Transcripts For CSPAN Legacy Of Watergate 20180220

Cable or satellite provider. Authors and authors and journalists who covered the watergate scandal in the 1970s met recently to talk about the era and how it compares to todays Political Climate regarding the russia investigation, the news media and the publics view of government. Hosted by slate media, this is one hour and a half. [applause] leon hey, everybody. [applause] leon thank you for being here. Can everybody hear me . Is my mic awake . Great. We are here about a week and a half after the show ended, season one ended, and i think none of us at slate assumed or could have guessed we would be talking about season one and planning season two. Season two of slow burn so thank you to all of you. [applause] for being here, but o listening to the show. Leon for being here, but also listening to the show. It is really a dream to be here in the Watergate Hotel with all of you. We have got a great show tonight, our first live show. We have a fantastic lineup of guests who i now want to introduce without clearing my throat anymore. Elizabeth drew, to my left. She covered the watergate scandal as it was unfolding. In the book that washington journal in the book washington journal. To my right, did cap it dick cavett. Betweend a show on abc 1968 and 19 74. In the months following watergate, he interviewed a number of key figures in the scandal. Later he broadcasted an entire episode from the watergate room. True. Glasser. E susan [applause] she is an Affairs Columnist for politico. Previously she was the editor of politico and political magazine. All the way on the right, evan thomas. [applause] evan has been an editor at newsweek and time for many years, and he is the author of a book on nixon. Did i leave anybody out . The podcast. I mention the podcast. Did you . I cant mention it too much. I did not cover watergate. [laughter] thats true. There are people like me who were not alive during watergate. You were just barely alive. Very small. [laughter] i want to know from elizabeth how does it feel to be in the watergate after all of these years . Did you do reporting in here . For a while, i lived in the watergate. No kidding. Without going into it, i encountered a difficulty and a coverup. What do you mean . Well, i can go into it. [laughter] it is for my next book. It felt weird. To what . I dont want to rain on the , all of the away focus only watergate breakin leaves out the more important that,in, the one before the breakin of the office of the psychiatrist, the man who papers. The vietnam war so this was really more serious. It was a violation of the fourth amendment, the right to privacy, your secure in your home and belongings. They went right in. What saved the republic i think is it was really stupid. Hereeason they were caught , it was their fourth attempt to get into the Democratic National committee offices. The first attempt, they decided to host a banquet on the ground they would then go upstairs to the dnc offices and they got locked in a closet somehow. [laughter] the next time they got to the dnc offices, but they could not break the lock. Its a process. It is an unfolding process. [laughter] mr. Martinez most of the burglars were alumni of the bay of pigs failed invasion of cuba, so they were really angry with kennedy and democrats and so on. Nixon told them they were helping him fight communism and they bought that. Got the right instruments for breaking the law and they went in and messed it up. On the wrongtap phone and took blurry pictures. It was sad, one of the two leaders, gordon liddy, went to the chairman of the committee to reelect the president. Reep. They called themselves that . They did not get the joke. , god saveey general us, a law partner of nixons was and said to them, this is junk. I dont think he said junk. I cant prove it but i dont think he did. And go back in. So then went back in and that is when they were cut. They were in there on memorial day that weekend. Similarly when they were invading the office of dr. Lewis fielding. That was the psychiatrist. Imagine that appeared imagine that. Imagine of 70 got into your regular doctors office, but getting into your psychiatrist we should all see one. [laughter] there were no files, they messed up everything they did and thats kind of why we are still here today. [laughter] up,m glad you brought that because one of my regrets about the show is that i never mentioned the breakin at the psychiatrists office. In many ways it was more serious. There were more scary more scared about people finding out about. It was in one of the articles of impeachment, but not the same one as watergate. The term watergate stuck. Actually, there are a lot of people appear and i will shut up, but when mixing was in florida and the breakin was caught, how dumb do you have to be to put a piece of tape in the door and the cop comes along and removes it and they put it back on . When they met, three days after the breakin, thats when the coverup was hatched. What nixon said, what he was really worried about, he said these plumbers, they did that other stuff, they know about that other thing. Thats what he was afraid was going to be found out. And so that began the coverup to shut them up. I had no idea who lived here. You know who else lifted her . Martha mitchell. I knew that. I wanted to include that, but i thought it would be confusing, because how do you explain that . Im glad that elizabeth because when it toe out, nixon was saying them, what is this crp thing . The committee to reelect the creeps the president. [laughter] one of the things of the things i thought about when i was planning tonights event, one of those itches i didnt get to scratch on the show, a major one is that i dont still get Richard Nixon very well. He wasnt really on the show, he was sort of the dark center of it. What itshow was about was like to live through it, but i never really asked or answered what it was like for nixon to live through it. , if you could tell us a little bit about what kind of experience it was for him, starting with the first couple of weeks when the cloud was starting to gather. Nixon had obviously many flaws. One was that he hated confrontation. He liked to pose as being a blistering tough guy that would swear a lot, that he was actually a very shy person. One of his feelings was that he, from the very beginning, did not confront his own staff. A guy directly running it, nixon does not talk to him, have a real conversation with him for nine months. Nixon was just unwilling to confront his own people. Junee confronted had in 1972 said, what is going on he did not know about the breakin. It happened on his watch, he had a lot of responsibility for it but he did not know about it. Is that the fact . 99. 9 fact. Overwhelming that he did not know about it. Not to excuse him, he created the conditions by which it happened, but he couldve cut this off. Of mcgovern in the polls by 34 points. There was no way he was going to lose. He could have fired everybody in his cabinet and still won, and he should have. [laughter] that was one turning point that he blew partly out of his own shyness. Because he could not face it . He couldnt face it and did not want to face it. Nixon was a devious guy, he also thought he could get away with it. He believed in executive privilege and he thought, and people scoff at this, but he is hardly the first president to use dirty tricks. , nixonsly happened timing was bad. Thats what it was. [laughter] like, the 20th century. [laughter] thats what i mean by that. Why did he have these incompetent people doing this . Why were those guys doing it . The reason they were doing it is because the fbi had taken themselves out of the business of doing this. , that the ahead been illegally wiretapping and stealing and spying for earlier president s, including frank and roosevelt, harry truman, lbj. Hoover by 1970 was a savvy politician and realized the winds are changing. Ren courtar in war is beginning to enforce the fourth amendment, cutting down on wiretapping, and hoover knows this. He is getting the fbi out of the business of doing lack back jobs jobs. Doing block bag so nixon has to go inhouse. He didnt have to. [laughter] but if he is going to do it, he has to hire liddy to do it because the fbi will not do it for him. His minions hire these incompetents. Hearing you say that he was so allergic to confrontation, one thinks of the reports of how our current president never can fire someone directly to their face despite his catchphrase. [laughter] i think a lot of people who had funo this show picking out parallels. There are subplots and personality traits i think nixon and trump seem to share. But when i read your book, and i read it later in the process of recording the show, he felt totally different to me than the way i imagine donald trump. I wonder if you could talk to me about how they are different and similar. For starters, nixon read. [laughter] [applause] a lot. Ive been through his personal library, he was an unbelievable because he did not like talking to people. He read a lot. Most president s dont read anything, certainly trump. But most president s are busy. , and read a lot and deeply he read deeply into political philosophy, everything churchill ever wrote. He pretended to hate intellectuals but he actually was one himself. He would say, those harvard people, but then he would hire them to work for him. He was confusing that way. He postured as an antiintellectual but he actually was quite intellectual. So that is one major difference. A big difference. Nixon was deeply strategic. Moment, by thee tweet, by impulse. Mix and thought deeply about the shape of the world, coalition of forces, china, russian. Always thinking strategically, rightly or wrongly. That is another big difference. Is they arere alike both arguably crazy. [laughter] a lot of people have opined about this, that trump has a narcissistic disorder if you believe kathy psychiatric immunity. Nexen, i dont know what you would call it, but he was paranoid. He did not like this about himself and he tried to control it but he could not control it. You can hear it on the tapes, we spent hours listening to these tapes, and he can sound quite rational, talking about world events. You can make fun of his accent but he is a deep thinker. Then he will go on these crazy tears, antisemitic, profane tears, and you wonder what the hell is he doing . Then he will swing back into being coherent and interesting again. He could not control his emotions. Tweet reminded me of a very much the same. Library. Rumps [laughter] to. Oud have [applause] you can use that. [laughter] susan, how can you explain, given the differences that were just enumerated, to my mind quite striking similarities in how the white houses seem to be run, the sort of chaos that determines decisionmaking. Again, the alignment of the various subplots uncanny. Apart intoan so far apart do two men so far creates a many so many echoes . If i knew the answer to that, i should just go home. Anybody isw if checking twitter, but please let us know if there is a white house shakeup happening while we are sitting here. Do you know who was on trumps public schedule today for a meeting . Henry kissinger. To me, that was sort of a perfect setup for this conversation tonight. Washington is something that both nixon and donald trump loved to bash. Nixon as you said, loved to set himself up in opposition to the georgetown set, he hated the elitists in washington, they just did not get him, donald trump ran against the swamp, but in many ways you are saying one year into trumps experiment on all of us [laughter] that washington, it is like a casino. Historically the house always finds a way to win. Henry kissinger will adapt to any power in the white house. Activetill getting meetings at the age of 93 or whatever it is. They are not the same, and facing to be engaged in this incredible moment of history echoing or rhyming or maybe just laughing at us. I will admit, one of the first things i did after january 20, 2017 was i picked up a copy of elizabeths book that was sitting on our shelves. Reading that in parallel to the first remember the 24 day tenure of Michael Flynn . Shortest tenure. Longer than the 11 day tenure of anthony scaramucci, it is often referred to as the scaramucci era. [laughter] this is the sort of comic opera version of it. Donald trump is the sort of comic opera version. He is not like nick sent, he doesnt seem to be an extreme introvert, for example, which clearly nixon was. That ame that tells us certain part of it is about power and abuse of power. When you say the white houses are similar, that might be because you are looking at peoples responses to the institution and to what happens when you are in the court of rhose are court of the cza or the president and something is wrong in the middle of it. I have the greatest of their white houses are similar. Inre was a strict discipline nixons white house. It wasnt the zoo this one has been. It didnt have all these to participate evan is right, nixon was deeply shy as a man and deeply shy as a little boy. He grew up lying in the grass and reading. Dork did not exist then, but he was one. He ran for and one student offices all the time. He was student body president. He didnt have any friends. He was a charmer, but he worked so hard at it. He wanted it so badly. This kept happening. Thesek a liking to positions he was unfit for. I would argue he was unfit for politics. He did not like people and people do not like him. It did not work. Although the suspicion. The other thing is, yes he was shy, but if he had to fire his closest aides, he did it. He cried when he did it. Oh he cried. [laughter] he had a habit of calling aides at 1 00 in the morning or 3 00 the morning and ask how it went. He said, how do you think my speech went . The speech in which he fired him. [laughter] i believe he said, i can do this for you anymore. [laughter] i have been fired. I assume im not the only one sitting here who met the great man. I was just about to turn to you about this. Did you ever meet him . I interviewed him. We were not close. [laughter] were you close . You were not enchanted . I met him way back when i was at theersona non grata white house, that did not last very long. I eventually made the enemies list. This was a formal event, nickel wilson was brought over because and had seen him in london, and so you were invited to an evening of shakespeare at a room 1 6 the size of the spirit the size of this. So i come up great indicted the secondtor, people at the receiving line, they usually give them something to say if they dont know the person. But he recognized me clearly and said, who is doing your show tonight . I said, joe namath. Yes. How are his knees . [laughter] wasnt there another interaction you had with him . That is only one. That night we waited and saul theshakespeare, and saw shakespeare, and about 10 minutes after it was over, for some reason the room filled with a smoke smell. , likee alarming kind somebody was burning the newspaper something. There was no source of it, the smell went away. Timon,aisle came kenneth the Great British critic, and i ken i knew him. [laughter] what do you think that smell was . Agnewaid, they let spiro into the library. [laughter] i love it. [laughter] that sounds like he was quite polite to you. The tapes,ing to that was not always his attitude toward you. From nixon . Yeah. The damnedest thing happened in montauk one day, i went to a Seafood Restaurant and it was one hour early and nobody was at the tables. There was this dark figure, it looked like an old seabird peering out to sea. It was mr. Nixon and his lovely daughter julie. To amuse the waiter i was not drunk. [laughter] i went up behind him and said, for dessert we have the yorba linda cream pie and the Whittier College souffle. I got so he could see me then. He said, oh yes. I thought that was you. [laughter] he always knew who was behind him. [laughter] , but weat did dumbo do suddenly had nothing to say to each other. We stood there. The gulls fell silent. [laughter] said, oh, the last time i saw you was at that wonderful night of shakespeare at the white house, and you might remember that the room started filling with i should not be telling him the story. But anyway, i finished the story somehow. Your said, i hope nightclub act was funnier than that. [laughter] ive remembered something i had to do at home. [laughter] to evansto go back point about nixon not knowing about the watergate breakin. We dont know. But evan made the key point, he created the conditions for it. How did this stuff happen . My point is, it doesnt matter. It did not matter whether nixon knew about the breakin ahead of time. As evan said, he created the conditions. He would say things like he always wanted to get the goods on somebody. We havent said this, i think its terribly important. Nixons downfall stemmed a lot from the fact that he could not distinguish between opponents and enemies. Anyone who ran against him was an enemy. Things, theyrst around,ed kennedy taking pictures of him with various women because next and worried that kennedy would run against him in 1972. The inability to distinguish not just in his president ial career, he would say i want to get the goods on lawrence obrien, a kennedy man. The chairman of the Democratic National committee. Goods onanted the larry obrien, there are various theories about that, having to do with Howard Hughes and blah b lah. Thats my favorite one. But. Where was i . [laughter] my point was, because he couldnt make the distinction he kept getting into trouble. Why were they so obsessed with ellsberg . The pentagon papers were really about the vietnam war under johnson, but he questioned the foundation of the vietnam war. It was kissinger who was very worked up about this and ellsberg was an enemy and we have to get him. Of that the atmosphere white house, who are we going to get . Thats what led him down this trail. One of the articles of impeachment that i think is fascinatingly and pointed , i knowingly important you have a question about that. There were three articles of impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee approved. One of them held at the president accountable for the acts of his aides. It had to be a pattern or practice of a certain kind of activity, just as in the obstruction of justice, it wont be one thing or another, it will be 10 things if that comes up, that is what is building, and what was building under nixon. The first article was obstruction of justice. But the second was the use of Government Agencies for his own political purposes to get his and theigned enemies, other was that he was responsible, he was accountable for that. If you fast forward to now, we dont know if there was collusion, collusion means conspiracy if it is an impeachable offense. It doesnt matter what really what trump knew at a certain point or if nixon knew ahead of time they were going into the watergate, he created the atmosphere and encourage them i saying, i want to get the goods on larry obrien. He did this about various people. They broke into and muskies kies officed mus because he thought he was good to run against him. These are the important things to keep in mind. The president can be held accountable for the acts of the people who work for him. The other is, this playing with federal agencies now trout. Trout . Trump. I dont know where that came from. [laughter] he does not know enough about government. [laughter] searcy, to know that you could use the irs or try wire topping. In his ignorance he has stayed ignorant of a lot of it stayed in a sense of stayed in a set of a lot of it until he started messing with the justice department. And now were to look at serious impeachable offenses. You were maybe the first or second person i interviewed in your book was one of the first i read. Toed to enter for interview you for the First Episode. I wanted to talk about 1972, the first five months leading up to the election. I said, why did anyone care . Are we talking about impeachment . I dont care. And we talked about impeachment. And i have to thank you because by the time i got to episode eight and i did not have time to talk to anybody else, i said i have this great interview on impeachment. So you really save my neck. [laughter] you have to remember, this is serious history, it has only been tried three times in all of american history. Constitutionn the article one is about the the foundersause thought the congress would be at least equally as important as the presidency. This is part of what has gone wrong. They did not anticipate what we have now. Where was i again . Impeachment. The first one was against the idea was that the towns worst towns were assessed with establishing a king. They had fled to that, and there would be a presidency accountable to the people. My last article in the new republic was about this. Do we have a presidency accountable to the people . I think the jury is out and i am not sure we do anymore. The first article under the presidency was how to impeach one, because they thought that was so important. That it has been so little used is a good thing. It should be extremely hard to overturn an election. I dont care how badly someone has behaved, or what if we made a mistake . In whose eyes . Especially in a landslide election like 1972. 2016. Im talking about [laughter] election isndslide that, too. The first was andrew johnson, who had been abraham lincolns Vice President. Were not going to talk about andrew johnson. No, but he was undoing reconstruction and so on, it was a political thing. It was supposedly about a cabinet firing, but it was so political that he was impeached in the house, which is indictment, he was not convicted in the senate. When you are convicted, you are out of office. It failed by one vote. Fast forward, it did not happen again until nixon could until nixon. It worked in the sense that the country largely accepted it, and that was critical. We did not have a civil war over it. Then there was a very reckless and very partisan, i think, impeachment of bill clinton. He was three. Event, they said it was not about sex, it was about sex. Newt gingrich led it and he wanted to get clinton out of there. I was told by two people close to gingrich but not each other that he had some swell ideas, this was that he would get clinton impeached and that he would get more impeached for president , and then guess who gets to be president . The speaker of the house. But he was having an affair on the side, so he did not get to be president. We used it rarely, we should use it rarely. There have been proposals to make it easier, i am against that. We would be a latin american country. No offense, but with the change in the political mood, we dont want to do that. Looking at the agencies sorry, it is your show. [laughter] was going to say, we brought the landslide 1972 election. In the first couple of months, your favorite topic i know, the period when reporters were writing stories, the Washington Post was publishing them, time, the New York Times. People voted for nixon anyway. Go first, what lessons do you think the event journalistsemporary and consumers of news . How could that have i have to say, listening to your fantastic podcast, that is a part that certainly resonated the most, even more than any direct comparisons between nixon and trump. Car crashmotion nature of it as it was experienced in washington here. Slowburn. Thats a good title. [laughter] we are hearing so much in the political atmosphere that surrounds the story, is not in the east story itself that is similar. To me that is why it is fundamentally a story about washington. In many ways the book is about the Political Institutions in washington and what they do when confronted with this unthinkable mess of a problem. It is in the constitution but there is so much left to the interpretation of each generation that confronts it. These institutions, congress, the media, the white house itself, come under this enormous stress and i think behave in some on can always similar ways. To me, when you look at what is happening over the last few weeks on capitol hill, you see a lot of echoes of what congress is doing and even know it was a congress that was a Democratic Congress and a republican president during watergate and right now we have a Republican Congress and republican president , but again, that to me is where the parallels are even more striking. Almost verbatim, you put these fantastic clips on the podcast from rightwing talk radio, defenders of the president , collaboration even up to the point some would argue of collusion between republican members of the Watergate Committee and white house staffers who were receiving talking points. This stuff resonates very much. And i think the critique that was aired to the washington coast post coverage during watergate was very similar to what we heard over the last year when it comes to coverage of the russia gate scandal. We knew so much by november of 1972. We know a lot now. What we dont have is a political process that can tell us what happened. We dont even know when it comes to the Robert Mueller investigation, while impeachment itself is laid out and described is the constitution, there is no set formula. By regulations set forth. There is no straightforward procedure by which for example Robert Mueller could transmit his report to capitol hill. That has been done in the past but can start was authorized under a law that does not exist right now. Counseln independent and Robert Mueller is the special counselor of the there are processes not even set in motion you. Is Political Climate now similar in the sense that people are saying we dont have the evidence, the public doesnt care, the public cares about the economy and the stock market. With mostechoes washington scandals, frankly. One risk we have looking at the watergate parallel that i think is a danger for all of us is thinking well, because the political arguments being used a similar that somehow means the outcome will be similar. We can talk about it later, but i think the biggest change is in the media environment between now and what happened in watergate. And, you know, can anyone break through the noise . Tell us whats been happening in the last halfhour . Evan, what do you think . What can we take from the fact these stories were being written, these people were going onto his show, lying through their teeth, and people didnt seem to absorb it . I assume there are journalists in the audience, but mostly not. What does it say for consumers of news, how we should engage with this information at this stage in the process . I know the answer to that. What is it . But first you just got to hear this. It popped into my head. When you go home, assuming you all have homes, on youtube only you can now get a replay of a wonderful documentary i did about a year ago called dick cavetts, watergate. I see most of you saw it. Its really good. But today looking back at it to come here, i saw something ive never seen and ive seen it now four times. Theres a card ornamented with little phrases that nixon is famous for, others hes now. But each one somethinghe said, and im reading ask i come down to righthand corner and i see , is cavett is jew . Im not going to tell him. [laughter] thats not even the worst thing he said about you. His antisemitism is one of his wellused or frequently used traits. That and his foul language, if you heard any of the tapes. But if i were ever a little down, id go to my computer and id go to youtube, cavett, nixon and see the great unindicted coconspirator in the oval office, and its still but the language, the dialogue appears on the screen even as you hear it from the tapes. And the line that i like best is, well, it begins with what is it with cavett anyway . Oh, hes the worst. Thats h. R. Halderman. And it ends with a line that will live forever. Cavett, how can we screw him . [laughter] did they try . Did they have any ideas . Actually, they didnt heres what happened, and im so glad you asked. About a year ago i mean, about a year later, way back then, a lady on my staff ran into another lady on my staff and she said ive got problems. Im really suffering from having been audited. And the other lady said when were you audited. And she told her, and she said i was, too. I realized the son of a b the president had decided to use, in one of his hobbies, was using the irs illegally, punish my staff. And what the late Joan Crawford would call the little people, would suffer quite a bit from the audit. So he got his way, in a way. But he still did. [laughter] evan, how old were you when all this was happening . Watergate, so i was 22, 23, 24 . So were you already a reporter then . No. Well, i was briefly. I was a reporter for the borgen record. And i got arrested for covering a gang fight. They didnt want to arrest the kids, and they arrested me, the report instead. And when i free from jail i went back to had newsroom and i thought i was in trouble because i had just been arrested. I was a hero because it was a watergate summer and all reporters were heroes. And it was such a different, a different time. We were all kind of martyrs and heroes, even if it was something trivial like being arrested for the little ferry new jersey police. Did watergate change your sense of government . Obviously, it did. But did it change how you reported on the government after that . Do you think it informed your coverage of washington, just having seen what is possible in the years that came after . Highminded. Was so we saw all the president s men, and that made heroes of woodward and bernstein. I dont even mean that, but you saw what the government could do, you saw what the president could do. You can say no. [laughter] you know, this didnt start with the disbelief in government really starts with johnson, from my generation, vietnam, the credibility gap, the late 1960s. I soured on the idea of government watching linden johnson, not Richard Nixon. It was a continuum. So i was part of a generation that had already been turned off to what washington would do by the time nixon got there. Right. And i think thats an important point when we think about whats going on today. Part of what were all responding to, in a way, is just how unique donald trump is. There are echoes in history, but what we are responding to is the fact weve never had a president like donald trump. And were still looking for a with which narratice to place him. And i think the exceptional events that are happening every day, theres no continuity. There might be reaction or barack obama zigging and zagging of history, but we didnt we werent in the middle of vietnam and now were going to watergate. Theres no linear progression here. Donald trump is more like an asteroid in that sense thats descended on the oval office. What sort of ass . Asteroid. I decided something. [laughter] i forgot it. You ever do that . I think its going to come itll come back. Oh, yes, last week i had a sentimental reunion with one of my great heroes, mort sohl, whos still with us, by the way. He came back like a meteor back in the woody allen and i used to go see him every night at the basin street east along with ella fitzgerald. I remember this show, nixon, he said, is the sort of man who if you fell overboard 20 feet from shore, he would throw you a 15foot rope. [laughter] and kissinger would announce the president met you more than halfway. Wasnt it mort sahl you told me was also the person who said to you two days after the burglary, i hope this is the thing that brings him down . I dont recall that, but im willing to pretend i did if it makes you comfortable. [laughter] i was going to say a second ago, is that its very in a funny way cathartic for me to be making all of these comparisons to trump and nixon because in the show, we tried so hard to restrain ourselves and sort of just, like, say what happened and not run too, you know, aggressively towards the parallels. So it feels quite good to be finally speaking openly about it. But i do wonder, and elizabeth, i wonder what you think since you covered it then and youre covering it now, is there any point in finding those connections . Is there anything is it misleading as susan was saying to try to feel reassured by by the story that that ended the way it did . No. All right. [laughter] i dont think so. I think we can, you know, its interesting because that was about a president who had committed some problematic deeds, and the question then, with all due respect to the movie, in which i have a small role. Remember the lady with big hair was interviewing the attorney general . That was me. I was very chic at the time. Anyway, its very different. The thread that runs through it, and although watergate is often played as the cops and robbers, and its a great story, and woodward and bernstein did great journalism, so did a lot of other people. And it ended up the way it ended up. This is really very different from that. Its a different kind of the question behind both of them as i said earlier was can we hold a president accountable . And i always felt that while watergate was still a can you catch him . Where is the smoking gun . You were referring to this earlier. The hint of the proof. The room was full of smoke. All sorts of things had gone on. But a very big change i thought then and i think now the big thing is we had and we have a constitutional crisis. This one has not come to a head yet, but its building towards that. Something is going to collide one of these days if mr. Mueller does find things that he feels that trump should be held accountable for. With nixon it was a constitutional crisis in the sense that could the president be held accountable for the acts that were going on . He was defying the courts for awhile. He was defying the congress. And this wasnt the way it was supposed to work. Were kind of back at that now, and thats the thing to watch, is can this man i just wrote a piece i dont know that he can be held accountable. The big difference, susan said it was the press and shes absolutely right about that, but i think the big difference, the enormous difference, is the nature of the Republican Party is totally different than it was then. Then, you had moderates, republican moderates, you hear about them every once in awhile, but theyre very scarce. Whereas there was a great many of them in that era. The Republican Party has done a huge turn since that period. So so whereas the founders kind of counted on congress to act as a check on the president , and they did during nixons period, theyre not obviously not doing it now. And this is what i dont think any of us expected. At first ithought impeachment was more likely than i now do because i didnt expect, i dont know that anybody did, for the Republican Party to actually, not en masse but largely be the president s defender. Theyre afraid of the base. Theyre afraid of this. Theyre afraid of that. So its a totally different kind of situation. Thats why i dont think i dont know that impeachment will happen because of that, and this amendment, the 25th amendment, where some people were looking to that because the theory is if trump is crazy, and there is a lot of evidence of that, he has some very serious mental challenges, lets say. But thats not what the 25th amendment was about. It was about what happens if the president becomes disabled . Eisenhower had a couple of heart attacks or strokes. And so it was about that. It wasnt about saying he cant govern because hes nuts. It wasnt it wasnt meant for that. You can argue that hes doing what he told the public he was going to do, including building this stupid wall. So i dont know that what worked then can work again because of the political change and because nixon was no pussycat, but he had come out of the political system. He had been in the house. He had been in the senate. He had been Vice President for eight years. And though, sure he fought the independent council and he tried to withhold the tapes, he didnt go on this crusade of smearing and trying to wreck the reputation of the investigators. Nixon looks like a pussycat compared to what trump is now doing. So you have a totally different reaction on the part of the executive branch, which is very serious. Yeah. Trump i said that trump was not strategic, but nixon was strategic and trump was not. That may be wrong. Nixon trump does seems to have one strategy, and that is to delegitimize anybody who attacks him. Thats a its a gamble. I dont think its going to work. But hes trying to delegitimize the fbi, the justice department, anybody who gets in his way. And democracies depend on some faith in the legitimacy of the institutions. We have all these rules but they dont really work unless there is some trust in them and some belief in them and some credence. And in 1972, most americans had faith in their institutions by and large. Thats less true today if you look at the polling numbers. If you ask the question do you believe in the congress, the press . The military is still up there but Everything Else is down. So there is already some shakiness baked into our faith in our own institution. And trump is making this headlong attack on these institutions. Its so outrageous, i dont think its going to work. But i am anxious it will. Seems like its working. Our capacity for shock has also really diminished. I think, again, listening to some of those voices that, you know, the moments that you highlighted in watergate, the john dean testimony, the discovery of the taping system, these were moments of collective both national experience, because the media was a different beast than it is now and it wasnt the fragmented thing. So it was a National Collective experience, those hearings, number one. Number two, people could experience the shock of it, and now were overwhelmed by sort of the amorephischaos theory that trump is playing. I think that mutes the ability of even a determined committee chairman, where there to be one on capitol hill to convene and tell a powerful, coherent narrative story in a way that would build to the conclusion. Which is why i say we should just be wary to a certain extent of feeling because there are some political parallels in how were talking about trump versus how watergate was talked about , that means that the conclusion or how it will play out will be the same. But i want to flip sides quickly and actually be the optimist for one second. To elizabeths point about, is this congress basically unable to impose accountability . Is the Republican Party today so fundamentally changed that it will stick with trump forever . On this, i think the jury is really still out. And i took heart from actually reading her account and realizing that literally up until days and even hours before the House Judiciary Committee voted on the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, there were republicans on the committee who were talking with elizabeth and saying, well, im not sure, you know . I mean, i know its bad, but, you know, im not sure im a yes on this. This was a good, substantial percentage of the republicans on the Judiciary Committee who remained not only uncommitted, but gave at least a very decent semblance of being uncommitted until hours before they did, in fact, go ahead and vote en masse for nixons impeachment. So, you know, the politics dont change and trump doesnt face an accountability moment within his own party until he does. And we just dont know what that trigger might be. But i dont think that its preordained one way or the other at this point. And i also i think it is important to say, like, its rhyming, but its definitely not going to be the same thing. I mean, you know, whatever this accountability moment is that were building towards, the facts of the story are very different, and, by the way, we did a great interview, elizabeth and i, for my podcast, and she made the argument in that conversation that this could turn out to be worse than watergate in some significant way. We dont know what the answer to it is yet, but the allegation of systemic russian interference in our election in 2016, possible hacking that were still not aware of into our state electoral systems, as well as obtaining the internal emails of the Democratic National committee and releasing them, allegedly, in collusion in some way, shape or form with the trump campaign, these are very serious facts out that actually go to the heart of the electoral process in a way that you can argue, you know, nixon might not have even known about the burglary at the watergate. So, again, i dont know the answer to it yet, but i dont rule it out. Yeah. So were going to open it up to questions in a second. So if you have questions, we have a mic here. Do we have a mic there . No, just over there. So while you guys think of your questions, i want to ask dick one last thing. Dick, i think you gave me one of my favorite moments in the show in the First Episode when you said, you know, i look back on watergate as almost like you would your summer in paris when you were a student. Because it was just so fun. [laughter] it was this strange mix of dread and anxiety and fun. Yeah. Are we ever going to look back on this period with nostalgia . [laughter] well, its so bursting with fun right now that we cant be sure. One of the best moments on dick cavetts watergate, youtube, is gore vidal. What a shame he hasnt been around for this. He said on my show, when i get up in the morning, i cant wait for my watergate fix. People identify with that now, i think. But its it was such fun to wake up back then. The next chapter in this. It was really a mix of nervous laughter and fear and wed laugh at wed laugh at the latest absurdity, you know . These brilliant guys who were running the plumbers, how did they find out they were there . Well, they had pictures taken of themselves in front of dr. Fieldings doors. And here we are using cia equipment. So these were not longterm thinkers. [laughter] but we would be on the phone and sort of hear a funny noise and, oh, i wonder if i was being wiretapped. It was a nervous fear, laughter at the absurdity, but it was a very uneasy, uneasy time. We didnt know what they would do next. Dick mentioned being on the enemies list. This is considered an honor, kind of, but it was if you were on the enemies list, you were ripe for being wiretapped and getting audited by the irs. It wasnt funny. The president picking out enemies to go after. Its true. What did you stay . I stead tis true, tis pity. Shakespeare. You know, the englishman . [laughter] thank you. Ive been a big fan and grateful for your writing for decades since i was a teenager. I wanted to ask you guys about the pardon of ford by ford of nixon. And specifically like, i remember it at eight being furious about it. [laughter] at eight . At eight, yeah. I was my mother had me very politically animated. But i remember reading later, i didnt know this at the time, that ford would carry around with him a line from early 20th Century Court case saying if you accepted a pardon it was an admittance of guilt. Just wondering what you guys know about that. If you can illuminate whether it was healing for the country as he often said was his intention. Was there any sort of teal between the two of them . Anything you know from your time in reporting or journalism then. Thank you. Im the fossil who was there then. I was unfashionable. I thought it was the right thing to do. There is no evidence that the fix was in. Nobody ever found it. Ford even as president had to go up and testify before the congress. I thought it was the right thing to do because i thought ford was right. If we went on with another year of being totally distracted by a trial of Richard Nixon, it just would have been, you know, it was enough. And it wasnt that he didnt suffer. This man had spent his life wanting to be president. He finally got there and then, look. Hes thrown out. Hes the first president , the only president thus far, to have been thrown out of the office. He was sick. He was out of money. He had big legal bills stack up. Being nixon, he made the greatest resurrection since you know what. And he made a lot of money off his books and went around making speeches. And he moved to new york and became the toast of new york, but thats new yorks problem. [laughter] so there were five president s at his funeral. Endured his funeral. It was wonderful. All these president s turned out. Bob dole had a phony tear coming down his cheek. [laughter] Henry Kissinger managed to make his voice crack and all that,. But as far as the i dont know, youve done a lot of journalism about this, too, but i dont know if anybody found anything. And i think i thought ford did the right thing. It was time to calm down, put it behind us and get on with attending to the countrys other business. Show less text other business. I think ford definitely did the right thing. It was politically brave. He dropped the largest oneday drop in gallup history. He dropped 26 points in the polls when he pardoned. Politically courageous. There is an argument it cost him the election. There is actually a tiny bit of evidence that the fix was in. That al hague went to ford. Its all inference and signals and winking and nodding. I dont know what to believe about it, but there is a little there is a suggestion that ford signalled to al hague, to the president s chief of staff that if nixon went, hague would pardon them. Wasnt there something where al hague said if you dont promise him a pardon, hes just going to off himself . I dont remember that. If he doesnt remember, its its not true. There is a winking and nodding scene between them. You can interpret it different ways. Depends how they cast the movie. But i dont make that much of it. The real point is that ford did the right thing. He spared the country trauma. It was politically brave. He deserves credit for it. Should we take one more . First of all, thank you so much for the podcast. It was wonderful. Thank you. And to all of you, you know, for the part you took. I was wondering if just because this is such rich material, and only eight episodes. I didnt live through this. Ive been reading about it since i was 10. I wonder if you would consider revisiting this . Already . I think it was alive for the impeachment of bill clinton, but i would love to see i would love to hear more on this. Because i dont want to leave out mr. Cavett, is it true that you were the first person to realize spiro agnews name was an anagram bless your heart. [laughter] thank you for letting me get the laugh. People say dumb things like, who has been your favorite guest . When they say who is everybody sits down. Did i take your question . But theyre i realized last time somebody said who was your worst guess . I said that one can be answered, spiro agnew. He was new on the scene. They booked him on the show. The white house put him on the show. And said he would be fine. And we had a punch board, what do you call it . They had put up cartoons of his because he was being caricatured by all the great caricaturists and they said hell have amusing things to say. The first one, the cartoonist makes your eyes sort of a narrow line, and he said yes. [laughter] he didnt elaborate. Which one was the anagram . Im coming to that one. Nothing. I cut the thing shorter than it was supposed to be. Thanked him very much for being there. Just as he was pulling away in the limousine, i realized with my anagram gift that spiro agnew also spells grow a penis. Check it out. Gorvy dahl said it could also spell grow a spine, but yours is better. [laughter] all right. How do you follow that . Yeah, okay [laughter] how do you like that introduction . So i think that one of the things that scares me personally about this administration that i think might have that is different from any other is this idea of an enemies list and who is who is american and who is unamerican. Were starting to see little whispers about mccarthyism. And are these members of the fbi, are they conspiring . It kind of reminded me of, you know, what i learned in school was, there are, you know, ex many communists in the department of defense and x i wanted to get your thought. Are we going towards that line where someone is going to have to go up to capitol hill and say, you know, have you, like, no decency . Susan, do you want to take that one . Well, theyre not going to go up to capitol hill and go to the senate trump hearings unless there is a political change in the country, but politics is a tribal business and, you know, trump has succeeded in becoming a very unlikely president by being very good at defining tribes and getting people to believe that he was that he was leading one of them. And i think that its not, you know, for one person, its an enemys list. Now its cataloging all the nasty nicknames that donald trump, you know, calls people he doesnt like. Theyre not really different things. I mean, i dont think in that sense that there is a big difference between Richard Nixon and donald trump in that sense. Theyre doing what successful politicians do, and negative campaigning works. Defining your tribe as against another is what works in our politics. Its what works in other countries politics. And, you know, i think it was elizabeth who earlier this evening pointed out that Richard Nixon couldnt tell the difference between opponents and enemies. I think its a good line. Its a fair question to ask about donald trump as well. Anyone else . Next question. I think one of the key differences, i think that ive noticed between trump and nixon in terms of just the water theyre swimming in is the difference in the media landscape now versus then. Not having lived through it, im sort of asking for the wisdom of the panel, but my perception is that back in the day of nixon, the media was mormone monolithic, meaning you had cronkite people saying, you know, i think it was john saying if ive lost cronkite, ive lost the nation. You dont have that. You dont have that one voice or even that sort of one movement. Whereas now the media seems to be broken up into clearly delineated fiefdoms of power trying to vie for access and the ear of the nation. I was wondering if the panel could speak to that in terms of the difference between the time period . Elizabeth . Well, one big difference is that as you say back then, there were three networks and they reached everybody. I think at 6 30 p. M. , Something Like 90 of all tv sets in america would be on to three networks. And they tended to be because they had such a mass audience pretty middle of the road. There was an argument that they were left, but they were if they were left, they were still close to the center. There was no fox in those days. Now its more tribal now. You know . The fox and rightwing media is much more powerful obviously than it was then. So the media is more divided and more and more split than it was. There is more of a media to carry trumps water, so to speak. But, but the New York Times and the Washington Post are still pretty powerful. People listen to them. Maybe not the whole country but a lot of people listen to them. And they have a legitimacy still thats important. And the media will work with agencies of government in this way that it always has of basically investigators and congressional people leaking to them. That is still powerful. Trump is a fool to make an enemy out of the fbi. You . They are the ones who have the power to investigate. And the intelligence community, same thing. Theyre going to leak to the New York Times and the Washington Post and the wall street journal. That sort of hasnt changed. Thats a powerful Deterrent Force still, even though trump can count on breitbart and fox and all of that, and thats im not minimizing that. Thats significant. I wouldnt count out the old lamestream media has got some real power still. [applause] you know well, one i agree, but i think its important to say that the problem is for our attention. And i think this issue of being overwhelmed in, you know, the chaos and the confusion and the just deluge of information that were living in makes it much harder to follow that story line that is being reported so very well right now by the Washington Post, by the New York Times. You know, its not i think youre absolutely right that the power remains of those institutions, that the power of their journalism is significant, but i think our ability to process it as citizens, you talked about us as the audience in effect for this journalism. Our ability to process it i think is daily compromised by an information flood that didnt exist, even if arguably, you know, our politics werent all that different, we were a partisan, we were tribal, we were all those things before. So i worry about that a lot. When it comes down to the evidence being presented, are we even capable of processing it anymore . Elizabeth, were you going to Say Something . Well, ive been asked, do you wish that during watergate you had had all of these various outlets . And i said, god no. There was no internet. There was no twitter. There was nothing like that. Susan is right that what we have now is a kind of overload of all of this stuff coming in, but i think we do sort of process it. You sort of get to, you know, there will be A Ron Johnson who thinks there is a conspiracy in the next room because here are all these journalists and people gathered and were probably cooking up a plot, but then someone will say, no, you actually misread it, its i think the basic themes are still there. What are the questions . The main questions. Being did our president obstruct justice . I think the answer to that is in. I dont know why lawyers are still saying, well, its a big question, you know, again, its a partner and practice. We can all name five or six things already that he has done. And evidence taking on the fbi is very stupid. The thing is, it doesnt make any sense to me because there is also the possibility that the fbi elected him by coming out with this were reopening the clinton investigation ten days before the election. Meanwhile, they were also investigating trump but nobody knew it. So i think trump ought to take them a plaque and say thank you very much. [laughter] but it is more confusing now because rumors will start. Many off the wall, and there are some, members of congress can come up with these crazy theories. Youre finding out there are some very good ones. People very serious about it and trying to get the straight story. I thought you meant good rumors. I dont know that there are good rumors. There are some we call too good to check. But, i mean, there are im quite serious about this, there arent people are people in the congress who know that something went terribly wrong and that russia did interfere with our last election. I notice that everybody always says, but there is no evidence that it affected things. We dont know that. You dont know what happens when they listen to 100 podcasts or whatever it was. You dont know. And i think so its a deathly serious question. And the next question is, not are we doing anything about it, were not, why arent we doing anything about it . The next layer of question is, did this president ial group conspire, forget collude, conspire with the russians, and, you know, did they play with each other to get this done . I think there is pretty much there is a lot of smoke that suggests that they did, but we dont know yet. Im sure someone could fall for the lack of a smoking gun, which is kind of a silly point but its still a point. Its still confusing but i think out of it the basic themes are coming through. The really quite stupid stuff, i mean, ron johnsons fake conspiracy, that kind of went down the drain after a little while. I think now nobodys going to listen to him anymore, but its vastly more confusing. But i think we can still get to the point. Thank you. Hi. We have time for one more. Sorry. No pressure. Well be around afterwards so my favorite episode was the one where you talked about the people who stayed loyal to nixon and really stuck with him despite all this evidence. I know how you talked about how they ultimately fell and why, but im just wondering if there were any legitimate figures politically or in the country who stayed loyal even after nixon stepped down and what their reasoning was and why they didnt get with the rest of the country around not supporting him anymore. Episode 8 ends with the resignation so i dont know. There were. There were a couple. There were a couple of republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who did not vote for the articles of impeachment. I dont i cant get into anybodys head as to exactly why they did it. They may have thought that the punishment was too severe. They may have thought he was getting a bum wrap. They might have liked him. There is always a possibility. The point is, i always said nixon had a base until he didnt. He had a base, too, but when he didnt have it susan there was no fox then. There was no organized backing of nixon the way there is now. And they didnt have the outlets that the farright has. There certainly was not this kind of noise on the hill. There was nobody up there doing this kind of defending. Who are these people in new york you were mentioning who toasted him in the town . I can spend a lot of time on this. Its a lot of fun. Its in the afterwards to my book, after he left office. How did he get from the bottom to being listed as one of the eight most influential people in the country, in the world kind of thing. Nixon moved no various coops wouldnt have him. They said it was because his security would be noisy. That could also be true. So he bought a brownstone in the upper east side. His great triumph, of course, was the opening to china. No one can take that away from him. It was a farsighted and a smart thing to do and he did it well. He got a little carried away with this. He deb rated his house, his townhouse in chinese i guess sanchez was no longer with him. He had chinese waiters and once a week or so he would have a dinner, chinese food, and he would invite certain people of new york. It got to be the point, hardly ever a woman you were always stag. I think Barbara Walters was invited once, but it was all men other than that. And he had a routine and he thought he was the greatest martini mixer ever and he mixed the martinis and i can go through the whole thing. Served chinese food. And nixon thought he was quite a card. So at about 10 quarter of 11 00, they were return to the living room to continue the discussion. At quarter of 11 00, he would figure out who was the most famous person in the room and look at the clock over the mantle piece, its quarter of 11 00 and i promised to get Henry Kissinger to the house of prostitution before 11 00 so we have to stop. He was very funny. Who ever asked if we are going to revisit it, that might be a good subject. Maybe you have an answer to this, too. Who were the people that stuck with him and continued standing by him . Oh, you know what i wonder . You might have been about to ask this. I wonder how many of the young people not versed in all of this realize that he was pardoned. What do you mean . He was pardoned of his crimes. Gerald ford pardoned him. Yeah. And Stewart Alsop wellremembered for the other folks, Stewart Alsops, i did a show with Stewart Alsop as he was dying and he was beautifully spoken and a charming man. I said, what how do you feel about nixon as a man . That was one of nixons favorite words, has a real man. Psychiatrists dont have much trouble with that. He said, he was here late one night, alsop said, and i said, dick, is there anybody in the world, a friend that you can relax with . And he said no. I said, there isnt anybody . Not even pat . And he said no. And he felt sorry for him. Which was not my goal tonight. Sorry, he lied then, too, because he did have one friend. And what he liked about bibiis is that they got out for hours. He had another friend robert who invented the aerosol spray. They would go out for hours on this boat that he had. What he loved about bibi is that he never talked. They just didnt talk. That made him Wonderful Company as far as nixon was concerned. I want to end there. Thats the clip i wanted to use in the episode so badly that i had to cut at the last second. Im so glad that we could end there. So thanks to everyone on the panel. Thank you so much for being here. [applause] were going to be milling around. So if you have questions. Thank you to faith smith for organizing this lovely event. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] today, reporters from the Washington Post and New York Times discussed the russia investigation being led by special counsel Robert Mueller. That is part of the annual george polk awards that get underway at 11 00 eastern on cspan. Presidency,d the White House Press secretary Sarah Sanders and journalists who cover the trump administration. It is hosted by the White House Correspondents Association on 6 30 p. M. Eastern. Cspans washington journal, with policy issues that impact you. Coming up, lanny davis, bill clintons former special counsel. Former cia director james comey and the 2016 election. Buzzof fox channels media talks about president trumps relationship with the news media. ,tch washington journal coming up at 7 30 this morning. Join the discussion. Cspans history series starts monday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern with a look at the Supreme Court decision. Exploring this case are sarah peterson, associate law professor. Watch landmark cases live monday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Cspan. Org, or listen with the cspan radio. Order a copy of the landmark cases available for 8. 95. And for an additional resource there is a link on our website. Next former representatives join their wives to discuss life in the public eye and the challenges of balancing family. From the national archives, this is an hour and a half. Good evening, and welcome to the national archives. I am the archivist of the united states