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The Final Days Page 37

Just a few clays after resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, and , the young Washing- ton Post reporters who cracked the Wa- tergate scandal, began digging into the last, untold chapter of their story: the fall of the Nixon Presidency. The result is a 456-page book called "The Final Days," to be published by Simon and Schuster next month—and a Newsweek first. Start- ing this week, the magazine is publishing a two-part, 30,000-word selection of ex- cerpts from their extraordinary work of reportage on the epic political story of our time. To reconstruct the day-by-day narrative of Nixon's last months and to profile the principal actors in the drama, Wood- ward, Bernstein and two associates spent six months, interviewed 394 people, col- part in a meeting and neither would be lected unpublished notes, memos and interviewed, the authors relied on the diaries and developed an intricate two-ply accounts of others with whom the princi- filing system for the accumulating materi- pals had talked immediately afterward. al. Only a few of the principals—includ- Newsweek's first installment (begin- ing Nixon himself—declined to be inter- ning after page 36) opens with a tearful viewed; some of those who cooperated Nixon on the brink of resignation, flashes spent dozens of hours with the authors, back to pivotal moments in his fight for The last chapter: Bernstein and Woodward and one obliged with seventeen sittings. survival and then resumes the narrative of Woodward and Bernstein imposed on the final days. A news story on page 25 illustrate this special presentation, News- themselves the same standard of proof highlights the now-it-can-be-told material week called upon artist Burt Silverman, they used in their Watergate reporting for in the book. The excerpts were prepared who spent nearly a month with the manu- : they had at least for publication by Senior Editor Peter script and produced renderings of its two sources for every statement of fact. In Goldman. The layouts were designed by most dramatic moments. (Cover photos by the few cases where only two people took Associate Art Director Peter Blank. To J. P. Laffont—Sygma and Harry Benson.) Richard Nixon's Final Days

n the next-to-last night of his Presi- son-in-law David Eisenhower, who secretary listening in and taking short- O dency, Richard Nixon summoned doubted privately that Nixon would sur- hand; eventually, the operation grew to the Lincoln Sitting vive Watergate. Nixon himself verged on into a whole battery of hidden Dictabelt, Room in the White House. He had been threatening suicide at the end, complain- recorders that switched on automatically caught in the last lies of Watergate, and ing to General Haig that the military had whenever he picked up the phone— had decided to quit. He was drinking a way of dealing with such affairs— even for a personal chat with his bride- when Kissinger found him. He broke "Somebody leaves a pistol in the draw- to-be, Nancy Maginnes. The system was into sobs as they talked. "We need to er"—but that he didn't even own a gun. particularly elaborate when Nixon was pray," he said suddenly, and the two Staffers were uncertain how serious he on the line: Kissinger had eight exten- men sank to their knees, Nixon beseech- was; still, Haig was alarmed enough to sions plugged into his direct wire to the ing his God aloud for help and rest and order all of Nixon's sleeping pills and President, so that not only his recorders peace. Then, with Kissinger trying des- tranquilizers taken from him. but his aides could listen in. (State perately to comfort him, the President That Nixon in extremis should have Department officials said the Kissinger- sobbed, bent over, pounded the floor sought comfort from Kissinger was itself Nixon conversations were indeed taped, with his fist and curled on the carpet like a brutal irony: the Secretary, according to but with Nixon's knowledge; otherwise, a child. Woodward and Bernstein, regarded the a spokesman said, the book contained The glimpse of a President at the end of his rope is from the new book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, "The Final Days," excerpted for the first time in NEWSWEEK beginning with this issue (following page 36) and scheduled for publication by Simon and Schuster in May. Its authors are the two young Wash- ington Post reporters who first broke the story of high-level complicity in the Wa- tergate scandals. Their new narrative of the decline and fall of the Nixon Presi- dency is drawn heavily from interviews with 394 participants, ranging from below-stairs at the White House to the most intimate Nixon family councils. It is principally an act of reporting, carefully unjudgmental in tone; its power instead lies in its camera-eye view of the state of Nixon and his beleaguered Presidency in its last long slide from grace. Nixon, in the Woodward-Bernstein rendering, was a man plainly unraveling under intolerable stress. He drank heav- ily, often starting in the afternoon with his chum Bebe Rebozo—and sometimes showing up late and dazed for work the morning after. He had trouble sleeping. He was given to bouts of gloom and storms of temper. His Secretary of State, Kissinger, said he was "like a madman" and worried that the world might blow up in his distracted last days. His chief of staff, Alexander Haig, likened him to The end of the line: The Nixons make their farewells to the White House Captain Queeg and quietly took over some Presidential decision-making from President with carefully concealed "too much gossip, too many inaccura- him. His family was deeply concerned loathing and contempt. The book's por- cies, distortions and falsehoods" to war- for him; two days before the end, his son- trayal of Kissinger is at once scalding rant comment.) Kissinger's talks with in-law, Edward Cox, told U.S. Sen. Rob- and monochromatic—a rendering that Nixon accordingly became part of the ert Griffin in a distraught phone call that dwells far more on his prickly personal- office gossip—how Nixon had rambled, Nixon had been up late "walking the ity than on his record in foreign affairs. It or slurred,-or made anti-black remarks, or halls . . . talking to pictures of former pictures a Kissinger who regarded Nixon once drunkenly offered Kissinger the Presidents." as a dangerous anti-Semite; who referred advice of his friend Rebozo on Vietnam. Death Trip: Worst of all, for Nixon's to him in full hearing of the office force as Static: Kissinger's relations with his intimates, was the fear that he might "our meatball President"; who charac- colleagues, according to the book, were commit suicide. Even in his last moment terized Nixon as insecure, maniacal and likewise poisonous. He taunted Haig, of triumph, on a June 1974 trip to Egypt, a threat to 'U.S. foreign policy; who then his deputy, with cracks about mili- he seemed to some in his party to be nevertheless flattered Nixon to his face, tary men being "dumb, stupid animals," courting death by phlebitis—or foolishly and served him until the end. and tried to block his promotion to risking it by assassination. ("You can't The book further details how Kis- courtier-in-chief to Nixon. He insulted protect a President who wants to kill singer—even as he ridiculed Nixon's his own staff academics as "bleeding himself," his chief Secret Service body- secret taping system—had all of his own hearts," among other epithets; he ragged guard told his doctor.) Cox expressed the office telephone calls monitored and one of them, William Watts, almost to family's secret fear for Nixon's life; so did transcribed. He started simply, with a the point of throwing a punch at. Kis- Newsweek, April 5, 1976 25 NATIONAL AFFAIRS singer. (Kissinger ducked behind his not disagree—and Nixon refused even defense, moving instead to ease him desk, and Watts quit instead.) He referred to see them. Garment subsequently from office—and to protect themselves to senior Nixon staffers H.R. (Bob) Halde- dropped off the Watergate team, and in the process. Their task was to get man and as "idiots" and Buzhardt dialed back from a defense through to a President they saw as unsta- "Nazis";* Ehrlichman in turn suggested posture of outraged innocence to what he ble, exhausted and removed from the half jokingly that Kissinger was "queer." called "the dilatory approach." reality of his situation. Their strategy, He took special pleasure in humiliating The Secret: That approach worked until inspired by speechwriter Pat Buchanan Secretary of State William Rogers, the the Supreme Court's July 1974 decision and embraced by Haig, was to force book relates—and finally pressured Nix- against Nixon in the tapes case—a deci- disclosure of the incriminating tape and on into giving him Rogers's job. sion anonymously co-authored by Jus- allow the reaction to deliver a message But it is the unmaking of a President tice Potter Stewart, the book discloses, they could not—that the time had come that principally concerns Woodward and when Chief Justice Warren Burger to stand down. "We should step back and Bernstein—a process they track from the proved unable to draft an adequate opin- let the thing blow," Buchanan argued. departure of Haldeman and Ehrlichman ion by himself. Nixon flew into a fury at "The President should feel the force of in April 1973 to Nixon's own resignation the verdict, threatening at one point to the blast himself." in August 1974. Nixon's first impulse in burn the tapes and resign rather than The strategy succeeded, with some that long, bleak passage was to counterat- obey the court. His people soon discov- delicate orchestration by Haig. The gen- tack. He ordered up and got a list of ered the source of his . That day, for eral had grown concerned about his own "national security" wiretaps planted in the first time, Buzhardt heard the "smok- role in the affair—about whether he had the Kennedy-Johnson years, and read it ing pistol" tape of June 23, 1972—the propped up an outlaw Presidency even as with unconcealed pleasure; it included talk in which Nixon ordered the CIA to he tried to keep up the appearance of not only Martin Luther King Jr., as has impede the FBI investigation of Water- orderly government. Nixon was "guilty as been widely reported, but correspond- gate. Six days later, during a council of hell," Haig snapped to an aide in the last ents from NEWSWEEK and The New York war at Camp David, Nixon's senior staff days, and it fell to him to stage-manage Times, the French historian Bernard ran their own extra2rdinary investigation Nixon's removal. He helped get the tape Fall, a House Agriculture Committee of the PresidentrThey pieced together out, at one point threatening to quit if staffer, a law firm with Dominican sugar evidence that he had played the tape to Nixon did not come clean. He quieted clients, a CIA pal of John Kennedy's— himself three months beforentad in- Republican demands for the President's and the author of a Marilyn Monroe biog- stantly squelched an out-of-court settle- resignation, since they seemed only to raphy suggesting a relationship between ment that would have delivered it to the stiffen his resolve. Instead, he filtered her and Robert Kennedy. Nixon pressed prosecutors—and had sat on his guilty through the worst possible assessments his people to leak the list, and backed secret ever since. of Nixon's support on the Hill; once, with off only on their insistence that it would With that, his people abandoned his Nixon apparently listening in on an look like a partisan cheap shot. extension phone, he solicited Evidence: The President's The exit: Boarding a helicopter for the journey home Barry Goldwater's gloomy Sen- men at first shared his central AP ate head count—twelve votes for imperative—his own survival in the President. He headed off a office at whatever cost. But his last, vaguely threatening appeal lawyers began losing heart early by Haldeman for a pardon; Ehr- on with the realization that he lichman tried too, by phone to was hiding evidence even from Julie Eisenhower, with no bet- them—and with the suspicion ter luck. that he might have destroyed Nixon wavered for days be- material that was under court tween fighting and quitting. But subpoena. What concerned in the end he was left without them particularly was the disap- resources for hanging on; his pearance of an April 15, 1973, support was gone, his staff in Dictabelt recording of Nixon's retreat, his own family divided recollections of a meeting that and ravaged by Watergate. "The day with his apostate staff coun- Final Days" is crowded with sel, . When White painful glimpses of the Nixons House lawyer J. Fred Buzhardt under siege: pressed Nixon for it, he replied: ■ had been unhappy "Why can't we make a new with Washington and the politi- Dictabelt?" cal life before Watergate: she The lawyers were appalled; had wanted to divorce Nixon the suggestion alone could be after his losing 1962 run for read as an attempt to obstruct governor of California, Wood- 1 C,c justice, and it put them along ward and Bernstein report, and with Nixon in jeopardy. As early their marriage thereafter had as November 1973, Buzhardt become a formalized, separate- and his co-counsel Leonard bedroom affair. As the scandals Garment flew south to Nixon's engulfed. Nixon, she supported retreat in Key Biscayne, Fla., his determination to fight. But to recommend that he resign. she too was distraught and de- Haig objected that the then pressed, and she too began Vice President-designate Ger- drinking heavily. ald Ford was not good enough to • Julie and David found their be President—the lawyers did own marriage strained by Wa- tergate, and by Julie's uncriti- .Kissinger's mistrust of the two ran so deep, the book says, that he suspected they might steal cal last-ditch defense of her his most sensitive papers. Kissinger accordingly father. David blamed her emo- shifted some of them to the Pocantico Hills estate of his patron Nelson Rockefeller—and tional commitment to the battle called them back only on the advice of counsel for the tubal pregnancy she that it was against the law to store classified material outside government facilities. suffered early in 1974. His own /F. 7 7 14- 26 Newsweek, April 5, 1976 ( 1'4-V7 e el 12- k-z...)4. 7 fe-, ■ J A. n S AC se-6- p, ,z.T P., 6, 4H Ji- reaction was escape, into long hours over table games such as Diplomacy and APBA baseball; he even considered re- upping in the Navy. In the last family councils, the couple came near open collision, David consumed by his doubts—and Julie by her singlehanded effort to flog her father's staff and family into line behind him. ■ Tricia and Ed Cox were not immune to the stresses. In discussions with the family and the White House staff in the final weeks, Cox counseled against a hasty resignation over the June 23 tape. But in his rattled phone call to Senator Griffin, he said that he and David both thought that Nixon had to quit. Their problem was that Tricia and Julie had closed their minds to argument. "I can't talk to my wife," said Cox. "She is determined that her father shall not resign." For all of them, in the Woodward- Bernstein chronicle, the final days be- came a kind of death watch—a painful passage waiting for Nixon to understand that he had no option left except to resign. He veered dizzyingly between deciding to go and resolving to stay. He maundered on about going to prison, remarking to Garment at one point that there are "worse things . . . There is no telephone there. There is, instead, peace. A hard table to write on." He wept and prayed with Kissinger, then begged him never to tell anyone the tale. He agonized toward his decision with his family but reached it alone, sending his secretary, , to reveal it to his own daughters. He mustered some last reserve of calm for his formal announcement, then made his farewells in a speech so maudlin that David thought he might crack up on live TV. The final days were over. Richard Nixon was gone. -PETER GOLDMAN 28