• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The copyright laws of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. If a user makes a request for, or later uses a photocopy or reproduction (including handwritten copies) for purposes in excess of fair use, that user may be liable for copyright infringement. Users are advised to obtain permission from the copyright owner before any re-use of this material. Use of this material is for private, non-comercial, and educational purposes; additional reprints and further distribution is prohibited. Copies are not for resale. All other rights reserved. For further information, contact Director, Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6010 © Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. II FIRinG Line Guests: Richard Reeves, journalist Patrick Buchanan, journalist Subject: "NIXON REVISITED" SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION SECA PRESENTS @ FIRinG Line HOST: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. Guests: Richard Reeves, journalist Patrick Buchanan, journalist Subject: "NIXON REVISITED" Panelists: Jonathan Kaufman, Yale University The FIR ING LIN E television series is a production of the Southern Educational Nicholas Ulanov, Princeton University Communications Association, 928 Woodrow St., p.O. Box 5966, Columbia, S.C.• Donald Ciaramella, Pace University 29250 and is transmitted through the facilities of the Public Broadcasting Service. Production of these programs is made possible through a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. FIRING LINE can be seen and heard each FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL week through public television and radio stations throughout the country. Check your local newspapers for channel and time in your area. This is a transcript of the FIRING LINE program taped in New York City on May 18, 1977, and originally tele­ cast on PBS on May 27, 1977. SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION © Board of Trustees of the L land Stanford Jr. University. MR. BUCKLEY: Richard Nixon appears to fill a deep need in America, a need variously expressed--someone to hate, surely; someone not so much to love as to defend against the excesses of his critics. It is written that history is the polemic of the victor, in which case Nixon is likely to be deep-sixed by the historians, to use a word from the rich vocabulary of Watergate. Still, there are reservations. Certainly there is indignation, as ex­ pressed, for instance, by Patrick Buchanan. Mr. Buchanan is, of course, the syndicated columnist. His previous job was as aide, speechwriter, and advisor to Richard Nixon, who once said about him that he had the smartest political mind Nixon had ever run across. His association with Mr. Nixon dates back to the pre-presidential days after a tour of duty in the St. Louis Globe Democrat, following a graduate degree in journalism at Columbia. His summation of the Frost-Nixon broadcasts is, "No saint himself, Mr. Nixon was not hounded from office by a communion of saints. Despite his failings, his flaws, he remains as decent, compassionate, patriotic, and courageous a man as any among those who dragged him down." Richard Reeves, I never tire of recalling, was trained as a mechanical engineer. It has always overwhelmed me that anyone could know how to build a tunne1'and also know other things, unless he is Benjamin Franklin. There are, indeed, similarities. Mr. Reeves is by conviction some sort of a liberal, certainly a dues-paying member of the anti-Nixon Black Septemberists. But Mr. Reeves, who was formerly political editor for New York magazine, and be­ fore that with the New York Times, cherishes the making of distinctions. He is the author of A Ford, Not a Lincoln, an unfriendly book about President Ford, and now his new book is called Convention, and gives the inside view of what happened, and most important what went on at the Carter convention in Madison Square Garden a year ago. © 1977 SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL I should like to begin by asking Mr. Buchanan whether he defends Mr. COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION Nixon's position that he committed no crime. MR. BUCHANAN: In response to that I would think that Mr. Nixon in his own mind believes he committed no crime. My own view is that had Mr. Nixon been brought back from San Clemente to Washington, D.C., in that environment, had he been indicted and prosecuted for participation in the Watergate cover-up, my guess is that the jury would probably have returned a verdict of guilty, quite frankly. But I do believe that Mr. Nixon in his own mind does not be­ lieve he is guilty of any criminal offense. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, if I may say so, I think your answer is a little bit eva­ sive, because you have written that a jury in Washington, D.C., would have convicted anybody associated with Nixon of anything. So therefore, you're saying that they would have convicted Nixon in that context. It doesn't really commit you to the proposition that he was guilty. MR. BUCHANAN: Well, I think the proposition is arguable that Richard Nixon was not integrally involved in the cover-up. Peripherally, yes. He did give orders, for example, for the CIA to contain the FBI, but that can be argued on political grounds, to keep them out of the fundraising activities. I think if you look at the tape of March 13th, to get into particulars, it's quite clear that Nixon, when Dean is speaking to him, really does not have any idea of the details of the cover-up. Nixon himself admits that as of March 21 he gave consideration to acts which would have been participation in the cover­ up. He claims that no act followed. I do not know, quite frankly, if you had an Edward Bennett Williams and the trial had been moved to Richmond, Virginia, whether or not Mr. Nixon could have been exonerated of participation. But I do think it's an open question. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, Jaworski, of course, says that the March 21st tape closes the question. MR. BUCHANAN: Well, I think the ten members of House Judiciary who studied that matter as closely as Jaworski contended that it did not c10se·the ques­ tion, that Mr. Nixon was not guilty of an impeachable offense. What finished © Board of Trustees of the Le and Stanford Jr, University, Nixon off, quite frankly, was the revelation of the tape o~ June 23rd, ~nd ~uch that for months Mr. Nixon had deceived his staff, had ~ece1ved.the Amer1can . time is spent on it, inasmuch as it would appear to me, since the whole people as to whether or not he had given them all t~e .lnformat1on. Now,.tell1ng 1mpeachment process is in part ambiguous, it really doesn't matter so much that one can answer that question with total certitude. Or do you think it a public untruth to the American people is not a cr1m1na~ offense: I~ d1d does? break Mr. Nixon's ties to the people who had supported h1m .. I th1nk.1~ de­ stroyed his capacity really to lead his own side of.t~e nat1?nal pol1t;cal . MR. REEVES: Well, I certainly don't think it does. I think that Marshall community. But that in and of itself was not a pol1t1cal cr1me~ I do~ t th:nk. McLuhan would probably be the person at our point in time best qualified to MR BUCKLEY' Let me ask you Mr. Reeves, why is so much attent10n be1ng pa1d, talk abo~t this. I mean I think something happened on television, something in'your ana;ysis, to the que~tion of why he committed.a "crime"? Is it b~cause extraordlnary, that a good part of the country saw it, and it reaches the rest people who are anxious to bury him are very much afra:d ~hat.someday ~e w1ll of the country by word of mouth. And I think that in general that conclusion rise again on a refreshed interpretation of the data 1nd1cat1ng that 1n fact w~s? that is the conclusion for our time, that the man was lying on tele­ v1slon, or appeared to be lying, which on television is the same thing, and he committed no crime? Is that why? . gUil~ MR. REEVES: I think that that in fact exists, that some people do:-or I ~h1nk that he appe?red to admit on television even if he did not say the magic did before the Frost interviews--worry that Richard Nixon would r1se aga1n words. I thlnk that for our tlme, for Richard Nixon's lifetime, that that's ~ th~m what happened? and that "he kind of linear analyses of tapes, of dates, of as political power, and I think that motivated ..That.hardly seems actual admisslons-- likely to me that that would happen. I think that ln llstenlng to Pat talk, MR. BUCKLEY: Lose their importance. the emphasis on what a tape said really is ~n som~ ~ays related t? the fact MR. REEVES: --no longer have the importance in an electronic age that they that so many people, both in the press and ln POllt1CS, but more ln the press, once did. have such an investment in their own knowledge of those ~apes and of the dates, and of who said what to whom at what time, that they domlnate the process.of MR. BUCHANAN: I've got to disagree. I don't think that what did the comment on the Nixon interviews, and in a way they ~ominated.the.preparatlon president know and when did he know it was really the motivation of why the for the Nixon interviews.

Load more

  10

Copy Link