Wars of Watergate

Chapter Summaries

Book One: Of Time And The Man: Discord, Disorder, and Richard Nixon

Chapter 1: Breaking Faith: The 1960s

Aftermath of Kennedy's death; Johnson's leislative agenda (1963-64); 6 mo. period (Great Society); taxes, civil rights, mass transit, clean air, wilderness, training programs, anti-poverty; broad, but not deep, support; negative reputation and image (wheeler-dealer, manipulator); 1964 election vs. Goldwater; 61% of popular vote; people voting for Johnson despite mistrust of him; rhetoric: don't get involved in Vietnam; swollen Democratic majority; continuation of legislation (War on Poverty); outbreak of violence in 1965; antiwar ralliesincreasing involvement in Vietnam; thin-skinnedness with press & public opinion; foreign policy spilling over into domestic policy, causing turmoil & upheval; supportive view of war by public in public opinion polls until 1967; lack of thoughtful policy; transformation of Presidential powers/office (growth); McCarthy and R. Kennedy challenges to Johnson in '68; Johnson dropped out of race (March 1968); 486k troops in Vietnam

Chapter 2: Making Many Nixons: 1913-1965

Flashback from 1968 election (Nixon's "coronation"); dominant figure in 20th century politics; childhood; "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser"; Whittier, Duke Law School; 1937 return to CA as lawyer; 1940, marriage; 1942, Washington, Officer Candidate School (Navy); South Pacific service; 1946, public office campaign, beat Rep. Jerry Voorhis by 15,000 votes out of 150,000 total; Chotiner (person running campaign); member of House Labor Committee and House Committee on Un-American Activities; 1948, Alger Hiss appeared before Committee; Chambers-Hiss conflict; Nixon gained publicity by leading the case against Hiss; 1950 California Senate seat opened up; Nixon campaigned against Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas, expected campaign of hyperbole & innuendo, "Pink right down to her underwear"; emergence of "Tricky Dick" image; won by >600k votes; nominated for V.P. in 1952; publicity about a campaign fund; negative press; appeared on TV - Checkers speech; emergence of Nixon into national prominence; dislike of Nixon by many in Eisenhower administration; failure to get rid of him for 1956 ticket; 1959 went to Russia ("Kitchen Debate" w/ Khrushchev); emergence as candidate in 1960 Pres. campaign; dominance of new media/image in campaign, failure of Nixon in debates (too much "substance", not enough "style"); lost by 113k votes out of 68 million cast; returned to California, to law firm; challenged Pat Brown for CA governorship in 1962, lost (CA voters didn't think he had enough experience to govern California); "last" press conference held after election; went to NY in 1963 to join Wall Street firm, Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander; handled Supreme Court case; backed Goldwater in 1964; biding his time; helped regroup the Republican Party after Goldwater's defeat

Chapter 3: "Bring Us Together": 1965-1968

Nixon's political limbo ("in the wilderness") and path to WH; campaign trail 1966; becoming Johnson's debating partner; Republican gains in '66; Nixon appealing to Goldwater Republicans, moderate Republicans, Eisenhower; attacked by Johnson; 1967, began to prepare for Presidential run, touching bases; country coming apart; MLK assassination, new wave of race riots; protesters, & opposing "Silent Majority"; "law-and-order"/old-fashioned Democrats vs. new, protest Democrats; '68 primary season, Nixon struck his law and order theme; further division of Democrats by Wallace campaign; give Nixon a chance to appeal to the center; George Romney (MI governor in Democratic stronghold) was other Republican candidate; "brainwashing" comment, too straightforward, Vietnam problems; August 1968: Republican National Convention in Miami; Goldwater not credible, but Reagan was Goldwater surrogate appealing to Goldwater's base; elected governor of California (defeated Pat Brown) in 1966; Reagan-Rockefeller alliance to defeat Nixon; Nixon maneuvered to guarantee Southern delegation (South Carolina senator J. Strom Thurmond), made deals about busing, segregation, Supreme Court justices; Democratic National Convention in Chicago was disaster, McCarthy vs. Humphrey vs. Kennedy; protests erupted into violence in Chicago streets; reinforcement of fears of Silent Majority; Humphrey emerged as candidate thanks to Daley machine; Nixon focused campaign on alienated middle; avoided discussion of Vietnam and other difficult issues; "New Nixon" sold to media; changing to meet the needs of his audience; NH primary, pledged to end war; pushed to reveal his plan; scheduled speech, then Johnson address scheduled, so Nixon's speech canceled; focused on issue of domestic peace; Aug 8, 1968: accepted party's nomination; appealed to "quiet voices" and the "nonshouters"; October, Paris negotiations with North Vietnamese looked like they would promise a breakthrough; 27 October: Nixon charged political opportunism; 31 October: Johnson halted bombing and said peace talks in Paris would resume 6 November; people saw it as political opportunism; Nixon won, 43.4% vs. 42.7% (Humphrey) and remainder (Wallace); 2.5 million less than 1960 total; 3/10 white voters voting for Johnson in '64 voted for Nixon or Wallace in '68; Humphrey conceded on November 6, Nixon gave speech (sign, "Bring Us Together")

Book Two: First Term, First Wars

Chapter 4: "The Man On Top"

Nixon beginning first term; iron triangle (legislators, bureaucracy, lobbyists) made into iron square by Nixon adding the media; broadening of Vietnam War during first 2 years of Nixon's presidency, and corresponding militancy of antiwar protests; worries about leaks; general views of Nixon's 1st term (domestic policies far outstripped foreign policy achievements); transformations of Presidency into monarchical court, starting with Eisenhower; Nixon continued Johnson's role (intensity of involvement); President & aides treating Congress like it only existed to follow instructions; Haldeman and Ehrlichman role, public visibility to take heat for President; Haldeman's role was to isolate the President; dissemination of tasks/directives via Haldeman; Nixon encouraged/practiced compartmentalization, ensuring fragmentation of power; Dent: "The man on top was on top"; two Nixons: idealistic/thoughtful/generous Nixon, and vindictive/petty/emotional Nixon; a President in command - with whatever personality was momentarily dominant in his psyche; Nixon's view of Cabinet as an extension of RN and Oval Office; "I've always thought this country could run itself domestically without a President, all you need is a competent Cabinet to run the country at home. You need a President for foreign policy" - but FAR from the truth; Cabinet secretaries seen as spokesman for RN; Kissinger: RN trusted his aides more than his Cabinet, due to political/personal needs, need to enhance image & power, and protect public standing; Nixon stated he had to adopt "complex political strategies" (PR, preoccupation with "the opposition") to secure his program, become an "activist President in domestic affairs... Knock heads together in order to get things done"; after 2 years Nixon saw PR failure, while in fact he had been in public's eye for 20+ years, so their perception of him had crystallized; venting against bureaucracy (as convenient safety valve for political frustration); Nixon-Kissinger established group of people to run foreign policy, bypassing Department of State; autonomy of bureaucracy severely reduced; control over operation of bureaucracies led to parallel systems of activity; Huston Plan (Tom Huston): Feb. 1970, proposed procedures for internal security handling, consolidation of intelligence-gethering; 5 June 1970: met with FBI, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, NSA: development of plan to curtail illegal activities of society's enemies; Huston & Sullivan (3rd in FBI) bypassed Hoover; Hoover's reluctance to break law led to scuttling of plan by President; Huston plan still pursued; led to formation of Plumbers

Chapter 5: "I want it done, whatever the cost." Enemies, Plumbers, Taps, and Spies

Huston plan: impose President's personal direction on bureaucracies; in 1st 3 months of 1st term, Ehrlichman hired John Caulfield (former NYPD) to establish WH investigations unit; August 1971: John Dean (WH Counsel) prepared rationale for WH "enemies list"; list grew to >200, included institutions; Dean had role of enforcer of list; Haldeman subjected some to IRS audits (Washington Post lawyer audited 3 years in a row); DOJ, Secret Service, military intelligence added >4k people, >2k groups for IRS to study; Caulfield assigned to stimulate activity in IRS; August 1972: RN told Ehrlichman he wanted full control of IRS, FBI, DOJ, Department of Treasury officials in next term; Dean bypassed Treasury Secretary George Shultz in pursuing tax cases; May 1971: Haldeman told President that Colson had hired thugs to attack antiwar protesters; expansion against enemies to include more direct action, physical force; discussion (RH and Haldeman) about political "dirty tricks"; hiring of Segretti by Chapin; increasing paranoia about leaks from beginning (within 5 months of inauguration, 21 stories based on leaks from National Security Council); June 1971: publication of Pentagon Papers; told Haldeman to conduct loyalty tests to investigate, to get it done whatever the cost; 13 June 1971: NY Times published Pentagon Papers; raised question of deception and government credibility; Supreme Court lifted injunction nearly unanimously, but was divided behind the scenes (Black - assailed Administration for even temporary injuction; Warren - defended Administration; White - encouraged prosecution of Ellsberg as criminal); leaks, and failure of courts to provide Administration with desired protection, led to creation of the Plumbers; June 1971: Nixon wanted fire lit under FBI in Ellsberg investigation; 1969: RN ordered Ehrlichman to create in-house group to bypass FBI in leak investigations; December 1972: Washington Post revealed existence of Plumbers;

Quotes

Book One

Chapter 1

[In the 1964 campaign,] Johnson had a veritable monopoly on the peace corner. Speaking in Eufaula, Oklahoma, on September 25, he could not resist gilding the lily: "There are those that say you ought to go North and drop bombs, to try to wipe out supply lines, and they think that would escalate the war. We don't want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys. We don't want to get involved... with 700 million people and get tied down in a land war in Asia." In the meantime, Barry Goldwater was the candidate who reputedly wanted to "lob one into the men's room in the Kremlin."

In retrospect, Johnson complained that "that bitch of a war" took him away from "the woman I really loved" - his Great Society. The war ruptured the nation, sparking unprecedented anger and resistance to government policies.

Clark Clifford, one of the few men Johnson held in awe, warned in July 1965 that the war was futile. "I don't believe we can win in South Vietnam," he said. "If we send in 100,000 more men, the North Vietnamese will meet us. If North Vietnam runs out of men, the Chinese will send in volunteers. Russia and China don't intend for us to win the war." Clifford urged that we get out "honorably." Otherwise, he warned, "I can't see anything but catastrophe for my country."

"There will be some Nervous Nellies and some who will become frustrated and break ranks under the strain," the President remarked. There would be those who would "turn on their leaders and on their country and on our fighting men. There will be times of trial and tensions in the days ahead that will exact the best that is in all of us."

Johnson's patriotic homilies were inadequate. George Washington, at Valley Forge in 1778, warned that whoever built upon patriotism as a sufficient basis for conducting a long and bloody war "will find themselves deceived in the end." Such a war, Washington insisted, could never be sustained by patriotism alone. "It must be aided by a prospect of Interest or some reward. For a time, it may, of itself push Men to action; ...but it will not endure unassisted by Interest." Nevertheless, Johnson and his advisers "wrapped themselves in the flag," decrying the "Nervous Nellies" who opposed the war. Deception and self-delusion alike pervaded the Johnson Administration's conduct of the war.

Johnson was described by a contemporary as "king of the river and a stranger to the sea." He was a clever navigator of the congressional stream, paddling deftly through its pools and eddies, ever alert for the occasional sandbar. But in the open sea of foreign policy, with its shifting, almost imperceptible currents, its swells and tempests - there he was out of his depth. He could not be the master he wished to be, and this only embittered and frustrated him more. What he knew best did not apply in these unpredictable waters. International politics was not domestic politics writ large.

The history of presidential power is a history of aggrandizement; the transformation of the office in the twentieth century alone has been remarkable. Economic dislocation, global wars, and the assumption of world leadership have focused power in the presidency, and with it the rapt attention of a fascinated, often adoring, public.

Chapter 2

"Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser."

- Wallace Newman, Nixon's football coach at Whittier

More tellingly and more cuttingly, [Adlai] Stevenson derided Nixon as a comic figure, describing him as the "kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation."

"He worked like a horse and learned the law," [Leonard] Garment recalled, comparing Nixon's effort to starting "athletic life by doing the Olympic decathlon."

Chapter 3

The important, sustained revolution came from within the ranks of what had been the dominant political coalition. The "risen" middle class, the blue- and white-collar workers, and ethnics who had nourished the growth of the Democratic majority, now found themselves unhappy with the young protesters who were the new cohabitants of its political home. The protesters' challenges to cherished views of the American way of life, the criticisms of what was wrong with America, left the "old-fashioned Democrats" confused, shaken, and above all frightened, especially as events took a violent turn. Whatever their own disenchantment with the Vietnam war, they hardly identified themselves with the public expressions of outrage by disaffected groups. A political alliance between protesters and conventional Democrats simply was improbable. The latter had little sympathy fo the blacks and dispossessed who, in their minds, had not worked to achieve the American Dream. Their disdain, even contempt, for the alienated young campus radicals was as powerful. After all, these were the spoiled, pampered, comfortable children of those above - or even their own ungrateful offspring.

"Things have come to some pass when a Republican candidate for President has to take counsel with his advisers about whether he should attend the funeral of a Nobel Prize winner."

- Leonard Garmet, Nixon's law partner, 1968

Perhaps there was no New Nixon - just new perceptions. Howard Phillips, a militant conservative who had idolized Nixon since his teen years, believed that the man never really changed. Speaking in the last days of the Nixon Administration in 1974, as he issued a "conservative manifesto" calling for the President's resignation, and at a time when talk of a New Nixon had faded and the Old Nixon appeared very much restored, Phillips said: "Throughout his public career, Mr. Nixon has always tried to please his audience, seeking their confidence and admiration by becoming the man he thinks they want him to be. The changing perceptions of Nixon - the New Nixon, the Old Nixon, the statesman, the strategist - do not reflect a change in the man but in the audience to which he is at any moment appealing."

Book Two

Chapter 4

"It was all warm and friendly until... Bob Haldeman arrived."

- Rose Mary Woods, Nixon's personal secretary since 1951

Compartmentalization ensured fragmentation of power, precisely what Nixon desired. (Of course, the technique was not new; Franklin D. Roosevelt was a past master at such administrative dealings.)

"I've always thought this country could run itself domestically without a President," Nixon said in 1967. "All you need is a competent Cabinet to run the country at home. You need a President for foreign policy; no Secretary of State is really important; the President makes foreign policy." This oft-repeated mark implied that Nixon really had little interest in domestic affairs and was prepared to allow a "competent Cabinet" to run its own course. Nothing was further from the truth. In his eyes, the Cabinet was only an extension of Richard Nixon and the Oval Office; he well realized how domestic affairs intersected with political and public-relations considerations which in turn vitally affected his public standing.

John F. Kennedy's aide and biographer, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., recalled many instances of his and Kennedy's frustration in getting the bureaucracy to respond to policy directives... "the President use to divert himself with the dream of establishing a secret office of thirty people or so to run foreign policy while maintaining the State Department as a facade in which people might contentedly carry papers from bureau to bureau." (Ironically, that was precisely the system that Nixon and Kissinger installed.)

Chapter 5

Haldeman selected a number of people on various lists for IRS audits and other forms of harassment. Washington Post lawyer Edward Bennett Williams was targeted. Williams at first regarded the attention as a "badge of honor"; on more sober reflection, he realized how dangerous it was to have the "President of the United States obsessed with the idea of wreaking some kind of revenge against me." The IRS audited him for three consecutive years.

Significantly, the Court decisively rejected Solicitor General Erwin Griswold's argument that the release of the papers would affect lives, the recovery of Vietnam prisoners of war, and the peace process. Those considerations, he argued, had "such an effect on the security of the United States that [they] ought to be the basis of an injunction in this case." The Justices thought not, but their surface unanimity masked deep feelings. Some, like Justice Hugo Black, in what proved to be his final judicial opinion, bitterly assailed the Administration and the courts for permitting even a temporary injunction. Chief Justice Warren Burger dutifully defended the Administration, however, and Justice Byron White expressed biting contempt for Ellsberg's action and urged that the government prosecute him under the ordinary criminal statutes.