Because today's politics are so dominated by wide divisions and stalemated government, I get some pleasure from remembering the outcome of the Watergate scandal. In my lifetime, this country was never more united than it was in the final months of this unique event.
This is the part I want to focus on. There was widespread opinion that Nixon's acts were intolerable and he could not continue to be President. (There was considerably less consensus about prosecuting him, but that never happened. I was personally against prosecuting the resigned and disgraced Nixon, but I don't think it was right for Gerald Ford to issue a preemptive pardon.)
A long quote from Wikipedia (
Watergate scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Initially, Nixon was given a positive reaction for his speech (April 29, 1974, when he released transcripts of selected tapes - which included the frequent and infamous "expletive deleted" notations). As people read the transcripts over the next couple of weeks, however, former supporters among the public, media and political community called for Nixon's resignation or impeachment. Vice President Gerald Ford said, "While it may be easy to delete characterization from the printed page, we cannot delete characterization from people's minds with a wave of the hand." The Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott said the transcripts revealed a "deplorable, disgusting, shabby, and immoral" performance on the part of the President and his former aides. The House Republican Leader John Jacob Rhodes agreed with Scott, and Rhodes recommended that if Nixon's position continued to deteriorate, he "ought to consider resigning as a possible option." The editors of the newspaper The Chicago Tribune, a publication that had supported Nixon, wrote, "He is humorless to the point of being inhumane. He is devious. He is vacillating. He is profane. He is willing to be led. He displays dismaying gaps in knowledge. He is suspicious of his staff. His loyalty is minimal." The Providence Journal wrote, "Reading the transcripts is an emetic experience; one comes away feeling unclean." This newspaper continued, that, while the transcripts may not have revealed an indictable offense, they showed Nixon contemptuous of the United States, its institutions, and its people. According to Time magazine, the Republican Party leaders in the western states felt that while there remained a significant number of Nixon loyalists in the party, the majority believed that Nixon should step down as quickly as possible. They were disturbed by the bad language and the coarse, vindictive tone of the conversations in the transcripts.
And my favorite parts of the whole Watergate story, in regard to releasing the White House tapes:
On July 24, 1974, in United States v. Nixon, the US Supreme Court, which did not include the recused Justice William Rehnquist (who had recently been appointed by Nixon and had served as Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Nixon Justice Department), ruled unanimously that claims of executive privilege over the tapes were void. They ordered the president to release them to the special prosecutor. On July 30, 1974, President Nixon complied with the order and released the subpoenaed tapes for the public.
These tapes revealed several crucial "smoking gun" conversations between Nixon and his top aides, that were previously unknown.
And finally,
The House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 on July 27, 1974 (after a lengthy and thorough investigation) to recommend the first article of impeachment against the president: obstruction of justice. The second: abuse of power, and third: contempt of Congress articles were passed on July 29, 1974 and July 30, 1974, respectively. On August 20, 1974, the Committee would formally submit H. Rept. 93-1305 which included the text of the resolution impeaching President Nixon and setting forth articles of impeachment against him.
If anyone today doubts the widespread, approaching unanimous, national opinion to remove Nixon from the White House. Consider this: In the November 1974 (off-year) elections which followed a few months after Nixon's resignation, all 11 Congressmen who voted against the articles of impeachment lost re-election bids to return to Congress. They were all Republican, however, those Republicans who voted for the articles won their elections.
Anyone who dares defend Nixon, or indirectly defend him by attacking his accusers, must remember this.
