Transcripts For CSPAN3 Richard Nixons Resignation 20140810

News special report from that evening, leading into president nixons Oval Office Address to the nation. This is a cbs news special report. Here again is walter cronkite. President nixon makes what it seems will be his last address from the white house. He goes on the air, and it is reported he will announce his resignation as president of the United States. That has seemed to be the fact in the last nine and a half hours at any rate, as he called the Vice President into the oval office for a one hour and 10 minutes have a conversation with him this morning. He reportedly told him he has decided and will announce tonight on his resignation. George herman is at capitol hill for the senate view on the question which now is being asked on whether some sort of immunity might be offered to the president against prosecution for any wrongdoing in the white house during his administration. George . The legal discussion between my colleague dan and fred graham went on with some interest. Up here, i guess you would have to say it is not viewed so much as a legal question as it is as a political question. I think the members of the senate i talked to were more concerned with what they would call the practical political realities of the situation. Some of them feel, for example, that if there were a sense of a Congress Resolution that the president should be granted immunity, most probably, most prosecutors, especially federal prosecutors under president gerald ford most federal prosecutors would not prosecute, because of the practical politics of the situation. But because of the practical politics of the situation. Some members of the senate see the question of immunity as part of what my colleague called pleabargaining. I do not know if you could call it resignation pleabargaining. On that, i think it is pretty clear they have been doing political oldfashioned body english, tried to send a message to the white house without saying it in so many words. Senator mansfield and senator byrd have said publicly, via the media, that if there is to be a successful resignation, meaning a resignation that leaves the country, happy, united or comparatively happy, united without a bitter taste in its mouth that it must admit to some degree of guilt on the part of the president. In other words, he cannot simply say i am bowing out because it is for the good of the country, or i am bowing out because my leaders in the congress, both houses, have told me i have to, because i am going to be impeached and convicted. They feel he must come out with a resignation which admits to some guilt on his part for the good of the country. That is the way they see it. They have been trying a little bit of the carrot and the stick. If he does not resign in that form, with some admission of guilt, the impeachment could go on. Senator mansfield twice on tuesday and wednesday said he thought it was too late. Things have gone too far. The trial would have to go on. That is not a view that is generally shared up here, but a lot of senators appreciated that senator mansfield and senator robert byrd of virginia were sending that message to the president. If you dont come up with a resignation which was acceptable, we still have this alternative. We still could go through this. That is not widely agreed to in the house. Speaker carl albert has demured to that. On the other hand, the question of immunity has many dimensions. Speaker albert does not feel that is the business of the legislative branch of the government, because immunity can only be granted by the executive branch, where the prosecution would be continued. But as i mentioned earlier on, senator javits views that it would be kind to take this burden away from incoming president gerald ford, so that he would not be forced to make the decision to whether he would allow prosecution of the man who made him Vice President , and subsequently is making him president , so that congress could take this painful decision away from the new president , gerald ford, and make it for him, not in a fully legal sense, but in a political sense, set the stage, set the emotions of the nation so that it would not be wise or fruitful for any prosecutor to try him. None of this, of course, applies to the question discussed by dan and fred of being witness at the trial. It applies only to immunity. On that score, i think what you is two days,e now perhaps two and a half days of body english by the congress, trying to extract from the president , without doing it in so many words, the kind of resignation they would like to see. One thing to mention, and that is the dilemma of the republican members they wanted to get the word to the president that his chances were virtually nil. On the other hand, they did not want to fall into the trap of urging him to resign. That could lead the president to say in his resignation speech or in history books to come that he wanted to stay on, that he believed he was innocent, but he was urged and even pressured by his own party. You see a very careful maneuvering, a very careful sending of signals, of messages, without putting them into words which could then be quoted. Only time will tell whether they have succeeded or not. Walter, i guess, we will have to wait and see. That speculation leaves one other possibility, of course. That is, the president could be sued in a civil action. There is almost no way i can think of, or than i have heard, that immunity could be granted in that case. Indeed, it would be most unfair and hardly equitable to do so, since the civil action is the action of one citizen against another citizen. You could not legislate against the right of another citizen to sue, i should think. To the best of my knowledge, i do not think it has come up at all. Various legal possibilities have been discussed, that they have but they have almost all had to do with forms of direct immunity. I do not think any group in Congress Wants to put itself out on that particular limb, which if i can mix metaphors, would be an awfully sticky one. We continue to wait for the president to speak. We have been around the country at a couple of locations where they are waiting. Sandy gilmore of kmoxtv in st. Louis is waiting with some of them. A suburban st. Louis shopping and entertainment center. I think you could best describe the mood here of being one of anticipation, relief, and resentment. This is the show me state of missouri, and many here say they need to be shown that the president is guilty and not simply being railroaded out of office by democrats, and also by the media. We have been hearing comments all day like, you newspeople got what you wanted, and mr. Nixon should stay and fight it out. I talked with a democratic ward boss who owns a bar in a workingclass neighborhood. He said the regulars feel a resignation will hurt the country. They said the country was falling apart. What would the russians think . They will think we are weak, he said. Many people here are still arguing. They are arguing the president s guilt or innocence. If the president s statement falls short of a confession, if it comes out to be another checkers piece, then many people here will still say that president nixon has been unjustly ousted from the white house. Sandy gilmore, cbs news, st. Louis. Walter . The man whom president nixon defeated for the presidency in 1968, Hubert Humphrey of minnesota, Vice President under lyndon johnson, burdened with the vietnam war as his principal difficulty, presumably in getting to the presidency himself president nixon defeated him by 0. 7 in a very close race. Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey was interviewed earlier today in minneapolis by rod challenger of wccotv. Calling for the president s resignation, wishing to keep it out of partisan politics. But he says now that resignation was the right choice, both for nixon and the nation. I believe the nation needs relief from this tremendous tension under which it has been for the last year, year and a half. There is a need of getting our country back together again, getting on with the business of government, the tremendous problems facing us. The nation needs to be brought back together. We have simply got to get ourselves to restore our sense of confidence and restore trust in government. How do you think history will judge the nixon presidency . Mixed. In the field of Foreign Affairs, it will be judged well. In the field of domestic affairs, i think poorly. In the matter of the conduct of the office, particularly in these recent months, i think it will be judged harshly. Should mr. Nixon be granted immunity from criminal prosecution by congress . That is a matter that will have to have careful study. There is no need to hurry on this. The president will have suffered greatly, may i say, simply by the resignation, having to give up his office. I am not one that wants to pin somebody to the wall, so to speak. This is rod challenger in minneapolis. This coverage continues throughout this evening. The president s speech due in about 20 minutes from now. We will be back with more of this special report in a moment. With president nixons administration presumably with only hours yet to run, reports very strong that he will resign when he goes on the air 15 or so minutes from now. We have had no contraindications certainly for the last 10 or 12 hours. What about this matter of president ial power . Has the lesson come through, with the balance between the executive and the legislative be greater in this next administration . I think it well. I think it will. It is natural and human nature that a force going a certain direction keeps going that direction until it meets an obstacle, and a big one. This tide, this high tide of the socalled imperial presidency has been going on since franklin roosevelt. It has been carried on to its ultimate extreme, i think, by mr. Nixon. It is no accident that his man John Erlichmann said, of course we have oneman rule, because he is the only National Elected officer. That was the state of mind. I think you will get a new ballot. Mr. Ford now becomes president. He comes in with one great advantage. The people will wish him well. He has the sympathy of the country. His great disadvantage will be that he will be the first president not elected either as Vice President or president by the people, and the man he picks as Vice President presumably also will not have been elected. We have never had a situation like this. And he of course will have the congress against him politically. In party terms. Mr. Nixon was the first man to take over the presidency in his first term, with both houses against him. The first man for over 100 years. The same will be true of mr. Ford. He will have maybe a bigger democratic majority after the election in november. But there will be a different kind of a balance, at least for some time. Congress has already restricted president ial warmaking powers. It has already arranged for much Greater Authority over the budget making process as it goes along. That will make a big difference. It wants now to limit the size of white house staff, president ial personal staff, and their immunity of testifying before congress, and that type of thing. And the courts have asserted once again their supremacy in matters of law, as to what the constitution means, what the law is. They say they shall determine that whether it is the president or whoever it is that tries to act or think otherwise. This is bound to be a new balance. The congress will have to, is going to exert more authority. More lead. Find moreg to have to ways to conduct daytoday business. It has to be more efficient. I think we will be talking about this much more later on, when we really know what happens tonight at the white house. And we should emphasize that in all of this conversation, we are going on the assumption that the president is going to resign. That assumption is based on the considerable fact from the day, the fact that House Minority leader john rhodes, early in the afternoon, shortly afternoon, shortly after noon, said that president nixon would announce his resignation today. Many high white house sources confirm that two newsmen at the white house. President nixon has been closeted this afternoon with his speechwriter, ray price, Vice President ford, after an hour and 10 minute meeting with the president this morning, then this afternoon met for two hours with secretary of state kissinger, talking about Foreign Affairs and a continuation of them, as we understand it. We have heard tonight that president nixon is planning to fly tomorrow with his family to san clemente, and not in the president s own plane, air force one, but one of the vip planes made available to the white house staff. It all points to resignation tonight when the president goes on the air about 15 minutes from now. Tonight events are being closely watched not only here of course, but around the world as well. Lets call in some of our foreign correspondents. Bruce dunning, in tokyo, japan. In asia, the fate of Henry Kissinger is about as important as the fate of Richard Nixon. Most statesmen expect kissinger would remain secretary of state at least for a few months, to lend continuity to American Foreign policy, the most important issue for asian governments. Probably most worried about mr. Next ands possible departure would be the Chinese Government in peking. Mr. Nixon is a symbol of chinas improved relations with the west. The resignation could undermine the man who invited mr. Nixon to pay king. King. Observers disagree on which direction this will take, but the man who led for the United States has been seriously ill. Some people think his power has been eroded. The Chinese Government reportedly is questioning peking verylomats in closely about the impeachment process and what effect mr. Nixons departure might have on u. S. China relations. But so long as kissinger stays on, at least through a transition, most asian governments should feel reassured that a resignation by the president would not be disastrous for the world situation. Walter . After the new administration comes in, secretary of state kissinger will be on the wing again around the world, reassuring our allies as well as those with whom we have been attempting to establish detente, years of ast few , continuation of the nixon Foreign Policy under his successor president ford. It may be that president ford himself will wish to engage in some summitry of that nature. That we will learn later as well. Besides those watching halfway around the world in tokyo of course there are those with a , closeup view, right outside the white house grounds. Bob schieffer is there with them in lafayette park. Bob . We were talking a moment ago about what some of the effects might be of a transition. One of those that many of the officials at the pentagon are wondering about is the effect of a transition from a Nixon Administration to a ford administration. This afternoon we talked to , several people at the pentagon about that, and they told us a transition would be easy for the pentagon. In the first place, they say mr. Fords views on National Defense are very much like those of mr. Nixon. They point out mr. Ford is well grounded in defense matters. For many years, he was a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee. N he was in the house are house of representatives, it was while he served on the committee that he became very good friends with former secretary of defense laird. He was also a member of that committee. Mr. Ford is wellversed on defense matters and is up to speed, you might say, on what is going on. He gets regular briefings from members of the National Security council staff. At one point, you will remember, Vice President ford seemed to feel that the current secretary of defense James Schlesinger simply did not have the political expertise to sell the pentagons programs on capitol hill. He said at one point that if by some chance he should become president , he would try to find another secretary of defense. Mr. Ford, when he made those remarks, thought they were being made off the record. He was genuinely embarrassed when they showed up in print. Since that time he has made a , real effort to get to know mr. Schlesinger. He talks to schlesinger often on the phone and often has breakfast with him. The result, aides say, is that mr. Ford is going to have a real appreciation of mr. Schlesinger and his abilities. The bottom line of it all is, if mr. Ford does become president , he is expected to ask mr. Schlesinger to stay on as the chief of the pentagon. And mr. Schlesinger is expected to stay. If he becomes president ford, his attitude all along has been that, on the economy, he goes along with the chairman of the federal reserve, the board, mr. Arthur burns, in believing that one way to bring the economy under control is to cut back very severely in government expenditures, except for the pentagon. He believes in maintaining a strong defense, regardless of cost presumably. That is right. Now he the budget time and time again on capitol hill. One thing that people at the pentagon were talking about today is, they expect the pentagon to have a bigger voice at the white house. They expect more direct contact between the secretary of defense on a facetoface basis with president ford. He would not comment on it officially, though we have determined that until the Cabinet Meeting this week, had he had not even talked with president nixon since well before the crisis in cyprus. Now, they expect a much more open relationship. We have heard frequently about the president s relationships with most of the cabinet members. It is expected that gerald ford will have a closer relationship with all of his cabinet members, and be much more open, the access will be to him, by all of the staff. Speaking of briefings by the military, in an interview with the New York Times this morning, he said he felt entirely prepared to take over the presidency, that in the six or eight months he has been Vice President that he has had regular briefings at the state department, the cia that he has had weekly meetings with the white house Congressional Liaison man, that he has visited every executive department, conferred with every cabinet member and most of their aides. So he feels he is coming to the presidency fully prepared to take over. Americans are waiting for that speech, due less than 10 minutes from now, all across america. That includes San Francisco, where Richard Correll go reports. Walter, San Francisco has never been very friendly to Richard Nixon. They voted 32 for mcgovern in 1972. Most of the people in. Delhi square are tourists who come to get away from it all. Not all of them appreciate affairs of state like the resignation of a president intruding on a vacation. Some of the people we talked to here, watching the news on television, were not even aware of developments the last few days. As the time approaches for the president s speech, the crowds are growing, almost like reading tomorrows newspaper today. They know what is going to happen, and they want to see it. You do not cents much joy or sour among sense much joy or sour among people here. You see a kind of stunned suspense, as if it all has not taken hold. It is as if it is happening in some other country, to some other people. With you a little later on this evening for reaction after the president s speech. The speech is due in eight or nine minutes. We understand the speech of the president , in which he is expected to announce his resignation from office, will begin about 45 seconds after 9 00, to permit time for the networks to join them after the beginning of the hour. It will begin at about that time. One of the important elements of the whole dramatic story today is the reaction on capitol hill, of course. The congress, the executive branch of the tripartite system, has played a major role in the downfall of president nixon, in the sense that it was the Senate Watergate committee that exposed for the first time, or confirmed to the public for the first time, the exposure that has been taking place in the news media on the extent of white house involvement in watergate and associated matters. It was a House Judiciary Committee that 10 days ago voted to recommend to the house the impeachment of the president. Roger mudd, his beat is capitol hill, and he is probably as close to the mood of congress as any man i know. Roger . Walter, it is hard to forget tonight that gerald ford once said that an Impeachable Offense is what a majority of the congress at any one time says it is. And that definition can be filled out now by just reporting that it turns out the Impeachable Offense committed by Richard Nixon was, in effect, making fools of many members of the congress. By releasing the transcripts of june 23, 1972, he in effect destroyed, or helped destroy for a day or two, the credibility of about 10 members of the House Judiciary Committee. Therefore, members of the congress now are very wary about going out on a limb in defense of the president , or declaring themselves as being in favor of a grant of immunity. Congressmen are really not aware of what Public Opinion is on a possible jail term against the president. They are decidedly ambivalent about it. They are afraid to say that the president should be granted immunity. And yet senator brooks so poignantly said tonight on the evening news, i do not want an american president behind bars. It is a very difficult position for a congressman to be in, and as a consequence, most congressmen are trying to thread their way between these two shoals. Giving him a blanket grab of immunity, or letting him stay in stand his own chance. The heaviest difficulty the president faces is what he already knows is coming. The watergate grand jury named him as an unindicted coconspirator. If the president is not given a grant of some sort of immunity that would stay the hand of federal prosecutors, it is very likely that a federal grand jury in could be reassembled, and the president of the United States, the expresident , could be indicted as a coconspirator in the watergate coverup. Politically, the whole situation on the hill is now very fluid, because the democrats lose by this change of power. Mr. Ford is now a viable, candid, honest, open president of the United States, who immediately picks up an enormous reservoir of respect and goodwill from the public. Democrats, walter, have openly admitted that they would prefer to have Richard Nixon stay, because politically it would be much easier for them in 1976. I dont know what this does to the republican aspirants for the president ial nomination in 1976. Charles percy, who obviously wanted to be president i think he still does said this afternoon that his candidacy would have to be put on the back burner. I asked him, you are not turning off the stove, are you . He said he would not turn off the stove. We should remember, roger, that Vice President ford said right after he became Vice President and for some months thereafter, although i do not think we have heard it for a while, but he would not be a candidate for the presidency in 1976, what i do not think anybody would bet on that tonight. Lets recount quickly in the next two minutes before the president is due to speak the events of the last few days. As you all know, on monday evening, president nixon released transcripts of a june 23, 1972 conversation, three of them, with h. R. Haldeman, which revealed he did know the details of the watergate breakin long before, earlier than he said he knew of it, and he had instructed haldemen to see if he could enlist the cia to call the fbi off from that investigation. It seemed to be an admission of what indeed was included in the charges of article one of the house judiciarys vote on impeachment, a charge of obstructing justice in trying to cover up the watergate affair. As soon as that happened, the leaders on capitol hill and his friends on capitol hill, his defenders in the House Judiciary Committee, among others, and those in the senate, began hour by hour their announcements of dropping away from his support. That was the beginning of the headlong retreat from president nixon, and the last chapter then seemed to be inevitable. That chapter began developing really this morning as Vice President ford was called into oval office, and the president sat with him for an hour and 10 minutes of private conversation. The reports began flooding washington immediately thereafter that the president would resign tonight, and it was announced he would make an announcement. It has not been officially said by president ford or president nixon that the president would resign tonight, but all the indications certainly have been that. We have even been told that the president has the intention of leaving with his family for san clemente tomorrow. Vice president ford, it has been reported, would take the oath of office at noon tomorrow, and would go on the air tomorrow night with his first address to the American People as the 38th president of the United States. This is indeed a historic day, the only time a president has ever resigned from office in our nearly 200 years of history. You see the white house there. In the white house, in just a few moments now, president nixon will be appearing before the people, perhaps for the last time as president of the United States. He is ready before the cameras and microphones now, and we will be going in just a few seconds into that room, where the president will make his fateful announcement to the American People. We are standing by now for president Richard Milhouse nixon, 37th president of the United States