From JFK to Nixon: a long romp through Watergate...part 1

Richard Nixon came to government at a ridiculously young age right after World War Two where he had a marvelous career as a card shark while serving in the Pacific theater. 

As a young congressman, Nixon did his best to represent his rural Californian district. Oddly enough, JFK came to congress in the same year. For a brief

space of time both freshmen found some comfort in the display of their staunch anti-communist credentials. 

Nixon proved to be something of a genius in taking advantage of his political opportunities, and a few years saw him taking a senate seat away from liberal Helen Gehagan Douglas.  It’s also of note that Nixon s tactics in that campaign earned him the nickname of “tricky Dick” from Douglas—a nom de plume that would follow him for the rest of his political career.  What kinds of shenanigans ?  I can only refer you to the term popularized during Watergate—“ratfucking”.  

Should you wish greater insight into this method of political dirty tricks, let me recommend the following article:

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25090/donald-segretti-ratfking-100413/

With Douglas out of the way, Nixon continued his upward climb, by wangling a seat on the infamous House Unamerican Activities Committee.  There he quickly created a reputation as a hardened cold warrior by his treatment of Alger Hiss, among other cases.  It also displayed his utter lack of scruple in attacking innocent people, and tying his political bandwagon to other opportunists like Senator McCarthy.

For the early 50s nixon’s  star was on the rise.  As a valued member of HUAC, he was often at the forefront of infamous interrogations of suspected “pinkos”.  And yet  when it came time for Eisenhower to put in a bid for the presidency, Nixon became his contentious running mate.  Although Ike never liked the young Californian, he allowed that Dick brought a much needed youthful vigor to the ticket.  It was during this election that the American public began to get a sense of the future Nixon, when a series of newspaper articles accused him of unlawful money gathering.  With Ike ready to dump him from the ticket, Nixon went on national television and exposed his personal finances to the American people in prime time. In a 30 minute broadcast, Nixon and his poor wife Pat laid their private lives bare so that everyone could see that indeed he was ‘not a crook’!  It was a flagrantly gratuitous gamble—one that paid off completely.  With Nixon back on the ticket, he and Ike won the election, making Nixon one of the youngest Vice Presidents in the history of that office.

This would become known as the “checkers scandal.”

Why that fun name?  Well first it was the name of his family dog.  Second….

For more information, see this article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/the-checkers-speech-after-60-years/262172/

And if your at all curious to get a load of this early Nixon, check this out:

I wish I could tell you Dear Reader that Dick was a terrible VP.  Not true.  He was actually quite a good one, even taking over when Ike suffered a heart attack that threatened his life.  No, he served in the office with distinction.  But that’s the thing with Nixon:  he’s a study in contrasts.  

Analyzing Nixon is kind of like watching "Apocalypse Now,"  Since 1977 there have been multiple versions of the film, and it seems as though both the director and we, the audience, are never satisfied.  We keep endlessly going back over the film and Nixon's career to try and make sense of how this basically decent husband and father could have ended up so completely amoral and debased when it came to public service.  Was he a product of the system he eventually learned how to manipulate? Again, Dear Reader, I just don't know.  As with many things, life just seems to happen, and we either adapt or we stagnate.

But all of this speculation does not negate the fact that Nixon at his core was a decent man.  I truly believe that.  But he was also a man who completely lost touch with what John Adams (and others) called "the American Experiment."  Perhaps Nixon should have identified less with General George Patton, and more with Adams.  Perhaps then he could have avoided what eventually began and ended with him:  Watergate.

As I have already written a bit about the fabled 1960 election, I will not dwell on it, nor on Nixon's defeat in that race.  I will also mention that Nixon's troubled bid for governor of California in that early decade also did not end well.  Indeed, many believed that when he lost that campaign so crushingly, his career in politics was effectively over.  There would be no more Nixon 'to kick around anymore.'

And indeed, this seemed to be the case, as Nixon retreated briefly into private practice.  But, he was never satisfied.  In keeping with his contradictory nature, this introverted man craved the approval of the masses.  He craved the broader canvas of the political arena.  

And perhaps, if one thinks about it, we can understand both his ambition, and his belief that he alone could restore order to the millions of heartbroken Americans, who endured the assassination of their president in 1963, and the horrors of Vietnam.

In his 1968 bid for the presidency, Nixon reached out to what he called the "silent majority."  This roughly translated into the millions of forgotten (true) men and women in America who were neither liberal, nor conservative.  These were the people Nixon sought to entice, and perhaps even to seduce.

And boy oh boy did it work.

Finally, there was a politician who was talking to the middle class.  Finally there was a conversation that included their needs, which the radical left viewed as pedantic and dated, and the far right believed to be insignificant.  But, oh beware those of you who awake the sleeping dragon of the American people!

Nixon was elected to the presidency in 1968.  Now, this victory came on the heels of some pretty interesting developments, like LBJ not seeking a second term, and Robert Kennedy being murdered in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.  Boy, would I have loved to have seen that election between RFK and Richard Nixon.  Now, that would have been one hell of an adventure.

For me anyway it’s one of the lost possibilities of recent times. 

Nixon’s first term was filled with some foreign policy triumphs as was the first two years of his second.  People forget today that Nixon was responsible for SALT I and the opening of Red China to the West. He always told people that he was able to do it because he’d spent his entire life building his career as a Cold Warrior. There was truth in this. Credit must also be given to his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. 

Yet, as Nixon got ready for his second presidential election, his worst characteristic, paranoia, took firm hold  of him. He could not fathom the honest competition that presented itself in the form of democratic Senator Meese, and immediately set out to destroy his candidacy. 

Nixon had already formed his re-election committee, appropriately named “CREEP” (the committee to re-elect the president), headed by his long time compatriot John Mitchell (formerly his Attorney General).  Right away, the two men sought to destroy the democratic competition by using the dirty tricks that characterized Nixon’s earlier career. A young attorney by the name of Donald Segretti was brought on by a Nixon staffer. Segretti, as a young college student, participated in “rat fucking” his opponents, and was now going to employ his so-called ‘talents’ in decimating the opponents to the president.  This included accusing Hubert Humphrey of sleeping with prostitutes, and attacking Senator Muskie with something called the “Canuck letter”. This contained so called aspersions against Muskie—and it was all a trick by ratfucking.  

This rumor caused Muskie to drop out of the race.  Yet, many historians believe that what really did in his stint in politics was his last major press conference.  During this meeting, he appeared to break down in front of the news cameras.  In the 70s, such a display was viewed as evidence of an inherent weakness of character, by both the media and the American public. And yet it was simply some snow flakes melting on his face.  But it was interpreted as weakness and it did in his bid for the presidency. 

Poor guy.

The candidate Nixon and company wanted to run against was George McGovern, who with Eagleton as his running mate was a candidate no one would ever vote for. And indeed, hardly anyone did !!

I mean, just take a look at this map of the election results!!

It was the greatest landslide in American history. 

One of them anyway. 

And did you know, Dear Reader, that the election was after Watergate?  You know, what amazed me was that most Americans forgot about the Watergate scandal just as soon as it was over.  Today, most of Americans don’t even remember it, just as they don’t remember the Iran- Contra scandal. 

When I was growing up, my parents had a bust of Nixon on their piano. The bust was actually a candle. It showed nixon’s face on three sides, one showed him with his hands over his mouth, with his hands only partially covering his mouth. 

The meaning was clear:  i.e. hear no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil. 

My point in telling that story was that I grew up in a very liberal household and this did not encourage me to think kindly of Nixon and the whole Watergate scandal. 

And now for something completely different…The break-in. 

This clip is from the series “gaslit” with Julia Roberts and Sean Penn. Yes, that is Sean Penn in some pretty awesome makeup!!  

The break in happened a year or so after the embarrassment of the Pentagon Papers. Embarrassing from the standpoint of the government, not the American people. If the Pentagon papers were a horrid surprise, it was nothing compared to the debacle of Watergate. 

Before we start in on the break in, I’d like to begin with a scene from “All the President’s Men

Now, the whole affair was one hell of a lot more convoluted  than it appeared in Pakula’s film. In addition we now know the identity of Bob Woodward’s informant “Deep Throat.”  His name was Mark Felt and he was Hoover’s number 2 man at the FBI. As such he was in charge of the agency’s watergate investigation. Very early on, the Nixon administration began interfering with its’ progress—telling the interim director Pat Gray (ole J Edgar had just died) to back his men off from the investigation which was leading ever closer to the White House.  Obstruction of Justice, anyone?  Or perhaps a martini...shaken not stirred!

But, let's face it folks...Howard Hunt and G Gordon Liddy were so NOT James Bond.  As Hal Holbrook (the actor who played Deep Throat in "All the President's Men" said, "the truth is, these are not very bright guys...and things got out of hand."

And now, number three...the Larch.

 

Hey...you absolutely can not go wrong with a classic Monty Python reference!

And, it's appropriate, because we are about to discuss one of the main players (albeit briefly behind the scenes), Mr. G. Gordon Liddy: