After the Fall

by Kasey S. Pipes

  When Becker arrived in San Clemente, he was told by Nixon’s staffers that no apology would be issued. How did they know he would ask for one? Becker assumed Haig had tipped them off. Still, he persisted in working out an arrangement.

  The Nixon team desperately wanted the pardon. They had been de facto lobbying for it, sending a memo to President Ford documenting Nixon’s poor health. David Eisenhower had even called the president from San Clemente and ominously warned that his father-in-law “might go off the deep end.”

  Yet as much as the Nixon team wanted the pardon, they wanted it on their terms, not Ford’s. During the negotiations in San Clemente, Herbert Miller, representing the Nixon team, drew a line in the sand on Nixon’s records. Nixon wanted them—all of them. Eventually they reached an agreement. The Nixon records would be stored at a federal facility in Southern California. The federal government and the former president would both claim ownership of the material. Written records could be subpoenaed for three to five years. After that, Nixon would control his papers the way other presidents controlled theirs. Meanwhile, the tapes were a separate matter. Since the tapes had helped seal Nixon’s fate as president, Ford’s negotiators weren’t as lenient on them as they were with the papers. The agreement reached was that the tapes would held by the General Services Administration and could not be destroyed. If Nixon wanted to consult them for the writing of his memoirs, he could do so. And after ten years he could seek to destroy the tapes.

  As with any agreement, there was plenty in it for everyone to dislike. Democrats wouldn’t like that Nixon could eventually destroy his tapes; Nixon wouldn’t like that he didn’t have an absolute claim to his papers like other presidents had.

  This was a major concession for the former president. Historical precedent dictated that a president kept his papers. And he didn’t know how he could write his memoirs without them.

  Once the two legal teams agreed on the tapes and the papers, the negotiations turned to the statement of contrition. Buchen told Miller bluntly what Ford wanted: “I hope you would persuade your client to develop something that would tell the world, ‘Yes, he did it, and he’s accepting the pardon because he’s guilty.’ ” Miller made no promise in response, other than to talk to the former president.

  Miller had reason not to raise Ford’s hope about Nixon’s contrition. When the former president discussed with his lawyer how the talks were going, he seemed ambivalent about the pardon. “I’d just as soon go through the agony of a trial, so we can scrape away at least all the false charges,” Nixon said, “and fight it out on those where there may be a doubt.”

  But for all his bravado, Nixon knew he could not face a trial. His health was not good. And his emotional state was even weaker. And so the negotiations continued.

  A few days into the talks, former White House spokesman Ron Ziegler entered the scene. Ziegler had become well known to Americans as the face and voice of the Nixon White House. Before the word “spin” became part of the Washington vernacular, he had mastered it. He once famously said that Nixon had enjoyed a great year except for Watergate. Still boyish-looking at thirty-five, Ziegler remained fiercely loyal to his boss. And he brought his gift of spin into the negotiations.

  Behind the scenes, Nixon enjoyed a secret weapon. He stayed in close contact with Haig, and Haig almost certainly had told him that Ford wanted to grant the pardon and be done with it. Armed with this knowledge, Nixon had Ziegler renegotiate the terms of the agreement that had apparently been settled. He wanted control of the tapes sooner. Becker, perhaps knowing that the hardest part of the negotiation—securing the apology—was yet to come, gave in and agreed to let Nixon have the tapes in five years instead of ten.

  Even this concession didn’t satisfy the former president. But his team urged him to take the deal. “I’ll sign it,” Nixon finally conceded before adding, “I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do. . . .”5

  Now discussion over the apology began in earnest. Ziegler offered an initial version of a statement from Nixon that Becker rejected immediately. When Becker insisted that the statement include some sort of sorrow, Ziegler responded tersely, “Contrition is bullshit.”

  Becker didn’t care. He told Ziegler the statement must include an apology. At one point, he went further than his boss probably wanted him to and threatened to withdraw the pardon offer.

  Finally on the fourth draft, Ziegler produced a type-written document that he showed to Becker:

  I have been informed that President Ford has granted me a full and absolute pardon for any charges which might be brought against me for actions taken during the time I was president of the United States. In accepting this pardon, I hope that his compassionate act will contribute to lifting the burden of Watergate from our country.

  Here in California, my perspective on Watergate is quite different than what it was while I was embattled in the midst of the controversy and while I was still subject to the unrelenting daily demands of the presidency itself.

  As he read those first two paragraphs, Becker didn’t see what he was looking for. But to his surprise, the statement then addressed Nixon’s role in Watergate:

  Looking back on what is still in my mind a complex and confusing maze of events, decisions, pressures, and personalities, one thing I can see more clearly now is that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the state of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy.

  The statement was getting better. But still no remorse. Then Becker read this:

  No words can describe the depth of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency—a nation I so deeply love and an institution I so greatly respect.

  I know that many fair-minded people believe that motivations and actions in the Watergate affair were intentionally self-serving and illegal. I now understand how my own mistakes and misjudgments have contributed to that belief and seemed to support it. This burden is the heaviest of all to bear.

  As the statement neared the end, Becker read one last sentence:

  That the way I tried to deal with Watergate was the wrong way is a burden I shall bear for every day of the life that is left to me.

  Becker was stunned. Although this was not quite full contrition, here was the former president saying that he had handled Watergate “the wrong way” and that it was a burden he would have to bear for the rest of his life. It was good enough to meet Ford’s demands.

  Still, Becker wanted to talk to Nixon in person before returning home. Maybe Ziegler had written the statement and the former president had never seen it.

  If Becker had been stunned by the statement, he was even more stunned by the president. Becker would later say that Nixon “appeared to have aged and shrunken in the month since his resignation. His jowls were loose and flabby, and his shirt seemed to be too big for his neck.” He found the former president completely disengaged.

  “Where do you live?” he asked. “How are the Redskins going to do this year?”

  Becker sidestepped Nixon’s small talk and explained that by accepting a pardon he was essentially admitting his guilt. Nixon seemed uninterested. Finally, Becker lost patience and ended the meeting. As he waited for his car, Ziegler asked him to come back inside and talk to Nixon one more time.

  “You’re a fine young man,” the president said. “I want to give you something. But look around the office.” There was only his desk, his reading chair and ottoman, and two flags. He reached into his desk and opened two boxes of presidential souvenirs. “I asked Pat to get these for me. She got these out of my own jewelry box. There aren’t any more in the whole world,” he said, offering the young lawyer a pair of presidential cuff links and a presidential tie pin. “I want you to have them.”

  As Becker accepted the gifts, Nixon’s commentary on his plight continued, saying, “I used to have an aide who would stand by a
nd hand me these things. I’m sorry, but this is the best I have now.”6

  Becker left the office shaken by Nixon’s performance. Upon returning to Washington, he told Ford that “I really have serious questions in my mind whether that man is going to be alive at the time of the next election.”

  Ford said he thought Nixon would recover by 1976.

  “I mean 1974,” Becker answered. Ford was shocked that Becker thought Nixon might not be alive in just two months when the congressional elections would take place. Still, Ford had what he wanted and what he believed the country needed—an apology from Nixon—and a clear path to a pardon.

  On Sunday morning, September 8, 1974, Gerald Ford announced a “full, free and absolute pardon” for the ex-president. The next day Gallup recorded the largest ever drop in presidential approval ratings. Americans were appalled by Ford’s action. The roots of this rage came from the very design of the American government. The Founding Fathers had created a republic in which citizens elected leaders and trusted them to make decisions. For the most part the system had worked. But in Watergate, some Americans thought they saw the limits of the Founders’ vision. No longer could the American people be certain that their leaders would do the right thing. But if not, they at least trusted that the court system would hold political leaders accountable. Now with the pardon, Americans were enraged that Nixon would never have to answer for Watergate. This began a long decline in trust between the American people and the government that continues today.

  By the time the pardon was announced, Nixon had left La Casa Pacifica for Sunnylands, Walter Annenberg’s palatial 220-acre estate in the California desert with its own golf course and a 25,000-square-foot ranch house. The former president stayed indoors to avoid the 110-degree heat. In fact, he didn’t leave the estate at all during his entire stay. On one occasion his valet, Manolo Sanchez, was accosted by a reporter at a supermarket. Sanchez declined to be interviewed but did tell the reporter that “the pardon was a big relief to us.”7

  But if Nixon felt relief, he wasn’t showing it. He was outraged by the public outrage at Ford’s gesture. Within a few days of the announcement, he called the president to offer to reject the pardon. Ford declined the offer and ended the conversation abruptly.

  But perhaps no one was angrier than Pat. She had not been told that the pardon was coming. “Pardon for what?” she asked defiantly.8

  Though it offered him little solace, Nixon’s biggest legal problems—the threat of a criminal proceeding and time in jail—had been averted. But his troubles were only just beginning. As he sipped cocktails at the Annenburg Estate, he couldn’t have known that things would get much worse before they got better.

  Chapter Four

  A Near-Death Experience

  “I don’t think I’m going to get out of here alive.”

  The old marine’s face was creased with worry. On the battlefield, Colonel Jack Brennan had seen a lot of men in bad shape. But this was different. Three days after the pardon had been extended, he saw a man who was dying.

  Colonel Brennan served as Nixon’s military aide. And he essentially ran the office at San Clemente. He had joined Nixon on the trip to Sunnylands. And now on September 11, he could see that Nixon’s health was fading.

  Nixon’s physical well-being had always been a concern. Ford had been warned that Nixon might not make it to the end of the year. But now the ex-president’s health was declining dramatically. So as chief of staff, Brennan decided to take action. He placed a call from Sunnylands to the office of Dr. John C. Lungren, who had served as Nixon’s personal physician since 1952.

  “Doctor, I know it’s late,” he said once Lungren got on the phone. “But could you possibly come out to Ambassador Annenberg’s tonight and see the president? I am very concerned. The boss really needs you as he never did.” 1

  “I’ll come right away,” Lungren answered. “I’ll leave for Palm Desert as soon as I finish seeing my patients.” Lungren arrived around ten thirty that night and was met by a Secret Service agent who escorted him into the estate. The doctor was a handsome fifty-seven-year-old whose face was bordered by still-brown hair and accented by horn-rimmed glasses. Before seeing his famous patient, Lungren was asked to speak on the phone with Admiral William Lukash at the White House, who had treated Nixon while he was president. The issue at hand, Lukash proceeded to tell Lungren, was a leg that had been giving the president trouble for several months.

  “We have been quite concerned since just before President Nixon left for the Middle East to see [Anwar] Sadat,” Lukash said, referring to a trip the former president had made earlier that summer on Air Force One. “That’s when the leg really started to get worse. The president hid it from us until we were well on our way to Cairo. He told me in Salzburg of the leg’s rapid swelling. I examined him immediately and diagnosed it as acute phlebitis in the lower left leg.”

  Lungren inquired about whether the long plane ride had had an impact on the leg. Lukash confirmed that it had.

  “The president refused to sit down and rest his leg,” Lukash said, of the trip to the Middle East. “The longer he stood, the more intense the pain grew. He suffered an acute flare-up in the leg and I placed him on anti-inflammatory drugs.”2

  Lungren ran through in his mind the implications of a leg riddled with phlebitis. He asked if the president knew how serious the situation could become.

  “The president is aware that the condition is potentially fatal,” Lukash answered. “I told him that a blood clot could break loose, travel through the veins from the infected leg to the lungs, triggering a deadly pulmonary embolus.”

  Lungren hung up the phone and braced himself. He would have to evaluate Nixon in a few moments. But more importantly, he would have to be brutally honest with him about what lay ahead. There were no easy options.

  The doctor went to see the president in a guest bungalow. Lungren entered the living room, where he found Nixon leaning back in a chair with his left leg propped up on an ottoman.

  As Lungren would later recall, “Nixon looked exhausted; he was pale and had obviously lost considerable weight. Drawn and tense, he was dressed in blue pajamas, a blue robe, and black slippers. Despite his apparent exhaustion, however, his voice was a strong as ever. While his penetrating intellect seemed intact, there was also fear and anguish that I had never seen in him before.”3

  Perhaps sensing that Lungren was shocked by his appearance, Nixon tried small talk.

  “Jack, how are you?” he asked. “Glad to see you.”

  “The important thing is how are you?” Lungren answered.

  The doctor sat down beside his patient and began asking him questions about the leg. After just a few minutes, Lungren was convinced that the president’s condition required immediate action. He told Nixon he needed to go to the hospital right away. Nixon refused.

  “If I do go to the hospital, I’ll never come out alive,” he said.

  If Lungren couldn’t force Nixon to go for medical treatment, then he would try to get the medical treatment to Nixon. He prescribed an anticoagulant and an anti-inflammatory drug and promised to take another look at the leg when the president returned to San Clemente.

  After spending two hours with Nixon, Lungren began the drive back to Long Beach. As he did, he thought of the irony that the Ford pardon—intended to save Nixon legally—could do nothing to save Nixon physically. As he drove into the Southern California night, he worried about Nixon and the “progressive worsening of his physical condition, psychological exile, and social banishment.”4

  Lungren knew the road to recovery would be a long one—especially for an unwilling traveler. Even so, Lungren could not have foreseen how that road would become so difficult so soon.

  * * *

  Two days after Lungren’s house call, Nixon’s condition became worse. Pat worried that the swelling in her husband’s leg had increased. She called Dr. Walter Tkach, one of the White House doctors who had treated Nixon, and he agreed to fly
to California to evaluate the former president at La Casa de Pacifica when Nixon returned from his stay at Sunnylands.

  Tkach looked at Nixon and echoed Lungren: “You have got to go to the hospital.” Again, Nixon refused.

  After leaving his patient, Tkach returned to Washington and gave a series of interviews to reporters eager for news on Nixon. The former president was a “ravaged man,” Tkach said, who had “lost the will to fight.” He told one reporter, “It will require a miracle for him to recover.”5

  In an effort to control the narrative, Nixon family members began talking to the press. But their messages were mixed.

  President Nixon was “in good spirits,” according to Julie Eisenhower, while her brother-in-law, Edward Cox, said he was “very depressed.”

  In reality, Edward’s words painted the more accurate portrait of Nixon’s state. Back in his office at San Clemente with his swollen leg propped up, the ex-president met with his former communications director, Kenneth Clawson, who was now working for the Ford administration.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “What’s happening to you, the others? How are the new people?” Clawson said a purge was in effect to get rid of the Nixon staff. Nixon sought to cheer him up. “I know you’re feeling bitter,” he said. “So am I. But we can’t let it show, not now, possibly not ever. . . .”

  When the conversation turned to Nixon’s legacy, the former president was less upbeat.

  “We’re out now, so they try to stomp us . . . kick us when we’re down,” he lamented. “They’ll never give us credit. They never let up, never, because we were the first real threat to them in years. And, by God, we would have changed it, changed it so they couldn’t have changed it back in a hundred years, if only. . . .”

  With that, Nixon’s voice abruptly stopped. Clawson looked up to see his former boss looking through the window at the Pacific Ocean.

  Then, after a moment of reflection, he spoke again.