could easily win a national election. he had left the 1960 election which he lost narrowly to john f. kennedy with bitterness. and a sense the election had been stolen from him. this allowed the demon that is he always had within him to play during elections. it is about lust for power and absence of morality. it was all about holding on to power. no one can find out about this. whatever it takes. when the president does it it means that it is not illegal. i told the american people i did not trade hostages for arms. there will not be an abuse of power in this office. he develops weapons of mass destruction. we are in trouble. i just want to find 11,780 votes. and that s really when you reach a tipping point in a democracy. that s how dictators come to power. within hours of the arrests at the watergate, the nixon white house started covering up. i was the desk officer of the cover-up. i get the information and gather it and i share it and they were maki
Met with halderman and dean. they discussed how to stop the patman investigation. stand up there in front of the cams ra. it could have been a disaster. nixon really couldn t withstand a wide open investigation. the members will vote to give the american people the facts, all the facts about this political espionage or shut the door. the solution was let s just get rid of it. use the republican power on the hill to block it. they went to gerald ford who was the republican leader in the house of representatives and asked him to marshal the republican votes on the pat marn committee to oppose any investigation and ford did that. 15-20. the resolution lost. so we lost the vote 20-15.