Saturday Night's Alright (for Firing) — Watergate, Part 9

Watergate Special Prosecutor
Archibald Cox

For previous installments of my irregular series tracing the history of the Watergate scandal, click here. This week, the Saturday Night Massacre, October 20, 1973.

The Watergate burglary itself took place on June 20, 1972, but following Richard Nixon's overwhelming re-election in November of that year, it looked as if the worst of the scandal had been contained. As long as the burglary could be put down to overzealous underlings at the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP, but often abbreviated CREEP) and kept away from the White House itself, all was in order.

There were loose ends. One of the burglars had checks from E. Howard Hunt, a member of the White House "plumbers" who was connected to Special Counsel to the President Charles Colson, known as Nixon's hatchet man. As part of the cover up, White House Counsel John Dean went to acting FBI director L. Patrick Gray to keep the situation under control. As Dean later wrote, "[We] could count on Pat Gray to keep the Hunt material from becoming public, and he did not disappoint us."

Gray went so far as to burn what were billed as "national security documents [that] should never see the light of day" from Hunt's personal safe at the request of Dean and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman. These documents weren't officially about Watergate, Gray later said. "The first set of papers in there were false top-secret cables indicating that the Kennedy administration had much to do with the assassination of the Vietnamese president (Diem). The second set of papers in there were letters purportedly written by Senator Kennedy involving some of his peccadilloes, if you will."

Unfortunately, Gray wasn't the only person who knew about the Hunt material. His deputy, FBI Associate Director W. Mark Felt, who actually ran the FBI's day-to-day operations, was also "Deep Throat," the confidential informant providing Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein with information. As the material began to leak, Gray became shaky.

In February 1973, Nixon nominated Gray to be permanent director of the FBI, handing the Senate its first opportunity to interrogate a high-ranking Administration official about Watergate. Gray went into full self-defense mode. He volunteered that he'd provided investigation files to John Dean, saying FBI lawyers had told him it was legal, confirmed the dirty tricks activities of CREEP — and worst of all, testified that Dean himself had "probably lied" to the FBI. Enraged by the betrayal, Ehrlichman told Dean that Gray should "twist slowly, slowly in the wind." (Ehrlichman was evidently a fan of Huxley's Brave New World.) Gray withdrew his nomination, and after he learned that Dean had rolled over, Gray resigned from the FBI altogether. Although he was later indicted, he was never convicted.

In March 1973, Watergate burglar and CREEP security specialist James McCord wrote Watergate Judge John Sirica that his testimony was perjured under pressure. One month after that, seeing the handwriting on the wall, John Dean rolled over and began cooperating with Federal prosecutors. Desperate to distance himself from the scandal, Nixon responded by firing Ehrlichman, White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst. (Kleindienst had taken over from John Mitchell when Mitchell was tasked with leading the re-election effort. His involvement with the scandal was peripheral, and he ended up with a misdemeanor conviction for perjury and paid a $100 fine.)

With the Justice Department compromised, Nixon had little choice but to allow the appointment of a nominally independent special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. After the revelation of the White House tapes and Nixon's refusal to release them, Cox pursued a subpoena to get the tapes for his investigation. When Cox refused a Nixon compromise that would give him transcripts but no access to the actual recordings, Nixon had had enough.

On Saturday evening, October 20, 1973, Nixon called Attorney General Elliot Richardson, Kleindienst's successor, and ordered him to fire Cox. Richardson, citing his promise to the Congressional oversight committee not to interfere with the Special Prosecutor, refused.  When Nixon continued to press him, he resigned. Nixon then called the Deputy Attorney General, William Ruckelshaus, who had made the same pledge, and ordered him to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also resigned.

The third in command of the Justice Department was Solicitor General Robert Bork (later a notorious failed Supreme Court nominee), who had not been part of the process and who had therefore not made the same pledge. Although Bork claimed to believe that Nixon had the right to fire Cox, he says he also considered resigning so he wouldn't be "perceived as a man who did the President's bidding to save my job." Elliot Richardson says he persuaded Bork not to resign, on the grounds that the Justice Department needed some continuity of leadership.

Nixon had Bork brought to the White House by limousine, swore him in as Acting Attorney General, and had Bork write the letter on the spot firing Cox.

This incident became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre," and it was a major tipping point in the scandal. Congress was infuriated, the public outraged. After the Massacre, a plurality of Americans for the first time supported impeachment: 44% for, 43% against, 13% undecided. Several resolutions of impeachment were introduced in the House. Nixon was forced to allow Bork to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. There was some concern Jaworski, as the President's approved choice, would limit the investigation to the burglary alone, but as it turned out, Jaworski also looked at the broader implications of the growing scandal.

In November 1973, a Federal district judge ruled that Cox's firing was illegal under the regulation establishing the special prosecutors office, which required a finding of "extraordinary impropriety." However, the situation had moved far too quickly to allow Cox to resume his position. The battle of the tapes would continue well into the following year.

Nixon Resigns (Watergate Part 8)

“People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.”

— Richard M. Nixon, November 17, 1973

For previous installments of my irregular series tracing the history of the Watergate scandal, click here.  This week, Richard Nixon resigns the Presidency.

In our last thrilling installment, former Presidential assistant Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the heretofore secret White House taping system to the Senate Watergate Committee and to the world. In many ways, this revelation was the tipping point that inexorably led to the first — and so far only — resignation of a United States President.

Up until the tape revelation, much of the Watergate scandal had devolved into a “he said, she said” argument. There was no question that operatives associated with the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP to its supporters, CREEP to its enemies) had broken into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex, but it was less clear how high up the scandal might reach. After all, the idea that low-level staff members might take it into their own heads to do something the boss would not approve is hardly unprecedented.

The initial connection between the Watergate burglary and the Nixon campaign was James McCord, a former CIA operative who worked as a security coordinator for CRP. From there, it was a fairly short jump to reach McCord’s bosses. E. Howard Hunt, another former CIA agent, was also a modestly successful writer of spy thrillers. G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent, had also been a prosecutor in Dutchess County, New York, where he famously busted 60s icon Timothy Leary. Both men were leaders of the White House Plumbers Unit.

Initially, a lot of people believed that the “two-bit burglary” itself was simply a rogue staff operation, and that the cover-up was primarily designed to protect the Plumbers operation. Although parts of the story remain murky to this day, it now appears that the burglary itself originated at high levels of the Administration, and may have been ordered by Nixon himself, concerned about potential negative information possessed by DNC chairman Larry O’Brien.

Slowly, the chain of Watergate responsibility crept up the ladder, moving from CRP to the White House itself, but the “smoking gun” that would implicate the President personally remained elusive. Senate Watergate Committee chairman Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina pushed the essential question: “What did the President know and when did he know it?”

Although former White House counsel John Dean’s explosive testimony had in fact implicated Nixon, it was still a matter of his word against that of the President of the United States. The revelation of the White House taping system changed all that. The tapes themselves were capable of revealing once and for all what the President knew and when he knew it.

As revealed in our last installment, Butterfield revealed the existence of the White House tapes in a preliminary interview on Friday, July 13, 1973. The following Monday, June 16, he testified before the live, televised Senate Watergate Committee hearings and the tapes became public knowledge. Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox immediately asked District Court Judge “Maximum” John Sirica to subpoena eight relevant tapes that would confirm or contradict John Dean’s testimony.

Nixon, as noted, argued against the subpoena for two reasons. The first was executive privilege, a claim based on the separation of powers and checks and balances enshrined in the U. S. Constitution. The second was a claim that the privacy of the tapes was vital to national security. Nixon offered a compromise in which Mississippi Senator John Stennis would listen to the tapes and summarize them. When Cox refused, Nixon ordered what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre on October 19, 1973, and appointed a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, on November 1, 1973.

The battle of the tapes continued to rage. In April 1974, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the tapes for 42 additional White House conversations. Nixon released edited transcriptions, still citing executive privilege and national security. Jaworsky, about the same time, subpoenaed 64 tapes to support his criminal prosecutions of various Nixon administration officials. In late July 1974, the Supreme Court weighed in with an 8-0 decision in United States v. Nixon: the subpoena was valid. Nixon had to release the tapes.

In his column “On Language,” William Safire described Watergate as the Golden Age of Political Coinage. He wrote, “The Watergate era coined or popularized Saturday night massacre, stonewalling, cover-up, dirty tricks, straight arrow, expletive deleted, third-rate burglary, plumbers, Deep Throat, Big Enchilada, enemies list and twisting slowly in the wind.”

The term “smoking gun,” according to Safire, apparently first appears in the Sherlock Holmes story “The Gloria Scott,” but it gained its current meaning in the Watergate scandal. Roger Wilkins in the New York Times first used the term. “The big question asked over the last few weeks in and around the House Judiciary Committee's hearing room by committee members who were uncertain about how they felt about impeachment was ‘Where's the smoking gun?’”

On August 5, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee released what instantly became known as the “smoking gun tape.” It was a recording of a meeting that had taken place on June 23, 1972, six days after the original burglary, in which H. R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff, asked Nixon if he should ask Richard Helms, CIA director, to approach FBI chief L. Patrick Gray about halting his investigation on national security grounds. This, the special prosecutor and the Judiciary Committee agreed, constituted a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Here’s the relevant text:

HALDEMAN: …the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the–in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have… their investigation is now leading into some productive areas […] and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go. […] [T]he way to handle this now is for us to have Walters [CIA] call Pat Gray [FBI] and just say, ‘Stay the hell out of this …this is ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on it.’”  

NIXON: All right, fine, I understand it all. We won't second-guess Mitchell and the rest. […] You call [the CIA] in. Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That's the way they play it and that's the way we are going to play it.”

Until that point, the ten Republican members on the House Judiciary Committee had voted against impeachment, but now they unanimously agreed that they would support an impeachment vote once the case reached the House floor.

In the American system, the impeachment of a President requires a simple majority vote of the House of Representatives, but removal from office requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. In essence, this means that any removal of a President from office requires a substantial number of votes from the President’s own party. Impeachment can be a purely partisan act (see Clinton, Bill), but removal from office must necessarily be bipartisan.

It was therefore a delegation of Republican senators who informed President Nixon that there were only about 14 votes to keep him in office, far short of the 34 votes he needed. With the handwriting on the wall, Nixon took the only path available. In a nationally televised Oval Office address on the evening of August 8, 1974, Nixon resigned, saying:

In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me. In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future…. 

I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations. From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require. 

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad. To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.

The next morning, the President and his wife said goodbye to the White House staff and boarded a helicopter to Andrews Air Force Base, where Air Force One waited to fly them to his California home in San Clemente. He wrote later of his thoughts. “As the helicopter moved on to Andrews, I found myself thinking not of the past, but of the future. What could I do now?”

President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon on September 8, 1974, saying, “[Watergate] 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.”

Nixon continued to proclaim his innocence until his death on April 22, 1994.

Let's Go to the Tape, Johnny! (Watergate Part 7)

Nixon secretary Rose Mary Woods demonstrates how she might have erased 18-1/2 minutes of a key Watergate tape.

For previous installments of my irregular series tracing the history of the Watergate scandal, click here. This week, the revelation of the White House taping system.

On July 16, 1973, as we learned in our last thrilling episode, former White House deputy assistant Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of a heretofore secret White House taping system to the Senate Watergate Committee, more formally known as the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices. Two days later, on July 18, 1973, Nixon ordered the tape recorders turned off.

Unlike previous Presidential taping systems, the Nixon system was automatically activated by voice. Previously, the President had to manually activate the taping system by flipping a switch. Of course, no sensible president would voluntarily tape himself talking about potentially criminal actions, but in the case of Nixon, the automated nature of the tapes suggested that if he had indeed made self-incriminating statements, they would be on the tapes.

The previous month, former White House counsel John Dean had famously testified before the Watergate Committee. Although Dean himself had managed a large portion of the cover-up, he had increasingly suspected that he was being groomed as the scapegoat for the entire affair. As a result, he began providing information to the Special Prosecutor, and subsequently appeared before the Senate committee, implicating numerous senior administration officials including Attorney General John Mitchell and Richard Nixon himself.

The obvious flaw in Dean’s testimony was that it was his word against the President of the United States. But if the tapes confirmed what Dean was saying, it would substantiate his testimony. Accordingly, Archibald Cox, the Watergate Special Prosecutor, subpoenaed eight tapes.

Nixon initially refused to release the tapes, on the Constitutional grounds of executive privilege and the separation of powers, then added another claim that the tapes were vital to national security. In October 1973, under increasing political pressure, Nixon offered a compromise in which he would allow Mississippi Democratic Senator John Stennis to review and summarize the tapes, and report his findings to the Special Prosecutor.

When Cox refused the compromise, as chronicled in our last installment, Nixon ordered what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre. The pressure didn’t go away, and a few weeks later on November 1, Nixon appointed a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. A few days later, on November 17, Nixon famously announced, “I am not a crook.”

As 1974 began, bad news for the Nixon Administration began to mount, and in April of that year, Nixon decided to release typed transcripts of the relevant tapes, from which the infamous phrase “expletive deleted” originated.

(As an aside, a friend of mine, the daughter of columnist Jack Anderson, told me how Anderson’s newspaper column got the transcripts before the Senate did. It seems that Anderson had a White House janitor on his payroll, who fished the single-use carbon paper out of the trashcans and delivered it to Anderson. The daughter, Laurie, taped the carbons to a lampshade and typed up the contents for her father.)

Meanwhile, the court case made its way to the Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, in the case United States v. Nixon, ruled unanimously (with justice William Rehnquist recused because he had formerly worked for Nixon’s Justice Department) that the tapes should be released. Six days later, on July 30, Nixon complied. The transcripts confirmed Dean’s testimony.

The damage was already done. The House Judiciary Committee had passed two articles of impeachment already, with the third passed on the same day the tapes were released. To avoid a trial in the Senate that he would surely lose, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974.

The Enemies List (Watergate, Part 2)

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