The Watergate Undertow
GLASS, ANDREW J.
Washington-USA THE WATERGATE UNDERTOW BY ANDREW J. GLASS Washington When a man has been through even a minor crisis, he learns not to worry when his muscles tense up, his breathing comes faster,...
...In an effort to save themselves, they are falling back on the curious defense that much of what went on might be viewed in some quarters as immoral but it was not, technically speaking, illegal...
...Some of the ousted Nixon officials share the fear Ellsberg had of going to jail, an unthinkable prospect for most members of the upper middle class in the United States...
...Whatever channel these currents of reform finally follow, on such matters the Watergate has set into motion a tide that Nixon can no longer control...
...All this is bound to take its toll -on the President himself, on the role of his office, on the nation at large...
...The Establishment is arrayed against him...
...But Nixon stands ready to use his power-including the war-making power-in ways that will at once enrage his critics and deflect attention from the scandal...
...Sometime later, a stone-faced Johnson summoned Valenti into the Oval Office and said, "Read this...
...He sent Dodd a polite note pointing out that, to his knowledge, the contractor was a very bad actor...
...Though Alsop didn't say so, his altogether accurate description also happens to fit Daniel Ellsberg, who stands at the opposite political, ideological and social pole from Richard Nixon...
...He has gone so far as to bug the telephones of White House assistants who were suspected of disloyalty...
...Yet once Johnson reached the summit of power, he recognized what Nixon apparently never learned: namely, when you are President, a fast shuffle never pays...
...Thus a Senator who has his eye on the upcoming U.S.-Soviet summit meeting in Washington confided to me: "Kissinger went to Russia to set up the Brezhnev visit...
...Under the Constitution, the only one available is impeachment...
...But, in a reversal of the present system, the taxpayer's dollar would be credited to the campaign fund automatically unless he specifically objected...
...In the end, however, weakened public confidence in the political process may prove a more serious problem than a weakened bargaining hand with Leonid Brezhnev...
...Recent events can only serve to further intensify his distrust, leaving us no reason at all to believe that he will change his approach...
...If the President is not implicated, he will still bear the crushing weight of having surrounded himself with men who utterly failed him...
...An LBJ crony of long standing, Dodd had complained that his well-heeled constituent was getting a run-around at the Pentagon...
...As Stewart Alsop noted in Newsweek, the departed crew was largely motivated by a "certain self-righteousness, by fear, by a special kind of political-ideological hatred...
...When the White House dam first burst open with a torrent of revelations exposing the muck of the '72 campaign, the President sought to build a series of dikes to contain the scandal...
...The difference is that Ellsberg, in purloining the Pentagon Papers, played the role of Robin Hood while his relentless antagonist, the latter-day sheriff of Nottingham, had all the yeoman and most of the gold on his side...
...His old hard-line inner circle is gone and the new men, plus those remaining from the shattered former staff, are inclined to be tractable where the issue is restoring faith in the system...
...Yet as Senator Sam Ervin's Select Committee's televised hearings relentlessly unfold, this distinction will inevitably become less distinct in the public mind...
...And the underlying leadership problems that placed Congress in such a weak position to begin with remain...
...The full dimensions of Nixon's Seventh Crisis have yet to be determined...
...Now read this," Johnson commanded, giving Valenti a letter to Dodd on the same subject from McGeorge Bundy...
...All legitimate campaign bills would be submitted to the commission for payment, with provisions for full public disclosure...
...Nonetheless, some of the more thoughtful legislators now privately take the view that the price to be paid for the scandal may well transcend the President's personal fortunes...
...Johnson then instructed Valenti to tape Bundy's letter to his desk as a "constant reminder that this is the only kind of letter that should ever be written in the White House on matters pertaining to defense contracts...
...True, the men on Capitol Hill have shown signs of reasserting themselves, most notably on the Cambodia bombing issue...
...One plan being considered would establish a strong, independent Federal elections commission and prohibit Presidential candidates from personally raising or dispensing so much as a dime...
...Nixon can no longer count on even the loyalty of Elliot Richardson, his newly designated Attorney General, nor can he fire him without incurring an unacceptable risk to his own precarious standing...
...Concern centers especially on the acknowledged area of his greatest achievements, foreign relations...
...the deposed White House domestic adviser, and financier Robert Vesco, the source of a secret $200,000 cash contribution to the Nixon campaign...
...Those who knew him as he maneuvered to the top were aware that he was quite capable of dealing from the bottom of the deck when high personal, political or financial interests appeared to justify the risk...
...One might contrast this sort of White House conduct with what happened some years ago when Jack Valenti, in his capacity as Lyndon Johnson's appointments secretary, wrote the late Democratic Senator Thomas Dodd about a defense contractor...
...in the future, kindly address all such inquiries to the proper office at the Defense Department...
...The President's brother, Edward, a Vesco employe, sat in on the meeting too...
...Vesco, it seems, had encountered some problems in seeking to acquire control of a big Lebanese bank and Ehrlichman, who presumably also specialized in questions of Mideast finance, was assigned to help out...
...Valenti investigated and determined that the contractor was lucky not to be in jail...
...Despite the troubles that brought Johnson down, no hint of personal scandal ever touched him as President...
...Should hard evidence develop to prove that he sanctioned the dirty deeds, or that he was in on the cover-up, a penalty would have to be exacted...
...The President handed him his letter to Dodd...
...Washington-USA THE WATERGATE UNDERTOW BY ANDREW J. GLASS Washington When a man has been through even a minor crisis, he learns not to worry when his muscles tense up, his breathing comes faster, his nerves tingle, his stomach churns, his temper becomes short, his nights are sleepless . . . he knows from experience that once the battle is joined, all these symptoms will disappear-unless he insists on thinking primarily of himself rather than the problem he must confront...
...Bundy had written: "The assistant to the President for national security affairs has nothing whatever to do with defense contracts...
...Fortunately, moves are already under way on Capitol Hill to stem the erosion...
...Trapped by his past acts, the President is condemned to live out what one suspects is his worst private nightmare...
...You can bet those fellows had a damn good reading on Nixon's situation-how much he needs the meeting right now to change the mood from Watergate...
...The Watergate crimes were spawned, at least in part, by Nixon's deep distrust of the Federal bureaucracy, which has exhibited a distressingly consistent tendency to provide the press with embarrassing secrets about his Administration...
...The commission's money would come from the voluntary $1 checkoff by individual taxpayers scheduled to be distributed for the 1976 election under existing law...
...One top Democrat summarized the situation for me by saying, "The boys from Mississippi are still going to vote the way they usually vote no matter what happens to Nixon...
...Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises (1962) Facing the greatest crisis of his life, Richard Nixon is unable to follow his own advice, for the problem he confronts is the future of his Presidency...
...That must have given the Russians a tremendous leverage in bargaining with Henry over the agenda, and in summitry of this kind the basic outcome has to be decided in advance...
...It took a long time for him to recognize the futility of such rear-guard actions, but he must realize by now that he is the true target of the investigations...
...On its face, for example, there was nothing illegal about a meeting that took place last year between John Ehrlichman...
...It would be a mistake to assume, moreover, that the President has been rendered totally ineffective, or that Congress has won the upper hand by default...
Vol. 56 • May 1973 • No. 11
