107. Watergate: Part 2

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We went through the life of a career of Richard Nixon and then we started on the countdown to the breaking to the Watergate complex to bug the democratic. Is it a democratic party? It's a democratic party. So it's a democratic party. Yeah, it's a democratic party. Yeah, okay. And so they've been. The people doing that have been caught red-handed. Nixon has said we've got to try and cover it up. This will be the smoking gun. And now Dominic, we can get back to the action and the countdown to what will be ultimately Nixon's resignation. But I'd like to kick off with a question from Stephen Wills, who asked when did Nixon know the game was up and was there any chance he could have stayed? So that's the kind of the context for what over the next year and a half Nixon's attempt to stop this from destroying his president. Well, first of all, I never really intended to do it in an hour. I was lying when I. I always thought it would take two episodes. I mean, if we could do two episodes on Thymopoli and Salamis, without even mentioning Thymopoli and Salamis in the first episode, we could definitely do two episodes on Watergate. Now, when did Nixon know the game was up? He's not going to know the game is up for two more years. I mean, this is a. In the first episode, somebody asked, you know, why is Watergate so resonant? Why is everything? I mean, it's probably because it goes on so long. So, June 17th of June 1972 is when the second burglary happens that is detected and the burglars are caught. So we talked about that last time. The 23rd of June 1972 is when Nixon says to his chief of staff, on tape, we have to basically abuse our powers, get the CIA to stop. get the FBI to stop the investigation, stop it going higher up. And then what happens, really interestingly, is kind of nothing for six months or more. So, the. In which time he wins the election? In which time he rumps home in the election. And as I said last time, he celebrates by sitting on his own, listening to music in his separical gloom and writing on a pad about what all the nasty things that people will say about him. So he's very. He's actually really bitter after he's won this election. You've described him as a Shakespearean figure. And I suppose that sense of, you know, absolute crushing success, victory, affirmation. Well, at the same time, you've got this scandal, which is like kind of little hint of dry rot. Absolutely. In the wall. That's. That's slowly spread and spread and spread and nothing he can do to defeat him. That's exactly right. One of his aids later on, John Dean, who will come to. I'm described that he says to Nixon at one point, there's a cancer on the presidency and it's growing. And it's actually not a bad image. It's something very small, almost imperceptible at first. A nothing story. But as you say, it's going to grow and grow and grow and consume him. So, November 1972, he wins this crushing landslide. January 1973, he's inaugurated for the second term. And they get peace in Vietnam, which they've been waiting for all this time. So it looks okay. And all this time, they have been paying off the burglars, by the way. They have given them, I think, something like $430,000. Have the burglars not arrested? Yeah, they've been arrested. But they need to be told that someone's got to pay their legal fees. These are not rich men. So someone has. Right. and also are they being paid. They're being. basically quite. quiet, quite. They're described as loss of earnings. Because loss of earnings through being in prison. Yes, exactly right. But in January 1973, so at the same time the Nixon's having these tremendous triumphs, they are convicted, obviously, because they're court-wred handed. And they're going to be sentenced in March 1973. So the question for Nixon is, if they keep quiet, and if nobody really digs into this, he can probably get away with it. But all it takes is one of them to break. Or it takes somebody to really start following the money and so on. And he'll be in trouble. Washington Post, the Woodwood, Karl Woodwood, no, Karl Bernstein, rather, and Bob Woodwood, have been writing about following the money trail. They have an informant in the FBI called Deep Throat, who turns out to be the. Okay, I think we've got a question. Oh, very good. Can somebody ask who came up with the. the name Deep Throat? I don't actually know. Who came up with that? I did know, but I've forgotten. So Deep Throat is a porn film from the early 19th century. And the guy is Mark Felt, he's the deputy FBI director. He's not a friend of the White House. The funny thing is, actually, there's this huge sort of hull of blue when it turned out to be him. But actually, the Nixon White House had always known he was leaking to the press. So it's actually not that great a story. There's all this stuff that Woodwood and Bernstein kind of rather ham up in their book about how they signaled in with flower pots on window sills and kind of ringed. I mean, that's very much the sense you get from all the presidents. Yeah, from all the presidents. But actually, the Woodwood and Bernstein thing is not the thing that brings Nixon down at all. What brings him down? You could arguably, the moment is. Well, here we go. It's a period of two, two, three days, really, in March 1973. So on the 21st of March, the White House counsel, that's the White House lawyer, a man called John Dean, who's a young, clean-cut kind of Republican, a classic kind of party political hand, who's basically worked his way up and got his job. He's been handling the cover-up for Nixon. And he goes in, and he says this thing about there's a cancel on the presidency. He says, basically, a lot of people have purged themselves, saying they don't know anything, they don't know where it goes. And we're going to run into trouble because soon the burglars are going to be sentenced, sent to prison. We're going to have to find more money for them, and possibly money for other people if this goes up the chain. And there's this dreadful conversation again on tape. Nixon says, "How much do you need?" And Dean says, "We'll need a million dollars in cash." Very Austin Powers. And Nixon says, "A million dollars." He says, "A million dollars. I know where that can be gotten." Which is kind of very incriminating. So at that point, they have the first conversation, how far are we going to lose? We're going to lose him and him and him. And at that moment, John Dean, this White House lawyer, can feel the kind of chill on the back of his neck. Because he thinks, "Well, I've been the guy who's orchestrating this cover-up." Yes. Yes. Maybe they're going to come for me. And this is actually where the social mix of the Nixon White House, I think, is really interesting and important. Because I said in the previous episode, lots of these people are outsiders and self-made men. They have a lot to lose and no real way back if it goes wrong. They're not members of boarding school old boys' groups, gentlemen's clubs. They're not part of the Washington kind of establishment. So if they go down, there's no ladder out for them. So we can work together for Ireland's cleaner electric future. ESP networks. or in Iran are impacting households and businesses across Ireland. Reduced fuel excise, lower vat on energy, a diesel rebate scheme, and an expanded fuel allowance are helping right now. We're also supporting homes, farms and businesses to lower costs with grants for energy upgrades, electric vehicles, and solar. There are simple ways to save too, switching supplier, checking your plan, and managing your energy use can all cut your bills. For blockbuster value you can't be guaranteed rewards in our free-to-play game gift wheel, where you'll get a daily bonus just for playing. Nice one. This is your new versus fun. And that's why there's no sense of kind of solidarity among them I think. Which there might be. There is a question from the church mouse. What Nixon have survived if it's been handled differently, EG, the Trump method of hanging others out to drive but denying Nixon knew about it instead of trying to cover it up. This is exactly what they do. This is exactly what their plan is. So that's the 21st of March. The next day, Dien gets sent, Nixon sends Dien to Camp David and he says, "I think what you should do is write a report for me about everything you know about the cover up." Now at that point when the president tells you to do that you kind of think, "Oh, that doesn't sound very good because does he want me to incriminate myself? Does he want me to lie about what's going on here?" The very day after that, the 23rd of March, the judge is sentencing the burglars. The judge gets up in court and he says, "Publicly an open court in front of the press." He says, "I've been handed a letter by one of the burglars, James McCord." And he reads out the letter. The letter says, "We've been put under political pressure from the start. This was never a CO operation. That's not true." People have purged themselves in this investigation and other powerful people knew about this and were behind it. And you can imagine the report is that hubbub in court. Yeah, it's that classic scene of Hollywood. Hollywood. Right. Running people, running. They are rushing, they're literally are rushing. This is just absolutely unbelievable. So now things start to unravel in a really interesting way. So the 6th of April, just a couple of weeks later, John Dean, Nixon's White House lawyer, decides, "I need a lawyer of my own to represent me." And behind Nixon's back, he starts talking to a Senate committee that has been set up to look at campaign irregularities in 1972 called the Urban Committee. So he starts talking to them and he starts talking to the prosecutors. So when April 1973, Nixon's first term has only really just started, but already things are starting to unravel. And throughout the course of this month, there is a series of meetings, Nixon and his aides, Holderman, Erlichman, Dean, they're kind of sitting around saying, "How are we going to stop this? Who's going to take the fall?" And with each meeting, it becomes more and more obvious that of those four men, three of them are going down and the only question is whether they're going to take Nixon with them. It's just like the end of succession. It is, it seems, it's very succession like actually. Yeah, it's very succession like, except Nixon is much more shambolic and amfisted than kind of Brian, what's his name? Logan Roy. Logan Roy, I love him. Anyway. So by the end of April, Nixon now knows that Dean is talking to the prosecutors and all this sort of thing and he thinks the only way I can deal with this is to get rid of all of them. The lot, basically, my closest aides and though these incredibly kind of tear-stained conversations almost where Nixon says to him. So if it's like a cancer, this is full operation. Yeah, amputation. They've all got to go. I didn't know anything but they knew everything. It wasn't nothing to do with me. So they all go. But this is, we talked about Nixon and Quakerism in our last episode. Holderman says, "This is the only time he and Nixon ever physically touched." So Quaker's, you know, don't approve of excessive physical contact and Nixon only ever shook hands with Holderman after he'd basically fired him. He sort of said, "Oh, Bobby, you're a great man. I'll miss you and shake his hand." Nixon's very Gordon Brown like Tom. I don't think that's an unfair comparison. I think he's like a sort of darker, more sinister version of Gordon Brown. A trickier. Yeah, a trickier. Exactly. So at that point, Nixon's presidency has kind of been amputated. He's lost his key. He's only got Kissinger left, really, of the people he ever relied on. But Kissinger is desperate to kind of keep his distance from the Watergate issue now. And Kissinger never knew. Has Kissinger been embroiled in this? No, he hasn't. Although he did use to pass to Nixon to bug his own stuff to find out who was leaking. But Kissinger wasn't involved in the campaign irregularities or anything like that at all. And so in some ways, Kissinger certainly foreign policy is now just basically running the presidency. Because Nixon is spending all his time sitting up late at night, sweating and staring into the darkness. And it's sort of very, don't have any of these kind of interior Shakespearean monologues. Yes, yes. And don't it, in terms of foreign policy, a 973 is quite a turbulent year, isn't it? It is. Well, we're going to come to this top. This is all going on in the background. There is. There's lots going on in the background. You're thinking about the unraveling of the Ted Heath premiership. Is that what you're thinking about? Well, I think it kind of energy crisis. Yes. We're going to come to this. We will get to it. Very topical. You'll see. I'll get to the summer of 1973. So this guy is now very big news. And I said earlier, there was a Senate committee investigating it. So one of the great things about this story is that the focus keeps moving from arena to arena. So now I'm moved to the Senate committee hearings, the Irving committee hearings. And they are held. They are on TV. They are in the precise, the networks clear their schedules and put them where the daytime soaps would be. So it becomes a kind of soap opera in and of itself, 85% of Americans swatched part of these hearings. I mean, that tells you just how the colossal impact of them. And so you basically, and it's an excellent saying that this is all the cosmopolitan liberal elite. Yeah, he is. Out to get it. Exactly. They bitter about the election. They've always hated him. He knew nothing about it. It's very unfortunate that these things happen in the White House, but they had nothing to do with him. He would never. And from the McCray case, Nixon's misdemeanors aside how much of Watergate was Congress getting its revenge, rubbing sideline over Vietnam, and finally finding the chance to bear its teeth. That's it. I mean, it's a huge amount of truth in that, actually. So there's this phenomenon called the Imperial Presidency that people talk about. Historians wrote about in the sort of 70s. They said the presidency has become more and more powerful since the Second World War and the Cold War, and has accumulated power and taken it from Congress. And particularly after Vietnam, this is Congress's chance to reassert itself. And I think there's loads of truth in that. A lot of people in Congress are itching to take that power from the presidency. And they see the dirty tricks, the wiretaps and so on, and the surveillance as a sign of a presidency that has lost any side of kind of constitutional responsibility. So I think that's a really good question. Anyway, the hearings, there's two big moments. One is where John Dean, the Nixon's old council, White House council, goes along on, and this is in June, and he says, "The president did know. He knew about the cover-up and he says there's live on television. He knew about it and he was in on it from the start." And actually, it's a great sensation, but lots of people think Dean is a kind of a reptilian figure. So one columnist calls him a bottom dwelling slug. And people sort of say, "Not a very pleasant deal." Dean is very sort of slick, so smarmy kind of Republican operative, and some people distrust him. They say, "Maybe he's lying. No, maybe Nixon didn't know. Maybe he's lying." And then the great revelation, a flunky called Alexander Butterfield goes along to be interviewed in July, and almost by sort of random chance. Somebody says, "There doesn't happen to be a taping system in the evil office just that own." And he had decided beforehand, "I won't tell them anything about tapes unless they ask." And if they ask me a direct question, I'm not going to purge myself. And he says, "Oh, well, now you come to mention it." Yeah, there is. And at that point, of course, another sort of slightly run with the phone's sensation, because now you can find the proof. Now you can find out one way or the other. With an ESB network smart meter, you're in control. Track your daily, weekly, and monthly electricity usage so you can choose the right plan for your home. Sign up to a free ESB network's online account today and see how your smart meter can work for you. ESB Networks. in Iran are impacting households and businesses across Ireland. With NovyBed it's time to take a spin with the future of online casinos. And for blockbuster value you can't be guaranteed rewards in our free-to-play game gift wheel, where you'll get a daily bonus just for playing. Nice one. So download NovyBed today and play your way. NovyBed, more parody. So at this point, so why had Nixel not destroyed the tapes? Well that's what Bossa people said. Why the hell did he not? I mean even after the revelation some people, some of Nixel, I think Alexander Hague who was then Nixel's chief of staff after Oldman says, "You know I just said to him, get a massive pile of the tapes, put them on the white house lawn, pour a load of petrol over them and just set them a light and then there's nothing they can do." But he's just paralyzed, to destroy the tapes is an emission of guilt, right? Yeah. And he doesn't want to give because of. So is there a sense in which Nixel's, I mean it sounds an odd thing to ask, but it's still a kind of strain of the moral within Nixel that is struggling with his, his worst nature. Hmm that's a good question. Because if you're a complete criminal, obviously you're going to get rid of the incriminating evidence on you. I mean the fact he does it. Yes I think that's a good point actually. He seems a surprisingly moral, he's thing to do. Maybe to some extent he's not. It suggests a respect for the law. Yes, when he keeps fighting the law. So, I mean why doesn't he do it? Oh I think it's just he. He's paralyzed, brain decision, he's staring at the headlines. Yes. But the weird thing is this then battle, this battle then goes on for months. So now is about the tapes. So now yet another sort of antagonist presents itself. Nixel has been forced to set up a special prosecutor. And it is, I mean you talked about Kennedy being his worst nightmare in the last episode. The special prosecutor is if he went into Richard Nixon's nightmares and you got somebody who would be you know just the ultimate bogie man, you would find a man called Archibald Cox. Archibald Cox went to boarding school and he's coasting boarding school. He wears a bow tie. He went to Harvard which of course poor old Dignics and didn't get to go to because his family was too poor. And he worked for the Kennedys. He was a Kennedy lawyer and he worked in the Kennedy White House. So he is the special prosecutor and he says I'd like to see the tapes and Nixon says no. And then you have this for months long battle. And eventually Nixon comes up with a a Mrs. the dilutedness tom. He should have burned them. You're right. What he says is he says, "I'll do a compromise with you. I will release the tapes but I'll only release them to a one man who's a senator from Mississippi called John Stennis who's incredibly racist and reactionary and is also deaf. It says I'll release them to him and he can maybe make notes on them and tell you what's on the tapes. That's not really how evidence works in court too. I mean it's still not quite as good as Jeremy Thor. But it's not. So Archibald Cox says no that's not good enough. You know you need to give me all these tapes. Nixon says if you ask me for the tapes again because Archibald Cox is supposedly working for Nixon. This is the bizarre thing. Nixon says if you give me them again I'll I'm going to sack you. Stop asking for my tapes. And Archibald Cox asks for the tapes again. So on the 20th of October 1973, Nixon says to his attorney general Elliot Richardson, fire Archibald Cox and shut down the prosecution. Shut down the special prosecutor's office into Watergate. Richardson says no he resigns. Nixon gets his deputy on the phone a man called William Ruckles house and he says fire Archibald Cox shut down the special prosecution unit. And Ruckles house says no he resigns. Finally they come to the third man who's man called Robert Bork. He's got this sort of mehastopheles kind of. Oh who becomes. Yeah Reagan. Reagan nominated the Supreme Court and he doesn't get him. He's got this partly because of this because he's got this sort of mehastopheles beard. He looks very sort of sinister and he says "I'll fire him for you." So he fires Archibald Cox. The White House sends people to seal off the offices and sort of seize the evidence that Archibald Cox has amassed which looks kind of shocking. I mean the pub that as a PR move it is an utter unalloyed catastrophe that Nixon is basically sacking the person who's investigating him trying to seal off his offices take all his stuff and all this. Nixon's approval rating plummets to 17% and he gets half a million telegrams the highest in Western unions history of people saying you're a fascist you're trying to subvert the rule of law and this is where your stuff about foreign policy comes in Tom because this is at precisely the moment that the young Kippur War is raging between Israel, Egypt and Syria the war that is going to trigger the great OPEC oil shock and the energy crisis of late 1973 and at this very moment American and Soviet ships are kind of steaming through the Mediterranean with supplies for their rival clients. So Nixon is a America is backing Israel. America is backing it. It's backing out. Exactly. And there's a sense you know this is escalating towards something completely out of control. Nixon has gone mad and is consumed by Watergate. On the 24th of October so four days after the so-called Saturday Night Massacre when they tried to shut down the prosecution the situation in the Middle East is so bad that Henry Kissinger with a couple of other kind of Nixon officials behind Nixon's back puts America's nuclear forces on their how-Ista alert, DEF CON3. So it's a really serious thing but Nixon is not even involved in that decision because he's spending all that time sweating, sleeping late, drinking just in swear in an absolute kind yeah in an absolute mess, in an absolute mess. So anyway World War III doesn't happen. The reaction to this Nixon's move is so bad that he has to appoint another prosecutor a guy called Leon Jawski who has working with him a certain Hillary Rodham later Hillary Rodham Clinton. And finally Nixon to start to release these tapes. So the first transfer tapes comes out in November 1973 seven tapes and one of them the one for the 20th of June right after the Watergate breaking has an 18 and a half minute strange inexplicable 18 and a half minute gap on it. And everybody says what's this gap? Nixon's chief of staff Alexander Hague says the tape must have been erased by a sinister force but I don't know what it is. And then Nixon's secretary Rosemary Wood says oh I must have accidentally erased it by pressing the wrong button when I was leaning for the phone. And then basically the prosecutors make her do this thing which proves that she could only have erased it while reaching for the phone by doing this incredible acrobatics across the room. So basically it looks like Nixon erased it himself in a very shambolic way. Hague himself says has said since he thinks Nixon listened to the tape and tried to destroy the whole tape but made a mess of it because he was terrible with equipment. He didn't know you know it was the classic kind of dad who doesn't know kind of how the video recorder works. So this is 18 and a half minute gap which looks pretty bad. But still the president he's still president it's still lingering on. So anyone else would probably run away at this point or just you know going into a lot room with a revolver in a bottle of brandy or something. But Nixon is still there he can't be killed. Keep going they keep asking for more tapes it gets to April 1974. Now Nixon says well I'll tell you what I'm not going to give you the tapes I'll give you transcripts. So he thinks if I give them loads then they'll kind of there will be so much they're just why not to do it. See the yeah he gives them 1,200 pages worth of conversations but he has gone through them all had his people go through them all and take out all the swearing. This is the quaker again. So all the swearing has been taken out and replaced with expeditive deleted. And the weird thing about that I think a lot of people historians have written about this is that actually Nixon's language wasn't that bad but because of his quakerism he got them to take out damn hell all the so it's kind of don't think of an elephant right all the swear words of it yeah exactly so everyone yeah so he's so it's another example of the cover up being worse it is actually this is a very good example yeah finally the Supreme Court rules that he must surround all the tapes. August 1974, he releases a load of tapes and among them is the smoking gun conversation that we talked about at the end of the last episode where he said to hold them and get the CIA to tell the FBI not to look into it. And with that, I mean that he is sunk because that shows that he knew about the cover-up from the very beginning that he's lied about it ever since. There is no possible excuse, there is no way around it. The wheels of impeachment are already in motion. The House Judiciary Committee has voted to impeach him in six Republicans on the committee have voted to impeach him. It's going to go to the Senate, clearly going to go to the Senate for a trial. Then you have these incredible scenes. So on the 7th of August, Republican Party's congressional leaders go to see Nixon. They basically say Mr. President, the game is up, you know, you're not going to win a trial. You're not going to come close. You're damaging the Republican Party. You know, you've got to go. So then they go away the Republican congressional leaders. And then there's this incredible scene, you know, very Hitler and his bunker. Nixon sits alone in the darkness, he listens to classical music, kind of staring into the night. Then he calls Henry Kissinger and he says, "Henry, I need you to come over." Kissinger comes over and they sit together drinking brandy. Nixon starts crying. He sobs. And then he says, "Henry, will you pray with me?" And they get down on these together and they pray and Nixon is crying. And by some accounts, Kissinger kind of holds him like a baby there in the White House study. And then you know what Nixon says when the Em, Kissinger finally, "A Kissinger thinks this is excruciating by the way. He's incredibly embarrassed." Or when they leave with the last thing, Kiss, Nixon says to him, "Henry," he says, "Please don't ever tell anyone that I cried and that I was not strong." And here we are. Yeah, Kissinger tells everybody. Terrible. Terrible behavior. So then the eighth, the next day, the eighth of August, he gives this resignation speech live on television. Then he sits up, he can't sleep. And then he actually comes to go on the ninth. And right at the beginning of the very first episode, what seems like a lifetime ago, I think it was Stefan Jensenast, why is Watergate so resonant compared with other scandals? It's because the melodrama is greater. So the ninth of August. And punctuated, I guess, by kind of certain points that people continue to find out exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So he assembles all the White House staff, his family. He comes out on this platform and he gives a farewell speech. In which he breaks down again and again. He just, he hasn't slept for days. He just starts rambling. He talks about his father, a little man they would have called him, a kind of common man. He talks about his mother who lost two sons. She was a saint, he says. She was a saint. He reads from Theodore Roosevelt's memoir about when his wife died, comparing himself, basically, to somebody who's been bereaved. And then he gives this, I always find, I know lots of people will laugh at me about this. I always find very moving. He says, um, his final words, virtually his final words, he says, you know, the greatness comes and you're really tested when you take some knocks, some disappointment, when sadness comes, because only if you've been in the deepest valley, can you know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain? Very sort of Shakespearean. Wow. Very Shakespearean. And then he goes off to the helicopter. The V signs flies off to California. And that's the end. That's okay. And I think, and I think it's farewell to the first part of this second episode. This is only the first part. Oh my God. I thought you were going to say this. Yes, it is. I don't know. So, so when we come back and I know this is going to be agony for you, but I think we've got to compress quite a lot. We need to look at how he gets his pardon and the long term effects of the scandal, whether it had long term effects. So we will see you back after the break. See you after the break. Switching supplier, checking your plan and managing your energy use can all cut your bills. Visit gov.ie/reduceuruse. What's your problem with the government of Ireland? Well, how does it feel? It's cute, but not sure if yellow is my colour. Let's try flame-read with a metallic finish in a deep black roof. Actually, Celesteal Blue would make your eyes pop. Let's do it. Find the one that's right for you with competitive finance on Volkswagen's 262 range for a limited time only. You are Volkswagen. There's one for you. Finance provided by way of higher purchase agreement from Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited. Terms and conditions apply. Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited is regulated by the central bank of Ireland. I'm obsessed with this belt. Hello, welcome back to the second part of our Watergate themed series on the rest of history. Nixon has resigned. He's flown off in his helicopter to California. Dominic, we have a counterfactual here from Roy Nelly. And he asks, how does US political history play out in a world where Ford doesn't pardon Nixon? Okay. He's easily elected in no-rural Reagan. So, Gerald Ford is the vice president under Nixon. Therefore, automatically succeeds him as president. And he pardons Nixon. What happens if he doesn't? He was always going to pardon Nixon. I don't think there's a scenario in which he doesn't pardon Nixon. Ford, I like Gerald Ford. The only president, of course, who appeared in a ping-pamther film. In ping-pamther strikes again. The golfer, wasn't he? He was a very, he was a very sport. Weirdly, everyone remembers him for falling over. But actually, he's the most athletic president in American history. He's a very, very good sportsman. I like Gerald Ford a lot, actually. He used to go and hold it, of course, which would be a good call. Okay, Jim Calhane. So, Ford pardons Nixon. A month after Nixon leaves, he has to pardon them. Almost everybody around him says, we cannot have Nixon's trial hanging over your presidency. It will defeat everything you want to do. It will completely torpedo any possibility you have of winning reelection. Not, I mean, or rather election. And legal advisors also say, Nixon, if he's convicted, he will almost certainly appeal. And he will probably have reasonable grounds because he will be able to say it was impossible for him to have a fair trial because he's been prejudged in the press. And because there'll be no possible juror who is unaware of the scandal. So, it will be very difficult. Nixon's also an atrocious health. So, Nixon has flabitus in his leg, which he's allowed to get worse and worse in the course of 1974. A lot of people think that Nixon basically had a suicide wish at this point. So, he's also getting advice from people who know Nixon that say, "Nixon may well kill himself if you allow him to go to trial if you don't pardon him." Ford also is told, has got legal advice that the acceptance of a pardon carries an imputation of guilt. And what is Ford's relationship with Nixon? I mean, had they gone wrong? No, they weren't very close. So, Ford wasn't actually Nixon's first vice president. Nixon's first vice president was called Spiro Agnew, who resigned because he'd been taking kickbacks when he was governor of Maryland. Spiro Agu had hated hippies. Spiro Agnew is a great, I love Spiro Agnew. He's like a sort of daily express colonist. He goes around, he talks about the "Nattering the Bombs" of Daily Mail ones. The "Nattering the Bombs of Negativism." I always like his, he attacked the, he talks about Utah, he said, "Liberal liberals were, what does he say?" And a feet core of impudent snobbs who characterise themselves intellectuals. I mean, that's me to a T. Yeah. Anyway, so, Ford probably, Ford, Ford pardon, yeah, Ford pardon, yeah. Nixon doesn't die. Yeah. He goes to David Frost. Talk to David Frost, David Frost gets it, yeah. So, so, so, so that's Watergate. Yeah. But I think that that we've had a lot of questions about the impact and why it had this resonance. So just for example, Barry Grigan, "Why does Watergate continue to be so famous have such staying power?" There've been much more serious presidential scandals such as the Iran Contra or Trump's actions before and on January the 6th. I mean, would you agree with that? I would actually, I think Iran Contra certainly, Reagan was running an illegal foreign policy that had been basically explicitly banned by Congress, giving aid to the Contra's and Nicaragua. He's, what is he doing? He's secretly trading arms for hostages. It's much more serious than Watergate, which is basically a caper. I mean, Watergate really is a caper that a ludicrous, the bug, okay, the bugging of the Democratic National Committee is not good. It breaks the kind of democratic norm. but it's not the end of the world. It certainly doesn't compare with the Trump supporters storming the capital. That's absolutely, I mean they're not in the same need. So obviously I guess the impact of Watergate on America standing in the world is not positive. I mean it's not good for America. But you couldn't argue that actually it shows how important the rule of law is. Yeah, of course you could. But something so small can bring down, you know, the president of the United States. You could argue Tom. And you can imagine this kind of thing going on, you know, in other countries and nobody would baton. Is it Niklas Sarkozy just been sentenced to prison in France? Yeah, I mean, you could argue, I think it will be a reasonable argument actually that it reflects well on American politics. That the system works. The president has been, it's not above the law. It's not above the law. He's been partied to wrongdoing. He's tried to cover it up and he's been caught and he has been forced from office. I mean I think you could absolutely make that argument. I think one reason it's so resonant going back to that first episode we did. It happens in the context of the late 1960s, Vietnam, a general loss of trust, an economic downturn, a crisis of authority generally. And it feels like part of a bigger story. I mean, scandals always resonate. We talked about this in the Thorpe episode. Why do scandals resonate? They resonate if they express them. If they see their seen as symptoms of a wider disease, if they are kind of windows into a bigger story. And what is exactly what? Perhaps also, perhaps also if they do have a slight element of the comic. Yes. That can kind of hook people so that you have all the drama and the tension. But there is also the slight element of slapstick. Although I don't think actually that what strikes us now, the slapstick elements, I think at the time a lot of Americans didn't find it funny. I think they were genuinely shocked about the swearing in the Oval Office and about the kind of characters that Nixon was associated. I mean, they didn't view it as we do in our sort of cynical, flippant way. They thought, right, okay, this is because they really venerated the presidency. I mean, I don't think that's a dominate. Yeah. So that leads on to another question from Duncan Simpson. We now live in a society where there is constant scandal in the news and the proven lies from our leaders are met with very little uproar. How much did Watergate change the idea of faith in our leaders and in expectation of them being good people? Yeah, I think it definitely damaged, definitely damaged Americans' faith in the presidency. I mean, there's a sort of, that's one reason they turned to Reagan actually in 1980. I think there's a thirst for somebody who, you know, will restore as people sit the grandeur, the kind of regal magnificence of the process. Is that why Reagan is able to weather the unconscious? I think absolutely because the people just didn't want it. They just didn't want it. Yeah, but then it does you see then you do have the Clinton impeachment in the 1990s. And that is seen as kind of, I mean, certainly Democrats see that as Republicans deliberately trying to get revenge for Watergate. They absolutely do because people point to the fact that Hillary Clinton had been working for the special prosecution team in 1974. Although, of course, I think always think with the Clinton impeachment, you know, everybody's for 20 for, you know, 10, 15 years people said, ah, it's nothing. It's a storm in a teacup. You know, it's just a Republican concocted. And now I think people post kind of me too. Don't you think people look at that Clinton and Lewinsky and think that was actually pretty shabby? I don't know. I mean, I think it's hard to take the Republicans of that period. Seriously, you're right. Yeah. Kind of woke gender warriors. Yeah. Yeah. Especially as most of them ended up, you know, being brought down by them. Exactly. Business as well. Exactly. Yes. I mean, I think, but I mean, but a bit one thing that I do think is is a you could argue a dangerous legacy of Watergate is the tendency to kind of criminalize presidential politics. So, you know, America has had a lot of impeachments now compared with the previous hundred years or so. Well, Dominic, do you remember that the very first episode we recorded that in the end didn't go out because we were good. Yeah. Where we just let each other do nothing's changed. Well, we did a comparison between ancient Roman modern America. We did happen to make one of the things that happens in ancient Rome is that the law becomes a weapon in kind of political rivalries and the chance to prosecute and drag down a rival kind of contributes to the turbulence of the late Roman Republic. Yeah. And would you see the same thing happening undoubtedly, undoubtedly, actually. And it's interesting because once you get to the Trump impeachment, that unlike the Nixon impeachment, which obviously didn't reach his combination, the Trump impeachment, certainly the first one was absolutely perceived in terms of party politics, wasn't it? I mean, nobody divided on partisan lines except for Mitt Romney, I think. And nobody, there was no sort of sense of the rule of law being a standard above petty partisan politics, which I think was 1974. I mean, it was basically, you know, we've got to stand up to Russia or we've got to stand up to China. Yeah. And so that was it was also a kind of policy divide, wasn't it? Well, I suppose. But it was also just purely seen as a referendum on due to support Trump or do you not support him. Okay, so Stephanie Edson, friend of the show, but is being a little bit greedy here. I'm not going to deny because this is his second question. Yeah, in two episodes. I mean, yeah, well, all right. But it's a good question. So we'll forgive him. Would Trump have been impeached if he did the exact same thing today, to what extent of crosspartisan norms and trust being eroded to the point that there is always no limit to what a party will accept from their president? That is conversely. To what what an opposition will do to bring down a president. That's a really that's a really excellent and actually slightly disturbing question because I think Stefan's implication is probably right that Trump certainly would have said everybody does it, you know, fake news, the media, how many Republicans would have fallen into line behind him? Well, I think you just look at the react. You know, he got a what he was not him. He was not convicted in the second impeachment after the storming of the Capitol. I mean, if you won't be convicted for that, you'll never convicted him. Yeah. So I mean, that's your answer, I think, isn't it? That's I think any president, I'm sure it probably works the other way around as well, by the way. And when you once you have a hyperpartisan political environment, then it becomes impossible to appeal to some sort of sense of the rule of law that transcends. But lose loses lose lose as consent has basically yeah has basically gone in America. Yeah, I mean, would that be too much of an exciting? No, I think and I'm not entirely obviously. And I think Clinton is where you Clinton is where you saw that there were lots of Republicans who viewed Clinton as an illegitimate president, even though he'd won the 92 election fair and square. He was reelected in 96, but there were a lot of people who just thought we have to get him fame means or foul. Yeah. And okay, so this is yeah, yeah, gone. So there's there's an absolute train of within American politics that you can see. But there's also and this is again a great question from Bartman 1981. To what extent have there many films on Nixon and Watergate, influenced and perhaps misinformed the public perception on the subject? And I would like to expand that to say to what extent has the the idea of paranoia, of conspiracy, of covers up that has become a massive part of popular American culture? To what extent do you think that has corroded the norms of American democracy? Yeah, I think that's a really good point on. I think they probably it's a career. It has corroded it undoubtedly. The idea of the corrupt establishment, sinister forces, all that stuff. I mean, that actually that's already there before Watergate happens. It's kind of in the air. There's a whole load of films from the early 70s. There's obviously all the presidents men. There's a film called The Conversation. I think that's 1972. That's about taping Gene Hackman. There's a film called the par- really in film called the parallax view about assassinations again 1974. And there is this sort of sense of American cinema and the early 70s being very paranoid and all about conspiracies and stuff. Yes, of course it's it I think it probably is damaging. It reflects the general loss of faith in authority that had a lot to do with Vietnam. But obviously as we now know because we have it in Britain, everywhere in the Western world has it goes beyond that. But don't you think it's damaging? I mean, you and I can joke about it in a sort of flippant way and say, oh, we love conspiracy theory films. But they do matter. I mean, they do affect the way people think about politics. I was kind of thinking that the backdrop to the Clinton impeachment was ex-files. Yeah. Which ostensibly was about aliens, but would actually was about kind of cover-ups and that you can't trust the government and that nothing is true. And that actually that did kind of provide, you know, its popularity was obviously buying into a sense that you can't trust anybody in government. Yeah. And that's always been there in America to some extent because America's obviously founded on a distrust of government, I.e. of J. Third, and the anti-government spirit. I mean, the historian Richard Hofstata famously called the paranoid style in American politics. The sense that you had in there. That's always been there. Initially it was Catholics out to get them. And then it was honest. But does that answer the question then? Why Watergate has had this kind of massive impact? Is it actually it kind of goes with the grain of what quite a lot of people in the United States Kind of suspected about the doings of government. Yes, I suppose so and I suppose one thing that's interesting about the American reaction to it How'd it happen in France? There'd been an awful lot of shrugging and people sort of saying yeah That's what politicians do, you know kind of yeah I mean French politics is incredibly corrupt, right? I mean Sarkozy, Shirak, Mite-Hong, you know list as long as you're armed But there is also that kind of You know what the Quaker in Richard Nixon would have recognized that that kind of sense of we're a clean living sober Protestant godly people and we should be a we're a shining city on a hill We should I mean lots of people said this during Watergate. We should be the example to the world We're America. We don't do this. This isn't America. Yeah. Yes. As everybody said After the capital insurrection didn't it? This is not America like well, that kind of is Kind of is now. Yes. Okay. Well I think coming to the close, but let's just turn it back to Nixon himself. Yeah So this is a kind of question that's been shadowing the entire both episodes really Which is how do you think he would be judged? How to Watergate not trip him up? Would he be remembered as as an impressive president? I think he would actually and do you think that That Watergate has has kind of Tarnished the memory of the achievements that he could clock up Because he's seen as a kind of evil person. I mean tricky dick. He's he's you know the hunt the hunter's Thompson that we began episode one with you know that he is kind of moral Flipping in the sewer, right? I mean that's very hard very strong. I think that's very yes I think people but there's also a comic sense to Nixon isn't that I mean people have Nixon on t-shirts or they have kind of The very image of Nixon with his kind of jowly face Yeah, bowling or something is seen as as as amusing and kind of retro It was it's funny on the Simpsons. Yeah exactly. And he was on He was often on a show called Futurama kind of Simpsons type show Yeah, I think Nixon was a Fascinating and creative president Governing in trouble times who is actually much more liberal often than he's given credit for and if some sort of foreign policy You know had tremendous achievements date on and so on going to Moscow So the comparison of him to Trump. Oh, it's ridiculous. The other thing about Nixon So I said that we talked in the first episode how I taught this course when I was an academic at Sheffield it ran all year and we met For four hours a week and we went through Nixon's whole career and Watergate We did an enormous detail. So this is kind of typical Marxist academic right undermining of Decent right thinking way to understand and I have to say the students Ended it incredibly sympathetic to Nixon and it wasn't just my brainwashing It's one of them who actually went on to become a user tragic hero Yeah, one of them who went on to become a historian himself, and I think he's a notting him Said to me I can't be saying in the seminar. He said the thing about Nixon is as a man When you look at Nixon you kind of look you see yourself all his anxieties Are the anxieties of kind of masculinity that you're kind of you know there are people having more fun than you The girls aren't looking at you that the part of sweat gathering undue exactly You've got the wrong shoes You know you don't really know how to behave you don't know the what difference to in Burgundy and Bordeaux You've worked so hard to get here. You know you've worked harder than anybody else and yet They will always look down on you and sneer at you trying to cover up that parking to Spire but yeah, but exactly the knowledge at the back of your mind the nagging fear that terrible thing you did Which seems so small at the time is gonna bring you down I think there's something so so sort of empathetic in Nixon and if you can't see yourself in Nixon there's something wrong with you That's okay. Well, I think that's an amazing note on which to end Are you like Nixon if you're not there's something wrong with you top top Top top historian of the modern United States Dominic Sandbrook has spoken and on that note We will bid you farewell farewell. Goodbye. Goodbye Thanks for listening to the rest is history for bonus episodes early access Ad free listening and access to our chat community Please sign up at rest is history pod dot com. That's rest is history pod dot com One of the darkest scandals of the modern era a billionaire financier powerful friends hidden networks and Questions that refuse to go away was Jeffrey Epstein a spy I'm Gordon Carrera and I'm David Baclasky And we're the hosts of the rest is classified the intelligence and national security podcast from Gohanger And we've just released a gripping new series investigating whether Epstein was linked to any spy agencies and asking what those Agencies might have known about him listen or watch now on Spotify YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts