Haig was in touch with me every day thereafter. Usually I started my day at the White House in a brief meeting with him. On Thursday, August 1, he said matters were heading toward resignation though the Nixon family was violently opposed. On Friday, August 2, he told me that Nixon was digging in his heels; it might be necessary to put the 82nd Airborne Division around the White House to protect the President. This I said was nonsense; a Presidency could not be conducted from a White House ringed with bayonets. Haig said he agreed completely; as a military man it made him heartsick to think of the Army in that role; he simply wanted me to have a feel for the kinds of ideas being canvassed. A big meeting was taking place over the weekend at Camp David, including Nixon’s closest confidants (which clearly did not include me) to chart the course. Whatever the decision, the damaging tape would be released on Monday, August 5, to give the White House an opportunity to put it into perspective. Nixon would not make his final decision until he could judge the public reaction. I wondered then, was the tape more marginal than Haig had at first believed? Haig did not show me a transcript, saying it was just then being prepared. I was somewhat at a loss to judge whether months of harassment had caused Haig to overreact or whether we really were at the end of the line.
We were heading for some kind of catharsis in substantial ignorance of its nature. I knew that those who had been working on Watergate matters full time were by now inured to the public impact; they had seen so many climaxes that they could not believe any one revelation could be the final one. And there is a momentum to power and to the office of the Presidency that makes it hard to face the fact — even when one knows it intellectually — that a term in office is drawing to a close. The routine of decision creates the illusion that authority is undiminished even when it has nearly evaporated. That inability to come to grips emotionally with the end of one’s power — so noticeable when a Presidential term draws to a close in the normal way — was even stronger as the Nixon Presidency was collapsing.
I suspected that Haig’s judgment of the impact of the tapes was correct. Still, I spent the weekend in my office not preparing for the transfer of power but getting ready for testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee scheduled for the following Thursday — August 8 — on the subject of détente. The Committee’s Chairman, Senator Fulbright, had called the hearings weeks before to permit a balanced, philosophical exploration of East-West relations. Our opponents from both sides of the spectrum jumped at the opportunity to assault Nixon’s foreign policy. Former servants of liberal administrations as well as hardliners were queuing up for the chance to testify — presumably not in defense of the Administration’s approach.
On Sunday afternoon, August 4, Ron Ziegler’s assistant Diane Sawyer stopped by to check some public relations items before going to Camp David to confer with Ziegler. I asked her whether any of it made any sense in light of the tape about to be released. Beautiful, clever Diane was nonplussed. She had not read the tape but she was beginning to think that there would never be a climax, simply an endless hemorrhaging. “As likely as not,” she said, “the tape will be drowned out in the political uproar.”
By now we were living in a surrealistic world. Its victims had coexisted with a nightmare for so long that it had come to seem the natural state of affairs. They had reduced their peril to a banality and therefore could not believe in its culmination. On Monday morning, August 5, I talked to Nixon. He complimented me on the monthly meetings I had arranged with the leadership of the House of Representatives. Still, he warned, I had to remember most of the Democrats were enemies. The Democrats worth cultivating were the Southerners; I should invite them to a briefing. Vice President Ford, he was sure, would be happy to arrange it. Not a word about Watergate or the imminent release of the tape.
I called Ford as the President had requested. I have never asked Ford what he thought I was doing — probably that I was trying to bring myself to his attention prior to the imminent transfer of power. But he played it straight. Yes, he would be glad to arrange such a meeting with his old friends in the House of Representatives. No, he did not think it would do much good. In his view the battle in the House, while still close, was going to be lost. Yes, we should stay in touch; perhaps I should come by for one of my regular briefings soon.
Early in the afternoon, Ziegler called. He thought I should have a preview of a portion of the tape that would be released around 4:00 P.M. But the advance indication Ziegler brought to my attention did not concern Watergate. It was an exchange between Nixon and Haldeman on whether Rogers had to be included in a meeting in which I would brief Nixon upon my return from China or whether a photograph with Nixon would be enough. Ziegler thought I would be amused. I was appalled; there had to be more to the tape than this. If there was not, Haig had lost his sense of proportion; if there was, Ziegler had abandoned his grip on reality.
I had to wait until 4:00 P.M. to find out, like everyone else, when the tape transcript was released from the White House. Haig, it turned out, had a good sense of proportion. The transcript consisted of three conversations the President had had with Haldeman on June 23, 1972, a week after the break-in, in which he tried to order a halt to the FBI investigation at least partly because he wanted to protect people connected with his reelection committee. The transcript was released together with an extremely defensive Presidential statement admitting that the cover-up had political as well as national security implications, and that in concealing this conversation from his lawyers the President was responsible for a serious act of omission. But the President went on to say that despite these mistakes the basic truth remained, that when all the facts were brought to his attention he insisted on a full investigation and prosecution of those guilty: “I am firmly convinced that the record, in its entirety, does not justify the extreme step of impeachment and removal of a President. I trust that as the Constitutional process goes forward, this perspective will prevail.”
It was much too late for that. The tape proved to be the last straw; it provided the pretext for all waverers to commit themselves to impeachment; it gave others a pretext to abandon Nixon. By now there had been too many shocks; everybody wanted to get it over with.
I was flooded with phone calls asking for my comments. I refused them. There were hints that I should condemn Nixon and thus force his resignation. I rejected them. I had charted my course. I would not turn on Nixon. Privately I would steer him gently — if that was possible — toward resignation.
At almost every crucial turning point in the Watergate saga, there seemed to be, incongruously, a dinner in my honor by the Chinese Liaison Office in Washington. On April 30, 1973, the Chinese had toasted the end of the Watergate affair when Nixon had dismissed Haldeman and Ehrlichman. On October 19, the evening before the “Saturday night massacre,” they had been pleased at the thought that the Stennis compromise would be the end of the whole inscrutable business. Now on Monday evening, August 5, much of the Washington Establishment was assembled at the Chinese Liaison Office to honor me. But clearly Watergate — or at least the Nixon portion of it — was drawing to a close. There was no mood of celebration. Many of the dinner guests had worked to destroy Nixon; a few were even then gloating while piously protesting their dismay at the turn of events. But the dominant feeling was one of awe — beyond righteousness, transcending the hatreds of a lifetime. For a fleeting moment there was a sense that we might all be in danger, that the public spectacle of the destruction of a President was more than a society should be asked to endure.
Our Chinese hosts inquired whether there would be any change of policy if Nixon left office — the first time they entertained that possibility in speaking to me. They asked whether I would stay on; obviously, continuity was important to them. In my toast I assured them that the relationship between our two countries was based on permanent factors, but I was careful to use no language that the journalists present could interpret as taking the President’s departure, by resignation or by impeachment,
for granted.
By the end of the dinner the reaction on which Haig told me the President’s decision would depend had become plain for all to see. Four Republicans who had voted against impeachment on the Judiciary Committee said that they would vote for it when it reached the House floor. The Senate Republican Whip, Senator Robert Griffin, asked for Nixon’s resignation. Vice President Ford dissociated himself in a statement saying that
the public interest is no longer served by repetition of my previously expressed belief that, on the basis of all the evidence known to me and the American people, the President is not guilty of an impeachable offense.
By now, I was approached by many concerned people urging me to bring matters to a head by threatening to resign unless Nixon did so; a few even suggested I invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution and declare the President incapacitated. It was unthinkable. It was not only that a Presidential appointee had no moral right to force his President to resign; it would also be an unbearable historical burden for a foreign-born to do so. Though Haig told me that Nixon was still hesitating, I was convinced that in the end he would do the right thing and that it was important for the nation that he be perceived as having come to this conclusion on his own.
The next morning, Tuesday, August 6, a Cabinet meeting had been scheduled for some time for 10:00 A.M. It was shifted to 11:00 when the President was late reaching the Oval Office. When I entered the Cabinet Room it was obvious that as far as the Cabinet was concerned, Nixon was on his way out. Ford stood behind the Vice Presidential chair talking affably to the Cabinet members crowding around him — not, to put it mildly, the usual scene in Cabinet meetings with functioning Presidents, where the Vice President is treated politely but as a supernumerary. I was sitting in my place to the right of the Presidential chair when Nixon walked in, setting off a scramble for the seats. It was impossible not to feel sorry for this tormented man. I had spent too many hours with him not to sense his panic; I knew the bravado was only skin-deep.
Nixon began the meeting by saying that he wanted to talk about the most important subject before our nation; it was — bizarrely — inflation. He commented on how he had vetoed $35 billion of appropriations even during Watergate. The time ahead would be even tougher.
Abruptly he switched to the subject on everybody’s mind. He thanked the Cabinet for having supported him through all difficulties. He was aware what a blow the tape of June 23, 1972, was to his case. He asked for nothing from his Cabinet officers they might find personally embarrassing or contrary to their convictions. They could serve their country and the President by running their departments well in the trying months ahead. As for him, he was aware that there was sentiment for his resignation. He had gone through difficult times before; he also had some achievements to his credit. He would have to consider not only his personal preferences but the office of the Presidency. If he resigned under pressure, he might turn our Presidential system into a parliamentary one in which a President could stay in office only so long as he could win a vote of confidence from the legislative branch.
That was, of course, hardly the issue. Impeaching a President was not the same as a parliamentary vote of no-confidence. I was convinced that Nixon was not delivering a political science lecture. What he sought in his oblique manner was a vote of confidence from his Cabinet, some expression of sympathy for his plight, a show of willingness to continue the fight, some statement that the battle to maintain his Presidency was in the national interest.
But all he encountered was an embarrassed silence. Papers were being shuffled amidst much fidgeting when Ford at last ended the impasse: “Mr. President, with your indulgence I have something to say.” Nixon nodded, and Ford continued:
Everyone here recognizes the difficult position I’m in. No one regrets more than I do this whole tragic episode. I have deep personal sympathy for you, Mr. President, and your fine family. But I wish to emphasize that had I known what has been disclosed in reference to Watergate in the last twenty-four hours, I would not have made a number of the statements I made either as Minority leader or as Vice President. I came to a decision yesterday and you may be aware that I informed the press that because of commitments to Congress and the public, I’ll have no further comment on the issue because I’m a party in interest. I’m sure there will be impeachment in the House. I can’t predict the Senate outcome. I will make no comment concerning this. You have given us the finest foreign policy this country has ever had. A super job, and the people appreciate it. Let me assure you that I expect to continue to support the Administration’s foreign policy and the fight against inflation.3
Nixon seemed to hear only the comment about inflation. He told Ford that his position was correct but it was not exactly clear that he was referring to Watergate. For he picked up a proposal Ford had floated publicly a few days earlier of an economic summit of business and labor leaders to overcome the inflation problem. There was some desultory talk on that subject as well as about the new agricultural appropriation bill. Attorney General William Saxbe interrupted: “Mr. President, I don’t think we ought to have a summit conference. We ought to be sure you have the ability to govern.” George Bush, then Chairman of the Republican National Committee, took up the theme. The Republican party, he said, was in a shambles; the forthcoming Congressional election threatened disaster. Watergate had to be brought to an end expeditiously. He did not say so but everyone in the room knew the corollary: The only way Watergate could end quickly was for Nixon to resign immediately.
It was cruel. And it was necessary. For Nixon’s own appointees to turn on him was not the best way to end a Presidency. Yet he had left them no other choice. If he had genuinely sought the opinion of his Cabinet, he should have asked a few of the senior members to the Oval Office, perhaps individually. It would have been a much better gauge of the mood of his associates than this performance by desperate men impelled by the presence of their colleagues to make a record, unsure of what it was for which their support was being solicited. It was vintage Nixon. Fearing individual rejection, he had assembled the largest possible forum; hoping for a group vote of confidence, he sought to confront them with a fait accompli and thereby triggered their near-rebellion.
There is no body less likely to rebel than a President’s Cabinet. Every member owes his appointment to the President and derives his authority from him. I have seen meetings between Presidents and senior Cabinet advisers since the days of John Kennedy; their normal tendency is deference, occasionally bordering on obsequiousness. If Nixon’s Cabinet officers felt impelled to say what they did, they must have felt that they had been deceived on Watergate; if they felt free to say it, their judgment must have been that Nixon’s days were numbered. But it was too unfeeling toward Nixon to allow this to continue, and it would also have deprived his resignation of one important message: that our institutions remained vital, our procedures democratic, our future infused by the national spirit of optimism of which Watergate threatened to rob us. More than enough had been said. The Cabinet owed it to the President not to deprive him of self-respect or his almost certain departure of dignity. So I took the floor as the senior Cabinet officer:
We are not here to offer excuses for what we cannot do. We are here to do the nation’s business. This is a very difficult time for our country. Our duty is to show confidence. We must demonstrate that the country can go through its constitutional processes. For the sake of foreign policy we must act with assurance and total unity. If we can do that, we can vindicate the structure of peace.4
Afterward, I went out to the driveway in front of the West Wing of the White House. Several Cabinet members were making statements as they were leaving. I stepped before the television cameras and sought to offer some reassurance to the American public and to convey steadiness to foreign governments:
[T]he foreign policy of the United States is always and continues to be conducted on a bipartisan basis in the national interest and in the interest of world peace.
When questions of peace or war are considered, no foreign government should have any doubts about the way in which foreign policy will be conducted.5
Around 12:45 P.M., I returned to the Oval Office unannounced. Alone with the President, I told Nixon of my comments to the media. Neither they nor my remarks to the Cabinet were the full story, I said. Having worked closely with the President for five and a half years, I owed it to him to say that his best service to the country now would be to resign. It was one thing to show fortitude in the face of political attack as he always had. But, I continued, an impeachment trial would preoccupy him for months, obsess the nation, and paralyze our foreign policy. It was too dangerous for our country and too demeaning to the Presidency. In my view, he should leave in a manner that appeared as an act of his choice. No matter what his decision, I concluded, I would not repeat these views outside the Oval Office.
Through all the tormented deliberations of the past week, Nixon had never sought my views. Nor did he do so now. He said he appreciated what I said. He would take it seriously. He would be in touch.
Then there was silence. Haig told me later in the day that Nixon was again tilting toward resignation; he was thinking about doing so late in the week and had asked speechwriter Ray Price to begin work on a resignation speech. But it would be a close call; in the evening his family might change his mind again. During the course of the afternoon I faced many opportunities to dissociate from the President publicly, thereby precipitating a crisis. I refused.
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