Top of theWeek Newsweek The Final Days Page 37 Just a few clays after Richard Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, 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and two associates spent six months, interviewed 394 people, col- part in a meeting and neither would be lected unpublished notes, memos and interviewed, the authors relied on the diaries and developed an intricate two-ply accounts of others with whom the princi- filing system for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- The Washington Post: 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 Henry Kissinger 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 John Ehrlichman 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.