Don't Know Much About History, Anniversary Edition: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (Don't Know Much About®) (79 page)

A
MERICAN
V
OICES

From
JUSTICE HARRY A. BLACKMUN’S
majority decision in
Roe v. Wade
(January 22, 1973):

The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however . . . the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. . . . They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage; procreation; contraception; family relationships; and child rearing and education.

The right of privacy . . . is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. . . . We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

How did a botched burglary become a crisis called Watergate and bring down a powerful president?

Break-ins and buggings. Plumbers and perjury. Secret tapes, smoking guns, and slush funds.

We know now that Watergate wasn’t what Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler called it, “a third-rate burglary.” This nationally televised soap opera of corruption, conspiracy, and criminality only began to unravel with a botched break-in at the Watergate office complex. That ludicrous larceny was only a tiny strand in the web of domestic spying, criminal acts, illegal campaign funds, enemies lists, and obstruction of justice that emerged from the darkness as “Watergate.” But it ended up with Richard Nixon resigning from the presidency in disgrace and only a few steps ahead of the long arm of the law.

After the Civil War and Vietnam, few episodes in American history have generated as many written words as the Watergate affair. Just about everybody who participated in this extraordinary chapter ended up writing a book about his view of the events. They were joined by the dozens of historians, journalists, and other writers who turned out books. The notoriety of Watergate gave convicted felon E. Howard Hunt a renewed lease on a life as a writer of inferior spy novels, a pursuit in which he was joined by John Ehrlichman and even Spiro Agnew, another of the rats who went down with the sinking ship that was Richard Nixon’s second administration. Even the rabidly right-wing former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy was able to parlay his macho, fanatical, “hand over a lighted candle” image into a lucrative career including playing guest roles on the eighties television series
Miami Vice
, founding a “survivalist” camp to teach commando techniques to weekend warriors, and going on a lecture tour that pitted Liddy in the role of mad-dog conservative against sixties relic Timothy Leary, the onetime high priest of psychedelic drugs.

This ludicrous aftermath has been combined with some of the comical aspects of the bungled break-in and Howard Hunt’s notoriously bad CIA-provided disguises to soften the image of Watergate’s implications. It seems almost opéra bouffe
,
a lighthearted satire. But that perspective overlooks the seriousness of the crimes committed in the name of national security and Richard Nixon’s reelection—two objectives that a large number of high-placed fanatics equated with each other.

A
MERICAN
V
OICES

R
ICHARD
N
IXON,
from the Oval Office tapes:

I don’t give a shit what happens, I want you to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up or anything else, if it’ll save the plan.

A WATERGATE CHRONOLOGY

1972

June 17
At the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C., five men are arrested during a pathetically bungled break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The men are all carrying cash and documents that show them to be employed by the Committee to Re-elect the President (later given the acronym CREEP), and the purpose of the burglary is to plant listening devices in the phones of Democratic leaders and obtain political documents regarding the Democrats’ campaign strategy. The men arrested include a former FBI agent and four anti-Castro Cubans who have been told that they are looking for material linking Castro to the Democratic Party. Two former White House aides working for CREEP, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, are also arrested. Hunt, it will be learned, was one of the CIA agents responsible for planning the Bay of Pigs invasion and some of the Cubans arrested also took part in the invasion. The seven men are indicted on September 15. Even though their relationship to the election committee is established, none of the seven men connects the committee or the White House to the break-in.

November 7
After an October Gallup poll shows that less than half of the American people have even heard of the break-in, President Nixon defeats his Democratic challenger Senator George McGovern in a landslide, capturing 60.8 percent of the popular vote and 520 of the 537 electoral votes. McGovern carries only Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.

December 8
The wife of E. Howard Hunt dies in a plane crash in Chicago. She is carrying $10,000 in $100 bills. The money is “hush money” she was ferrying to someone in Chicago.

1973

February 7
Amid swirling rumors of widespread wrongdoing, corrupt financing, and political dirty tricks committed by the Nixon reelection committee, the Senate establishes a Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, chaired by North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin (1896–1985).

March 23
Former CIA agent James W. McCord, one of the seven men convicted in the attempted burglary, admits in a letter to Judge John Sirica that he and other defendants have been under pressure to remain silent about the case. McCord reveals that others were involved in the break-in, and he eventually names John Mitchell, the former attorney general who had become chairman of the Committee to Re-elect the President, as the “overall boss.”

April 20
L. Patrick Gray, acting director of the FBI, resigns after admitting he destroyed evidence connected to Watergate, on the advice of Nixon aides in the White House.

April 30
Nixon’s chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, domestic affairs assistant John Ehrlichman, and presidential counsel John Dean III all resign. In a televised speech announcing the shake-up, President Nixon denies any knowledge of a cover-up of White House involvement in the Watergate break-in.

May 11
Charges against Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony J. Russo are dropped for their theft and release of the Pentagon Papers. The judge makes this decision following the revelation that Watergate conspirators E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy had burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in an attempt to steal Ellsberg’s medical records.

June 25
Testifying before Ervin’s Senate committee, John Dean accuses President Nixon of involvement in the Watergate cover-up and says the president authorized payment of “hush money” to the seven men arrested in the break-in.

July 16
In testimony that rocks the nation, White House aide Alexander Butterfield tells the Ervin committee that President Nixon secretly recorded all Oval Office conversations. This startling revelation provides the committee with the means to substantiate testimony implicating the president in the cover-up of the Watergate burglary. It also sets off a constitutional crisis over the president’s right to keep the tapes secret under the umbrella of “executive privilege.”

October 10
In an unrelated development that further damages White House credibility, Vice President Spiro Agnew, the chief voice of “law and order” in the Nixon White House, resigns after pleading nolo contendere (no contest) to tax evasion charges dating from his days as governor of Maryland. Two days later, President Nixon nominates House Minority Leader Gerald Ford to succeed Agnew under the provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, allowing the president to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency.

October 20
The Saturday Night Massacre. President Nixon orders Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, who has refused to accept the president’s compromise offer to release a “synopsis” of the tapes. Richardson and his assistant, William D. Ruckelshaus, refuse to follow this order and both resign. Solicitor General Robert Bork, third in the Justice Department chain of command, fires Cox. (The Democrats’ revenge will come when Ronald Reagan nominates Bork to the Supreme Court in 1988. Bork’s nomination will open an acrimonious debate over his legal views, and he will be rejected by the Senate.) The resignations and the firing of Cox raise a storm of protest in Congress, and the House actively begins to consider impeachment of the president.

October 23
The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Representative Peter Rodino, announces an investigation into impeachment charges against the president. Leon Jaworski is appointed special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation after Archibald Cox’s firing.

October 30
After Nixon reluctantly agrees to turn over the Oval Office tapes, investigators learn that two tapes are missing.

November 21
Investigators learn that one of the tapes contains a mysterious eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap. The White House claims that Rosemary Woods, Nixon’s secretary, accidentally erased part of the tape while transcribing it, a feat that, owing to the way the recording apparatus was set up, would have required the skills of a contortionist. (In January 1974, analysis of the tape will show that the erasure was deliberate.)

November 9
Six of the Watergate defendants are sentenced for their roles in the break-in. E. Howard Hunt receives a sentence of two and a half to eight years and a $10,000 fine. The others are given lesser sentences. G. Gordon Liddy is sentenced to twenty years, in part because of his refusal to cooperate with investigators.

November 13
Representatives of two oil companies plead guilty to making illegal contributions to the Nixon campaign. The next day, Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans, who was the Nixon campaign treasurer, admits that such contributions were expected from major corporations. Two days later, three more companies—Goodyear, Braniff Airlines, and American Airlines—report similar donations.

November 30
Egil Krogh Jr., who headed the White House “plumbers” unit, pleads guilty to charges stemming from the break-in at the offices of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist.

December 6
Gerald Ford is sworn in as vice president. Besides having been a member of the Warren Commission investigating the death of President Kennedy, Ford is best known for what Lyndon Johnson once said about him: “Shucks, I don’t think he can chew gum and walk at the same time. . . . He’s a nice fellow, but he spent too much time playing football without a helmet.”

1974

January 4
Claiming “executive privilege,” President Nixon refuses to surrender 500 tapes and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.

March 1
Seven former White House staff members, including Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and former attorney general John Mitchell, are indicted for conspiring to obstruct the investigation of the Watergate break-in.

April 3
Following months of investigation by a separate congressional committee, President Nixon agrees to pay more than $400,000 in back taxes. Using suspect deductions, the president had paid taxes equivalent to those levied on a salary of $15,000, despite the president’s $200,000 salary and other income.

April 29
In another nationally televised address, President Nixon offers a 1,200-page edited transcript of the tapes subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee and Special Prosecutor Jaworski. Both Jaworski and the committee reject the transcripts.

May 16
Richard Kleindienst, John Mitchell’s successor as attorney general, pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to testify accurately before a Senate committee. Kleindienst is the first attorney general ever convicted of a crime.

July 24
The Supreme Court rules unanimously that Nixon must turn over the tapes requested by the special prosecutor. Eight hours later, the White House announces it will comply with the order.

July 27
The House Judiciary Committee approves two articles of impeachment against Nixon, charging him with obstructing justice and accusing him of repeatedly violating his oath of office. Three days later the committee will recommend a third charge of unconstitutional defiance of committee subpoenas.