A Long Road To Nixon's Last Crisis

I had recognized from the time I be- came a member of the Committee on Un-American Activities, and particularly after my participation in the Hiss case, that it was essential for me to maintain a standard of conduct which would . not give my political opponents any solid grounds for attack . . . "Even when you are right they will give you a rough time," I have said. "When you happen to be wrong they will kill you." `—"" e always knew what to say, but the H question was how closely he. lis- tened to himself. During his quarter-cen- tury in politics, 's actions often stood in jarring contradiction to his high-blown rhetoric. Reading "Six Crises," his ghost-written autobiography, in the light of .Watergate and his resig- nation points up the immense gulf be- tween his endless pieties and the harsh reality of his tragically flawed career. In all apparent sincerity, Nixon could preach law and order even as he and his aides were breaking the law. He could boast that his Cabinet was free of yes- men and then reduce the Cabinet to unprecedented impotence. In the midst of the Watergate cover-up, he could righteously declare: "What really hurts in matters of this sort is not the fact that they occur ... What really hurts is if you try to cover it up." In a moment Welly McNamee—Newsweek of unintended irony, Nixon's first Attor- A last hurrah, 1973: Mistrustful even of his own success ney General, John Mitchell, once ad- vised: "Don't watch what we say; Magruder at the Ervin committee hear- misunderstood. Only months after his watch what we do." The President would ings, that the end, whether national se- landslide victory in 1972, he complained have been safer the other way around, curity or re-election, justified the means to counsel John Dean: for when Congress and the American —including repeated violations of the "Nobody is a friend of ours. Let's people finally learned what Richard Nix- Constitution and the Bill of Rights. face it." on had done, his Presidency came to an The judgments on Nixon's policies ALWAYS THE OUTSIDER abrupt and squalid end. will likely be as mixed as the views of Nixon's detractors called him amoral; Historians and psychologists will de- his personality. At home, the Nixon Ad- his friends explained that he was "prob- bate for decades the causes of Richard ministration took a largely revisionist lem oriented," not "ideology oriented." Nixon's downfall, and the full answer stance, trying to dismantle Lyndon John- Whatever the explanation, his record may never be known. But there are hints son's flawed Great Society and replacing was the most paradoxical in U.S. politi- in several well-documented Nixon traits: it with such lower-key devices as reve- cal history. He was a seasoned Red-bait- an opportunism that sometimes over- nue sharing, which returned some Fed- er who in the crowning achievement of whelmed common decency, a penchant eral money and power to the states. So- his life opened a historic door to the for solitude that gave his subordinates a licitous of his "Silent Majority," Nixon Communist world. He was a laissez-faire shockingly free hand, an unrestrained opposed such controversial activities as free-enterpriser . who suddenly an- aggressiveness in fighting a legion of real busing to achieve racial integration in the nounced "I am now a Keynesian," and and imagined "enemies." Above all, per- schools. He also cut back on health and espoused wage and price controls in an haps, Nixon was a born outsider, despite education programs, and offered the effort to lick inflation. There was much to his cultivation of rich and influential black minority little more than what one applaud in Nixon's remorseless abandon- men. When he had climbed to the very adviser called "benign neglect." And al- ment of outdated positions. But at its pinnacle of American society, he re- though Nixon presided over the landing worst his pragmatism degenerated to the mained, in his own view of himself, an of men on the moon, he ultimately failed philosophy, expounded by Jeb Stuart outsider still—distrusted, unloved and to solve—indeed, aggravated—a more Newsweek, August 19, 1974 35 Crowning achievement: On his epochal visit to China in 1972, Nixon meets with Chairman Mao Tse-tung UPI

down-to-earth problem: the surging in- The Watergate burglary itself was flation that threatened to undermine record and attack it relentlessly. The only a petty chapter in the saga of cor- Communist menace was not yet the con- U.S. prosperity. ruption. The subsequent cover-up had Foreign policy, however, was always suming issue it was to become, but warped America's system of justice and Chotiner thought it would do. Thus, Nixon's strong suit, and there, with the tinged some of the country's most impor- brilliant help of Henry Kissinger, he Nixon charged that his respected op- tant institutions, including the FBI and ponent, Rep. , was a dupe wrote himself a distinguished page in the CIA. The President's purveyors of history. In Vietnam, he ended America's of the U.S. Communists. There was no "dirty tricks" had tarnished the political foundation for the charge, but Voorhis longest war ( although his critics said process. His "plumbers" had violated per- he was too slow about it ). He achieved never recovered from this onslaught, and sonal freedoms—in many cases for no Nixon was elected to Congress. real détente with the Soviet Union and valid reason, despite the claims of "na- lifted Washington's twenty-year quar- The same tactics were employed in tional security." In the pursuit of political his 1950 race for the Senate against Rep. antine of mainland China. Even as Wa- "enemies," the White House also at- tergate intruded on his time and author- . Terming her tempted to subvert the Internal Revenue "the Pink Lady," Nixon and Chotiner ity, he and Kissinger arranged a truce Service. in the Middle East and started Israelis distributed 550,000 pamphlets, printed and Arabs on the path to accommoda- THE EDUCATION OF A POLITICIAN on pink paper, linking Mrs. Douglas's voting record with that of New York tion. A price was paid for these gains. In addition, the Administration was Key allies—Japan and the NATO coun- Rep. , an outspoken remarkably helpful to some giant corpo- Communist sympathizer. What the Nix- tries—were ignored and affronted dur- rations run by the President's friends ing Washington's fixation on Russia, China on camp did not mention was that he and campaign contributors. And there himself had sided with Marcantonio on and the Middle East. And the White were even hints of personal peculation— House showed a woeful lack of inter- many issues and that Mrs. Douglas had money and jewels that may have stuck opposed Marcantonio by supporting anti- est in international economic and mone- to the President's fingers, houses that tary affairs, contributing to a worldwide Communist legislation. Nixon won nearly were in fact embellished at taxpayers' 60 per cent of the vote, and a small financial malaise that is now approaching expense and income taxes that were the crisis point. newspaper tagged him with drastically underpaid until an uproar the enduring nickname, "Tricky Dick." Nonetheless, Nixon's diplomatic tri- arose. In his farewell address last week, umphs were real. But equally real were the only specific reason Nixon gave for The Hiss case brought me national Watergate and all the other scandals. his resignation was a loss of political sup- Judging by the public record, Nixon fame. But it also left a residue of hatred port, but once again his rhetoric was out and hostility toward me—not only among ran, quite simply, the most corrupt Ad- of touch with reality. ministration in U.S. history. the Communists but also among substan- When he himself was finally chased tial segments of the press and the in- An attack always makes more news tellectual community. from office, more than a dozen of his than defense . . . You cannot win a bat- former associates had already been con- tle in any arena of life merely by de- Nixon's attacks were not confined to victed of or had pleaded guilty to a vast fending yourself. array of crimes. Among them was a opponents in political campaigns. A lucky assignment to the House Un- former Attorney General, Richard Klein- Nixon's political style was set during dienst, and Nixon's handpicked original American Activities Committee during his first campaign, in 1946, by Los An- his freshman term brought him his first Vice President, , who had geles lawyer Murray Chotiner, a hard- pleaded no contest to tax evasion. More chance for national prominence. He was nosed political tactician. In essence, sitting in a HUAC hearing one day in Nixon aides, including two former Cabi- Chotiner's technique was to isolate a real net officers, were under indictment. 1948 when a Time magazine senior edi- or contrived weakness in an opponent's (Continued on Page 46) 36 Newsweek NATIONAL AFFAIRS (Continued from Page 36) Day) had its moments of indignity. Oc- detailed his own modest assets as proof for and former Communist courier named casionally he would drive her into Los of honesty. "I should say this, that Pat Whittaker Chambers murmured the Angeles and wait for her while she had a doesn't have a mink coat," he declared. name of , a former State De- dinner date with someone else. But Dick "But she does have a respectable Repub- partment official under Roosevelt and and Pat were cut from the same bolt of lican cloth coat, and I always tell her Truman, as a Communist spy. cloth; both poor, they became self-made that she would look good in anything." Hiss, a polished and influential mem- persons. "People from humble circum- He did own up to accepting one gift— ber of the Eastern Establishment, coolly stances," Mrs. Nixon once observed, "can Checkers, the cocker spaniel beloved of denied ever having known Chambers, through sheer hard work go up the lad- his daughters Tricia and Julie. The audi- much less having been a Communist der." They went up together, but nei- ence swamped the Republican Nation- himself. But despite Hiss's credentials— ther of them ever forgot where they al Committee with "Keep Nixon" mes- or perhaps because of them—Nixon pur- came from or what they had endured. sages, and Eisenhower told Nixon: sued the case relentlessly. Eventually "You're my boy." he brought it to the melodramatic con- Thinking back to Franklin Roosevelt's clusion of the "pumpkin papers"—State devastating remark in the 1944 cam- In a losing campaign, only the candi- Department documents allegedly stolen paign—"and now they are attacking poor date is responsible for the tactics that by Hiss and later hidden in a hollowed- Fala"—I decided to mention my own dog led to defeat. out pumpkin on Chambers's farm—and in Checkers. Using the same ploy as FDR 1950 Hiss was convicted of perjury. would irritate my opponents and delight Nixon began his 1960 Presidential In the flush of success, Nixon de- my friends, I thought. campaign with a slight lead in the polls nounced Hiss as "the archtraitor over John F. Kennedy. But per- of our generation," and for good haps because of his past suc- measure he pinned the traitor's cesses with Voorhis and the label on Harry Truman, Secre- , Nixon unwise- tary of State Dean Acheson and ly agreed to debate Kennedy on Adlai Stevenson. Years later, television. The first debate was Truman was still fuming: "Nixon a disaster. Badly made up and is a shifty-eyed, goddamn liar." ill at ease, Nixon fared poorly, More elegantly, Stevenson de- as much in terms of style as of clared during his run for the substance. The election was a Presidency in 1952 that "Nixon- squeaker; JFK won by a mere land is a land of slander and 118,000 votes of nearly 69 mil- scare, of sly innuendo, of a poi- lion cast. son pen and the anonymous tel- Almost as though to prove that ephone call, and hustling, push- his defeat had not been an ac- ing and shoving—the land of cident, Nixon miscalculated smash and grab and anything again in 1962, challenging Ed- to win." mund G. (Pat) Brown for the governorship of California. He I won my share of scholar- lost, and in a remarkable morn- ships, and of speaking and de- bating prizes in school, not be- ing-after tirade he renounced cause I was smarter but because any further political ambitions. I worked longer and harder "You won't have Nixon to kick than some of my more 0-ted around any more," he told re- colleagues. porters, "because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." Richard Milhous Nixon was FAREWELL ADDRESS born on Jan. 9, 1913, in the tiny farming community of Yorba He misspoke himself, of Linda, about 20 miles east of course. For the next six years, Los Angeles. He was the second Nixon toiled diligently in the son of Frank Nixon, a prickly, political wilderness, campaign- outspoken Jack-of-all-trades, and ing for Republicans across the © Herbloch in The Washington Post country and loyally supporting Hannah Milhous, a strong-willed 'Of course, if I had the top job I'd act differently' and pious Quaker. Most of the the kamikaze candidacy of Barry time, the Nixons lived on the edge of Goldwater in 1964. After the Less than six years after his election rout of Goldwater conservatives Nixon poverty. Richard had to work at odd to Congress, Nixon was named Dwight became, once again, the Republican jobs and earn scholarships to put himself Eisenhower's running mate with the heir-apparent. In 1968 he was back in through nearby and promise that he would help to "clean up Duke University law school. the comfortable guise of the attacker, the mess in Washington." But soon the lashing out at 's legacy Nixon was weaned on the humiliations senator was in a mess of his own. Early that haunt life's underdogs. At Whittier from Lyndon Johnson—the failures of the in the campaign, it was revealed that a Vietnam war and of the Great Society. College, he languished on the football group of Nixon supporters had set up bench for four years. After graduating The outcome was another paper-thin an $18,235 fund for him. Opponents margin, but this time the decisive votes from Duke, he set his heart on a job with called it a "slush fund"; Nixon insisted a prestigious Wall Street law firm, but went to Nixon. At the outset, his style in that it was for political and campaign ex- office seemed admirably matched to the he was brushed off there, and when he penses, not for his personal use. As pres- lowered his sights to the FBI, he lost nation's mood. After the turmoil of the sure for Nixon's resignation grew, Eisen- LBJ era over the Vietnam war and the out again and returned to the modest hower remained silent, waiting for his practice of law in Whittier. fight for civil rights, Nixon's lower voice running mate to prove himself as "clean was welcome. Even his courtship of Thelma Cath- as a hound's tooth." erine Ryan (nicknamed "Pat" by her The result was an astounding speech A leader must do more than count Irish-American father because she had —and a landmark use of television in been born on the eve of St. Patrick's noses of his advisers. He should consider• politics. Nixon defended the fund and their opinions, but he must always rc- 46 Newsweek, August 19, 1974 NATIONAL AFFAIRS member that it is his responsibility to turned from North Vietnam in better- I doubted if any official in Washington make decisions—not theirs. than-expected shape last year, the na- had greater, more sincere respect for the tion was exuberant. Yet as Nixon left press corps than I, or had tried to be Although he professed great affinity office last week, the fighting among the more fair in his treatment of them. for the common man, Nixon lacked the Vietnamese was still going on. common touch; confronting antiwar stu- Throughout his Administration, Nixon dents at the Lincoln Memorial, he could WATERGATE ACROSS THE SEA waged an intermittent feud with the think of nothing better to talk about than The Administration's peacemaking ef- press. In 1969 he sent forth Spiro Agnew football. At times, the President became forts had more rapid success in the Mid- to do battle with the media. With news- a virtual recluse, screened from the view dle East, and led to a Presidential tour men figuring prominently on the official of even his Cabinet by a Prussian wall of the area last June that marked Nixon's "enemies list," some journalists' phones of self-assertive aides, notably chief of last full-scale triumph. Meanwhile, the were tapped, others were subjected to staff H.R. (Bob) Haldeman, domestic ice had been broken with China and tax audits and CBS's was counselor and his clos- Russia. The immediate results of the investigated by the FBI—allegedly be- est confidant, John Mitchell. China visit in February 1972 were less cause he was being considered for a The Nixon entourage mirrored the tangible than symbolic. The three Soviet White House job. President's own ambivalence. One prin- summit meetings produced solid progress As the 1972 election approached, the cipal speechwriter, Raymond Price, was the voice of sweet reason; the other, Patrick Buchanan, pitched the political hardball. Men 'like Melvin Laird and William Rogers rubbed elbows with ma- nipulators like Charles Colson. Press chores were assigned to reasonable men like Herbert Klein—and to propagandists like Ronald Ziegler and Ken Clawson. The "good guys" often clashed with the "bad guys," and more often than not the less scrupulous advisers prevailed.

What was really at stake was that admitting Red China to the United Na- tions would be a mockery of the provi- sion of the Charter which limits its membership to "peace-loving nations."

Nixon's first important task was to wind down the war in Vietnam, and many Americans were under the impression that he meant to do it quickly. But it developed that the new President planned instead to remove American troops gradually while preserving at least the form of an independent South Vietnamese Government. The troop cuts and the introduction of a draft lottery ef- fectively muffled the antiwar movement, although the invasion of Cambodia in 1970 provoked demonstrations on college campuses, including that of Kent State University in , where four students were killed by National Guardsmen. On Vietnam, as with other issues, Nixon tailored his policies to reassuring the "new Republican majority" in Mid- UPI dle America. He promised to review the To peace: A toast with Soviet chief Leonid Brezhnev at the first summit, 1972 controversial conviction of Lt. William Calley in the My Lai massacre case. In on trade, and some on arms limitation. men around Nixon stepped up the pace May 1971 he applauded the unwar- But even in diplomacy there were curious of their illegal activities against a wide ranted arrest of antiwar demonstrators lapses. A $1 billion wheat sale to Russia range of foes. Although Nixon seemed to in Washington. And when Daniel Ells- benefited only the Soviets and a few have the election all but won, the White berg tried to inform the American pub- U.S. grain companies, and added measur- House set out to discredit the stronger . lic about the causes of U.S. involvement ably to the speed of U.S. inflation. 'Democratic contenders with dirty tricks. in Vietnam by leaking the Pentagon pa- At home, Nixon's economic and social They also amassed a huge campaign pers to the press, Nixon attempted—un- policies were marked by a search for war chest of $60 million, much of it in successfully, in the end—to block their whatever could work. He abandoned illegal contributions from corporations. publication. conservative economics in favor of wage Their preparations had reached fever By then, the peace talks were on in and price controls in an unsuccessful at- pitch by June 17, 1972, when five bur- Paris, and whenever they faltered, Nix- tempt to curb inflation. He dismantled glars from the Committee for the Re- on turned on the pressure, bombing Cam- such "Big Government" operations as the election of the President broke into Dem- bodia secretly and pasting Hanoi and Office of Economic Opportunity, and in ocratic headquarters in the Watergate. Haiphong at Christmas 1972. "Peace an effort to cut spending for social pur- with honor," as Nixon saw it, finally came poses he vetoed dozens of Congressional Lawyers in politics need non-lawyers three months after the 1972 election. bills and impounded the funds when his to keep them from being too legalistic, And when U.S. prisoners of war re- vetoes were overridden. too unimaginative. Newsweek, August 19, 1974 47 NATIONAL AFFAIRS The President and many of the men $120,000 had been spent on LBJ's tapes still threatened him. Then the who helped cook up Watergate and the home); some of the money, moreover, Supreme Court ruled unanimously that other acts of sabotage must have known went for no valid "national security" pur- Nixon would have to hand over the what they were doing; they were law- pose but did enhance the value of Nix- tapes of 64 conversations to special pros- yers, though hardly legalistic ones. After on's property. The President also vastly ecutor Leon Jaworski. Some of the Presi- June 17, they threw themselves into a underpaid his income taxes, mainly be- dent's advisers finally listened to those frantic cover-up, trying to hide the activi- cause of improper deductions for the gift tapes and discovered what Nixon him- ties of the White House "plumbers" and of his Vice Presidential papers to the self had neglected to tell them—that dirty tricksters, the Ellsberg burglary and nation. A Congressional committee found the cover story wouldn't "play in the subsequent attempt to influence the that Nixon owed $476,431, and the IRS Peoria," or anywhere else. judge presiding over his trial. There was ruled, charitably, that he had merely also a long list of suspect dealings with been negligent in preparing his returns— Looking back, I think I can under- giant businesses headed by Nixon friends though possible fraud charges have not stand how [Chambers] must have felt. and campaign benefactors—including yet been entirely ruled out. His career was gone. His reputation was ITT, which pledged $400,000 preced- There were signs, too, that illegal cam- ruined. His wife and children had been

Behind the White House wall : Nixon confers with aides Bob Haldeman, Dwight Chapin and John Ehrlichman, 1970

ing a favorable antitrust decision, for ex- paign contributions may have found their humiliated. But all this would not have ample, and a dairy-industry group that way into the hands of Nixon's family and mattered to him if the cause for which pledged $2 million to the Nixon cam- friends—in particular a $100,000 payment he had taken those calculated risks had paign just before an increase in milk- from billionaire Howard Hughes. And on some chance to prevail. price supports was granted. Mrs. Nixon's 60th birthday in 1970, the President gave her a $5,650 pair of dia- Richard Nixon left office with as much Once a man has been in public life for mond and platinum earrings; most of the grace as he could muster and as much any period of time, his interests and money for the purchase, investigators face as he could save. He talked of ambitions change. Naturally, he wants have charged, came from "laundered" goals achieved and of the national inter- and needs enough income to take care of campaign funds. est. But what principles did the 37th his own and his family's needs. But President stand for? What were the acquiring money and property, as an end Hiss, a lawyer himself, had made the hopes and causes and ideals that ex- in itself, has no appeal for him. fatal mistake no client should ever make tended beyond his own ambitions? At —he had not told his own lawyer the one time or another, he had espoused Many of the Nixon scandals and cover- full truth about the facts at issue. almost every worthy principle, often ups impinged on basic principles of repeatedly. But in practice he vio- American democracy, including free Richard Nixon repeated his claims of lated enough of them to make all of his elections and equal justice. But almost innocence so often and so ardently that protestations suspect. The constants in as disturbing were the excesses involv- he may well have ended up sincerely Richard Nixon's character as a public man ing the President's own pocketbook and believing them. But the day of reckon- were, rather, suspicion, aggressiveness, real estate. While Nixon was becoming ing could not be postponed forever. secrecy, insecurity, loneliness and a bitter a near millionaire in office, the govern- Many of the advisers who had helped resentment. Whatever he may have ment spent up to $17 million on his him "stonewall" in the past had already done to his fellow citizens in betraying homes in Key Biscayne and San Cle- left for jail cells or courtrooms across the their highest trust could hardly be worse mente. The sum was staggering (only country, and the remaining White House than the scars on his own spirit. 48 Newsweek