, linking even a voluntary resignation to discussions of an eventual pardon and perhaps an expectation, at least implied, of a pardon from Ford.

Ford didn’t agree. Nothing had been promised. He wanted to talk to his wife, Betty.

Hartmann thought that was a good idea. She was noted for her independence and frankness, and Ford often sought her opinion on important matters. Mrs. Ford would see the danger, Hartmann believed. She could gently turn her husband off Haig more effectively than he could.

Late that night Ford told his wife about Haig’s alternatives. She was firm in her view that her husband shouldn’t get involved in making any recommendations at all. Not to Haig, not to Nixon, not to anybody. Ford seemed to get the message.

About 1:30 a.m., a late hour for Ford, he called Haig.

“Al, our discussion this afternoon, I hope you understand there was no agreement, no decision and no deal.”

Haig hung up and went through about 30 minutes of anguish. Ford thought he had offered some deal? Haig finally phoned Buzhardt, rousing Nixon’s lawyer from bed.

“Goddamnit,” Haig told Buzhardt at what must have been around 2 a.m., “what did you do to me?” He reported that Ford had called at such an odd hour and what he had said. Haig noted that he had gone over the six alternatives with the vice president and done it all based on legal advice. Now Ford thinks it was some kind of “agreement” or “deal.” Haig erupted, “Why did you, if this man thinks there was some deal offered, how the hell did you give me the advice you gave?” Haig felt he had been trapped. He was shocked and worried.

“I didn’t do anything to you,” Buzhardt replied. “Al, that’s all we did was give the options.”

Haig concluded there was somebody around Ford who was telling the vice president that he was being snookered. Or maybe it was even worse.

The next morning, Friday, August 2, Haig and Buzhardt discussed at length Ford’s late night phone call. They concluded that there was some real trouble brewing around Ford.

Over in the vice president’s suite of offices in the Old Executive Office Building that morning Ford brought in a second aide, Jack Marsh, a former Virginia congressman, for advice on Haig’s pardon conversation. Marsh, a careful, almost soulful political operative for Ford, was eager to know exactly what had happened. He had dropped in the previous day after Haig’s second meeting, and Ford had been sitting alone with his hands on his knees, staring out into space. Marsh had never seen the vice president with such a grim expression. Ford looked like he had just been told that his house with all his family in it had burned to the ground, destroying everything and everyone.

“I want you to swear you will not reveal what I’m about to tell you,” Ford said to Marsh.

Marsh assented.

Ford explained that the previous day Haig had said explicitly that new tapes were going to force Nixon’s resignation. Ford went through the alternatives that Haig had presented, including the one in which Nixon resigned. “I then, what I would do, I would give Nixon a pardon,” Ford said.

Marsh couldn’t believe it. He tried to remain calm. He could see that For...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• AUTHOR’S NOTE
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE GERALD FORD 1974-77
• PART TWO JIMMY CARTER 1977-81
• PART THREE RONALD REAGAN 1981-89
• PART FOUR GEORGE BUSH 1989-93
• PART FIVE BILL CLINTON 1993-
• EPILOGUE
• NOTES
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INDEX