By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources
"The main event in the United States in 1972," wrote award winning journalist James Reston in explaining the Nixon landslide victory for a second term, "was the re-election of President Richard M. Nixon and it dramatized the enduring principle of moderation in American political life. From the beginning of the 20th century, now approaching its last quarter, the American people have generally tended to support the progressive forces of change and reform, but whenever any minority has seemed to be pulling them too far to the left or the right, they have invariably moved back toward the center."
Richard Nixon received an astounding 520 electoral votes - a total exceeded on by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who got 523 in his second term election in 1936.
Twenty-one months later, on August 9, 1974, Richard Milhous Nixon resigned as the 37th President of the United States, departing unceremoniously from the White House "a tormented figure, his 30-year career in politics and government dissolved in scandal and ignominy. The nation was relieved..." wrote Peter Lisagor, a highly respected journalist.
The Watergate break-in, which had occurred during the 1972 election campaign, had been a back-page squib a few weeks before the election of 1972. Lisagor observed that, in his 18 minute resignation speech, President Nixon was "neither vengeful nor contrite, admitting no guilt and making no apologies for the actions that forced him to quit. Instead, he explained that he no longer had 'a strong enough political base in the Congress' to justify further efforts to vindicate himself. 'I have never been a quitter,' he said. 'To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as President I must put the interests of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.
To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow."
While the Watergate affair has been consistently dubbed as the worst and most reprehensible presidential and constitutional crisis in American history, it actually doesn't hold a candle to the moral, constitutional or legal problems arising from the series of Clinton scandal crises. The break-in itself, which today is viewed as the most horrible sort of behavior imaginable on the part of President Nixon was not even known to President Nixon until much later, the Oval Office tapes clearly showed. At issue was whether or not Richard Nixon COVERED UP knowledge of the situation, after news of it broke.
And, he did. Using language that could not be printed in a family newspaper then or now, an exasperated Richard Nixon asked how the Watergate burglars could have been so stupid. What happened after that was that Nixon covered up the situation to protect young aides. When things began to fall apart, those very same aides that he risked his presidency for willingly blamed him for their foolishness, in order to avoid, as much as possible, lengthy prison sentences.
It's also worth noting that Nixon aide Chuck Colson served time in prison for using ONE FBI file improperly, whereas nothing has happened about Clinton's aides using 900 FBI files improperly.
The one figure who consistently did NOT blame the president was G. Gordon Liddy, who went to jail rather than talk. While he was, and still is, roundly condemned for doing so, some of the people involved in bringing down President Nixon, Hillary Clinton, for example, are now desperately hoping that THEIR aides don't follow in the footsteps of people like Nixon White House counsel John W. Dean II, and domestic advisor John D. Ehrlichman or chief of staff H.R. Halderman who, in the end, did all the could to save their own skins by blaming their actions on the boss.
Bill Clinton's scandals are different. They have no vestige of suggestion that the questionable behavior arose from misguided efforts to protect the nation's security from foreign or domestic enemies ...or the power of a political party from its opposition. The Clinton scandals all revolve around charges of personal presidential misconduct - not that of his staff.
No one has even suggested that the reported sexual behavior of Bill Clinton towards Monica Lewinsky, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and numerous other women was anything but examples of Bill Clinton's uncontrolled sexual appetite.
The Watergate burglary was prompted by real or imagined national security fears that grew out of the Pentagon Papers episode. And, the Pentagon Papers had nothing whatever to do with either Richard Nixon or the Republicans. President Nixon tried to prevent publication of secret papers stolen from the Pentagon and given to the New York Times by liberals. Those papers outlined decisions made mostly during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations that embroiled America in the Vietnam War.
Nixon went to court to prevent the stolen classified papers from being printed in the New York Times and Washington Post. In a strange 6-3 decision, with Chief Justice Burger strongly dissenting, the Court held that the first amendment was so "absolute" that the newspapers could print the stolen classified documents.
We have a very different situation today. The Clinton presidency is teetering on edge, the World's media is reporting today because President Bill Clinton himself, not an aide or a member of his staff, is about to be caught lying about a sexual affair.
As the London Telegraph put it, "Monica Lewinsky struck a deal yesterday and agreed to give evidence against him in exchange for unlimited immunity from prosecution. "At the core of Mr. Starr's investigation are suspicions that Mr. Clinton lied under oath when he swore an affidavit in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case that he did not have an affair with Miss Lewinsky. In addition, it is suspected that the President tried to persuade Miss Lewinsky to conceal his perjury by perjuring herself in the same case and, in return, used friends and government officials to find her a job.
"Bill Richardson, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, interviewed her and offered her a post, and Vernon Jordan, a long-standing confidant of Mr. Clinton, helped to find her a well-paid position with the Revlon Cosmetics Company in New York.
"Investigators want to know if a cover-up was orchestrated from the White House to help Mr. Clinton to avoid scandal. Miss Lewinsky has proved to be less than completely reliable as a witness - in the Paula Jones case she swore: "I have never had a sexual relationship with the President" - but her defection to Mr. Starr's camp leaves Mr. Clinton more isolated than ever."
That's just how Richard Nixon felt near the end. Isolated. Nixon, with the support of his wife and daughters, handled his isolation with considerable courage, dignity and a firm resolve in trying to do what was best for the country. By the time he died, his accomplishments had largely overcome the Watergate hysteria.
The main question in my mind today is: How will Bill Clinton, the politician who went into a two year depression when he lost his first gubernatorial re-election bid back in 1980 handle it if the people of America do to him what they did to Richard Nixon?
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com