The Fall of Richard Nixon

by Tom Brokaw

  The next morning, Sunday, as luck would have it, I was making my inaugural appearance on Meet the Press.

  For years it had been the premier Sunday morning public affairs broadcast, direct from the nation’s capital. Lawrence Spivak was the stern but fair choirmaster directing a panel of correspondents. I had met him only briefly when first arriving in Washington. That Sunday morning he got right to the point: “Mr. Brokaw, you’ll ask the first question. It is very important we get off to a fast start. Do you want to share your opening question with me?”

  I said, “I’d rather not, Mr. Spivak. I think it is a good one, and I don’t want viewers to think I shared my question with you in advance.”

  Looking back, that made no sense; nevertheless, Spivak, startled, said, “Okay, but remember, off to a fast start.”

  Mel Laird, the former secretary of defense and a canny GOP warrior, had been booked in advance, and he could not have been happy about unexpectedly dealing with a political massacre. Larry, as I came to call Mr. Spivak, introduced the program by summarizing Laird’s political VIP status and then leaned forward, looked at me sternly, and said, “We will have the first question from Tom Brokaw of NBC News.”

  I was ready. “Mr. Laird, let me briefly summarize all that has happened this weekend. The president has ignored an order from the federal appeals court [to turn over tapes]; he has fired the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox; he has accepted the resignation of Attorney General Elliot Richardson; and he has forced the resignation of Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. In view of all that, don’t you expect now that impeachment proceedings against the president will begin in the House of Representatives?”

  Spivak leaned back in his chair and smiled. It was the beginning of a wonderful friendship, equaled only when my friend the late Tim Russert took over Meet and expanded on the Spivak legacy.

  For his part, Laird, always a nimble pol, gave a long-winded answer concluding with the assertion that Congress would find that the president had complied with everything the courts had asked.

  Immediately following Meet the Press, I went to the headquarters of the special prosecutor, where a posse of reporters had gathered to see what would happen next. James Doyle, a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter who was Cox’s public affairs officer, was in a feisty mood as reporters quizzed him about the White House justification for firing Cox. He said, “If they announce the sky is green and you look up and see the sky is blue…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence to get his point across.

  Federal agents were guarding the entrance to the Justice Department, but Doyle was determined to keep the offices open. So he showed his Justice Department pass and ushered his fellow employees in to demonstrate that the office was still in business.

  When the Saturday Night Massacre blew up in the president’s face, Buchanan understood that the move to fire Cox had been a disaster. Pat told me, “I called a friend in St. Louis and told him, ‘There will be a petition for impeachment on the House floor by Monday.’ ”

  * * *

  —

  In the chaos of the weekend, I had forgotten Rod and Carla Hills, whom I had encouraged to make the move to Washington. On Monday morning they sent a brief message:

  “Thanks a lot, Tom!”

  Later Carla explained that they had sold their Los Angeles home, left their prosperous firm, and arrived in Washington the Thursday before the Saturday Night Massacre. When the news broke, they headed back to Los Angeles. Robert Bork, now the acting attorney general, urged Carla to return and take charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Division.

  President Nixon went on to name Senator William Saxbe, an unimaginative son of Ohio, as the new attorney general. When Carla met with him and asked about her hiring authority, Saxbe startled her by saying, “Mrs. Hills, is it your intention to hire only women?” Carla says she was stunned but found solace from Larry Silberman, Saxbe’s deputy, who protected her right to hire whomever she needed.

  Rod and Carla soon became pillars of the Washington Republican establishment. She would be elevated to secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development when Gerald Ford was president and would later co-chair the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations. Rod would become chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission during the Ford administration.

  Carla and I still laugh about her “Thanks a lot, Tom!” message.

  “Don’t get the impression that you arouse my anger….You see, one can only be angry with those he respects,” Nixon told the gathered reporters at his press conference.

  IN THE WHITE HOUSE, the president was surrounded by his tape recordings of Oval Office conversations, but what did they contain? What next for the embattled president?

  Nixon decided to take his case to the public with a televised news conference on October 26. He was on the offensive from the beginning as reporters asked him questions. He was asked about an earlier comment he’d made, back in 1968; he had written that he believed that too many shocks to a country can drain it of its energy and stunt its progress.

  The president said, “This is a very strong country, and the American people…can ride through the shocks.”

  Then this: “I have never heard or seen such outrageous, vicious, distorted reporting in twenty-seven years of public life.” (Sound familiar?)

  And: “When people are pounded night after night with that kind of frantic, hysterical reporting, it naturally shakes their confidence.”

  Then, in typical Nixon style, he assured everyone that “these shocks will not affect me and my doing my job.”

  This was my first time at a televised news conference as NBC’s White House correspondent, and I was quickly flipping through a mental notebook, looking for a follow-up question for Nixon, but Robert Pierpoint, the CBS correspondent, came up with just the right one: “You say after you have put on a lot of heat, that you don’t blame anyone. I find that a little puzzling. What is it about the television coverage…that has so aroused your anger?”

  The president responded, “Don’t get the impression that you arouse my anger.”

  Then he added the latest in the long-running Nixon knife fight with the American press: “You see, one can only be angry with those he respects.”

  Later Ron Ziegler told me that the president had been instructed to call on me because I was a newbie. It’s just as well he was otherwise preoccupied. I would have other opportunities, including the last question asked of him at a formal news conference.

  Iranian ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi with Elizabeth Taylor.

  DESPITE THE SATURDAY NIGHT MASSACRE, the war in the Middle East, the resignation of Vice President Agnew, the special prosecutor’s demands for the tapes, and jockeying among the White House, the House, and the Senate, the Washington social merry-go-round did not stop.

  One of the fixtures on the Washington social scene was Ardeshir Zahedi, the Iranian ambassador to the United States, a debonair bachelor closely connected to the shah of Iran. Zahedi had an unusual background: he was an Iranian aristocrat with down-home American experience. A graduate of Utah State University’s College of Agriculture, he had a degree in animal science.

  But as the Iranian ambassador, he was all silk and black tie, a genial if flamboyant host of parties where he connected glittering Hollywood stars with titans of Capitol Hill. At one reception, he introduced Liza Minnelli to Elliot Richardson, and the actress Julie Newmar took turns dancing with Deputy Secretary of State Ken Rush and New York senator Jacob Javits.

  Somehow Meredith and I wound up on his invitation list, and the evening was memorable for the elegance of the table settings, the bipartisan mix of guests, and the large crystal bowls of prime Iranian caviar. The caviar factor was not incidental, especially for the guests who were favored the next day with a limousine delivery of a tin of the precious black sturgeon eggs.

 
One of my favorite new acquaintances in Washington was Jessica Hobby Catto, a Texas newspaper heiress and dedicated environmentalist with an engaging sense of humor. Her husband, Henry, was a perfect partner. He filled a range of important foreign policy posts, including ambassador to Great Britain and El Salvador and director of the United States Information Agency. They had friends across the political spectrum, and for all of their achievements the Cattos didn’t take themselves too seriously.

  When Jessica heard about the caviar deliveries, she made a point, at Ardeshir’s next party, of letting the ambassador know she adored caviar.

  As she told me later, the next morning when the Iranian embassy limousine showed up at their home, she popped the delivered package into the refrigerator, called Henry, and said, “Tonight you’ll put on your tux, I’ll be in a gown. We’ll have a candlelit table and bring out the ambassador’s gift.”

  Henry followed orders, and when all was in place Jessica, in her gown, retrieved the embassy package from the refrigerator. The only adornments on the table were delicate china plates, tiny spoons, and a few lemon halves. In great anticipation, Jessica unwrapped the precious package—and broke out laughing.

  It was a paperweight with the shah’s portrait inside.

  To her credit, Jessica told that story everywhere.

  Leon Jaworski, a tough Texas lawyer, replaced Archibald Cox as special prosecutor.

  FOR PRESIDENT NIXON, the autumn of 1973 was one long political Halloween with a passing parade of hobgoblins, scary surprises, tricks, and very few treats.

  He was blindsided by stories about his personal finances, reporting that in 1970 he’d paid only $792.81 in taxes and $878.03 the next year. He decided to take it head-on in an extended appearance before the managing editors of some four hundred of America’s newspapers.

  To read the complete text now is an instructive experience. He gave his most complete personal explanation yet on Watergate, the Arab oil embargo, and the new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, a Democrat from Texas, a former president of the American Bar Association, and a lawyer with a folksy demeanor that masked an unrelenting determination to get what he wanted for his assignment.

  The transcript of the editors’ session includes nine pages of questions from representatives of large, medium, and smaller newspapers—from The Washington Post to the Providence Evening Bulletin to the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, New York. The editors were well prepared with specific questions about two tapes still missing from the cache of nine that had been subpoenaed.

  The president blamed an inexpensive recording system (true) and an inconsistent on-off switch for the missing tapes. He wondered aloud how the United States could produce an Apollo space mission to send men to the moon but have such a faulty tape system, at one point saying, “I just wish we’d had a better system,” adding, “I frankly wish we hadn’t had any system at all, then I wouldn’t have to answer this question.”

  How many times in the autumn of 1973 had that thought crossed his mind?

  After Nixon’s lengthy defense of the reasons for the missing tapes, Joe Ungaro of the Providence Evening Bulletin asked the money question: “You paid $792 in federal income tax in 1970 and $878 in 1971. Are these figures accurate and would you tell us your views on whether elected officials should disclose their personal finances?”

  Nixon went into a lengthy defense of his income tax payments and a detailed description of his income over the years when he was a lawyer, not a public servant. Then, in a familiar Nixon turn, he subtly brought someone else into the discussion: his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson. According to Nixon, it was LBJ who’d suggested he could get a substantial tax deduction by donating papers from his years as vice president. In Nixon’s words, he turned his papers over to his tax consultants, who had them appraised at half a million dollars, and that valuation was accepted by the IRS. A bit later he went into more detail about his personal finances and unexpectedly gave journalists and the American people a new Nixon phrase for his political lexicon.

  He said, “I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.”

  In a room full of newspaper executives, with the White House press corps listening in, the next day’s banner headline was all but set in bold print when the president concluded.

  “I’M NOT A CROOK.”

  One member of the White House press corps who shall go unnamed arrived for breakfast the next morning and feebly tried to explain why he hadn’t used that declaration in his lead. (His colleagues just stared into their oatmeal.)

  Immediately following his appearance, the president went outside to greet the crowd along the rope line, which was illuminated by bright overhead lights. An Air Force master sergeant was standing with his young son, waiting to greet the president, and Nixon leaned over to say hello to the child. When he stood up, he squinted into the bright lights and asked the sergeant, “Are you the boy’s mother or grandmother?”

  The startled sergeant said, “Neither.”

  Nixon took another look and realized his mistake, saying, “Of course not,” and either slapped the man on his cheek or simply patted him affectionately. The word “slap” wound up in some press accounts, and the White House press office went off the rails for the next twenty-four hours. The hullabaloo eventually died down, but even now, after all these years, one of the reporters who wrote “slap” doesn’t want to go over the long-ago kerfuffle.

  The much larger story, of course, was the “I’m not a crook” declaration following the president’s accounting of his personal wealth. Revisiting this part of the Nixon DNA reminded me of earlier stories I’d heard about his obsession with money and personal wealth.

  The Quaker poor boy played the common man in public but bought the most expensive estate on the Southern California coast when he became president. He had pricey real estate in Florida. The stories are now common about how he stocked the presidential yacht Sequoia with the finest French wines, which stewards wrapped in napkins for the president’s personal secret pleasure while his guests were served good but not spectacular California vintages.

  Meredith and I were briefly exposed to that side of RN—as he liked to sign his personal messages—while we were still living in California. We were invited to a White House reception. The president’s longtime aide and friend Herb Klein, a San Diego newspaperman, spotted us and said, “Tom, the president will be glad to see you. What’s new?”

  Well, we’re building a house on Venice Beach, I said.

  Just then we found ourselves in front of Nixon, and Herb relayed our home-building news.

  “Venice Beach?” the president said, his eyes lighting up. “What’s that going for these days? How much for ocean frontage?”

  I stammered something like “Well, ho, ho, it’s not cheap,” and the president continued: “Is there a lot of building going on there?”

  Uh, yes.

  It was the first and last time I discussed real estate values with a President.

  By the way, that house, a three-story glass-and-cedar custom home overlooking the Pacific, took every saved dime we had or could borrow, $100,000 in 1973. Alas, we couldn’t afford to keep it when our East Coast housing needs were elevated.

  The beach house long ago shot into the multimillion-dollar range.

  President Nixon’s faithful secretary, Rose Mary Woods, re-created the “stretch” across her desk that the White House used to try to explain the eighteen and a half minutes missing from a critical White House tape.

  FOUR DAYS AFTER President Nixon’s “I’m not a crook” comment, there was yet another startling development in the Watergate scenario. Fred Buzhardt, the president’s White House lawyer, told Judge Sirica that a key White House tape dealing with the scandal had an eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap. The president’s faithful executive secretary, Rose
Mary Woods, claimed she was responsible; she said that while transcribing the contents of the tape she reached across her desk to answer the telephone and somehow triggered the erase mechanism.

  The White House released a photographic re-creation of her stretch, which, rather than fostering widespread confidence in the story, elicited pity that this devoted aide to Nixon had been subjected to such an embarrassing stunt. Later it was revealed that the tape had four stop-and-go erasures, which to many pointed to the president, who had a well-known reputation as a klutz when it came to almost anything that required some degree of mechanical dexterity.

  Woods, always faithful, stayed with the president until the very end, when she returned to her childhood home in Ohio, the lingering awkward photograph of her reaching across her desk the enduring legacy of her devotion to Nixon.

  The Arab world did not take the loss to Israel during the Yom Kippur War lightly. Led by Saudi Arabia, it struck back with a powerful weapon: oil.

  WHILE THE PRESIDENT was continuing his feud with the press, he also had political issues that were far more important to the American people. Yes, he had played a major role in saving Israel from a Soviet-Egyptian-Syrian takeover, but the Arab world had not taken the loss lightly. Led by Saudi Arabia, it struck back with a powerful weapon: oil. Oil as a source of gasoline drove so much of America. The United States was shut off from Arab oil exports, and American oil production was dropping.

  The Saudi revenge had a devastating effect on the American economy, fueling an acceleration of inflation across the industrial and consumer landscape. We went from a nation of prolific consumers of cheap gas to a nation of frustrated car owners in long lines at service stations, merchants plotting efficient delivery routes, mass transit systems parsing their fuel supplies. Prices for petroleum began to climb steadily. In a year, pump prices for gas went from thirty-eight and a half cents a gallon (hard to believe now) to fifty-five cents a gallon, and that was just the beginning of the progression to where we are now, with gasoline periodically spiking to four dollars plus.