Watergate, page 87
“Bob, the stability”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 192.
“Dear Mr. Cox”: Ibid., 192–93.
“Well, you’ve got guts”: Ibid., 193.
“Now, though numberless fates”: Thomas, Being Nixon, 472.
Chapter 42 “We Have No Functional President”
“Will you get off my back?”: Isaacson, Kissinger, 525.
one of which was being held for columnist Art Buchwald’s birthday: Graham, Personal History, 491.
“Nothing in or out”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 194.
“Please, just don’t take”: Ibid., 196.
“The president’s failure once again”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 142.
“Whether ours shall continue to be a government”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 198.
“Everything has happened so suddenly”: Ibid.
“I suppose ‘Saturday Night Involuntary Manslaughter’ ”: Bork, Saving Justice, 84.
“Catastrophes don’t call”: Ibid., 89.
“[Petersen] was flabbergasted”: Ibid., 87.
“ferocious intensity”: Nixon, RN, 935.
“It seems to me the President is almost intent”: Jules Witcover, “Pressure for Impeachment Mounting,” Washington Post, October 21, 1973, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/102173–1.htm.
Nearly a half-million mailgrams: Gormley, Archibald Cox, 362.
“Every action that the president took”: Drew, Washington Journal, 58.
“We have reason to believe that some very serious crimes”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 146.
Monday morning, worried that their offices: Ibid., 147.
“abort the established processes”: Ibid., 150.
“I’ve carried Nixon’s flag”: Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, 275.
“Why waste our resignations?”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 150.
“Our job is to rub their noses”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 212.
“I hope you guys have strong cases”: Ibid., 214.
“If you want Republican members”: Ibid., 219.
“No other President”: Price, With Nixon, 263.
The mood of the body: Ervin, The Whole Truth, 243–44.
“Resolved, that Richard M. Nixon, President”: Fields, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, 50.
“to go slow”: Marjorie Hunter, “House Pressing Its Drive for Impeachment Inquiry,” New York Times, October 24, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/10/24/80809839.html?pageNumber=34.
“I was just plain”: Sirica, To Set the Record Straight, 168.
“Which government?”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 152.
Sirica was so nervous: Sirica, To Set the Record Straight, 177.
“I knew the president loved money”: Ibid., 179.
“comply in all respects”: Ibid., 178.
Richard Ben-Veniste thought about the words: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 155; Fields, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, 50.
Intelligence reports suggested: Nixon, RN, 937.
“determined to resist”: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 580.
Haig’s version of the night: Haig, Inner Circles, 416.
“since we have no functional president”: Locker, Haig’s Coup, 193.
“The United States will not start a war”: Victor Israelian, “Nuclear Showdown as Nixon Slept,” Christian Science Monitor, November 3, 1993, https://www.csmonitor.com/1993/1103/03191.html.
“Do you think we overreacted?”: Isaacson, Kissinger, 533.
On Thursday, October 25, lawmakers arrived: Nixon’s Daily Diary, October 16–31, 1973.
“[Nixon] started talking to us”: Ambrose, Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 255.
Thursday night, Nixon retreated again: Isaacson, Kissinger, 534.
“The tougher it gets, the cooler I get”: Richard Nixon, “The President’s News Conference,” October 26, 1973, American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/the-presidents-news-conference-84.
Chapter 43 The Patriotic Monkey
“Incredible,” he thought: Sirica, To Set the Record Straight, 182.
One April 15th tape reel: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 161.
“Ben-Veniste and his colleagues delivered”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 232.
As the courtroom antics, public outrage: Gormley, Archibald Cox, 371.
Jaworski excited both Bork: Bork, Saving Justice, 102.
“Just get the man”: Haig, Inner Circles, 437.
“There were no missing tapes”: Nixon, RN, 945.
“I’m putting the patriotic monkey”: Leon Jaworski, The Right and the Power: The Prosecution of Watergate (New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1976), 6.
“While Ford voted wrong”: O’Neill, Man of the House, 260.
Albert had made clear he would entertain: Fields, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, 47–48.
“Carl Albert didn’t appreciate”: O’Neill, Man of the House, 250.
“I have initiated a broad scale investigation”: Fields, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, 53.
“a massive hemorrhaging”: Drew, Washington Journal, 91.
“I never could get through”: William B. Saxbe, I’ve Seen the Elephant: An Autobiography (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2000), 153.
Chapter 44 “I Am Not a Crook”
“The time has come”: Joseph Alsop, “An Impaired Ability to Function,” Asheville Citizen-Times, November 6, 1973, p. 4, https://www.newspapers.com/image/200358587/.
TIME even broke a fifty-year streak: “To Our Readers: An Editorial: The President Should Resign,” TIME, November 12, 1973, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,944643,00.html; Prendergast, The World of Time Inc., 354.
“The totality spelled a vast”: Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 290.
“Nixon wasn’t ready”: Ibid., 291.
“The president doesn’t want to see you”: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), 30.
“gradually phase out of Watergate”: Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 291.
“That weekend in Florida”: Nixon, RN, 946.
“It’s a terrible job”: Jaworski, The Right and the Power, 7.
“It was a bad omen”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 189.
“I have accepted an awesome task”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 246.
He looked out at the crowd: Jaworski, The Right and the Power, 8.
“Well, if he opens up a fried chicken joint”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 246.
“Dan, I’m impressed by two things”: Ibid., 249.
“They had waited for his reinforcements”: Ibid., 252.
“Your failure to respond”: Ibid., 250.
“Somebody better get”: Ibid.
“I tried to make it clear”: Ibid., 252.
“Those who came out of that”: Ibid., 252–53.
“How did he sound?”: Ibid., 251.
“politics of righteous indignation”: “Excerpts from the Statement by Aiken,” New York Times, November 8, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/11/08/80812209.html?pageNumber=35.
Over the course of the next week, Congress plunged: Richard L. Madden, “House and Senate Override Veto by Nixon on Curb of War Powers,” New York Times, November 8, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/11/08/80812045.html?pageNumber=1.
“Is there something else?”: Weicker, Maverick, 89.
The totals were so low: Ibid., 93.
“What more can they possibly want”: Nixon, RN, 963.
“She came to believe that nothing hastened”: Eisenhower, Pat Nixon, 387.
Over the course of a week, Nixon had hosted: Nixon, RN, 947.
“I know in the history books”: Ibid., 948.
“I made my mistakes”: Carroll Kilpatrick, “Nixon Tells Editors, ‘I’m Not a Crook,’ ” Washington Post, November 18, 1973, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/111873–1.htm.
A few days later, Nixon faced: Christopher Lydon, “Nixon Assures Governors He Will Allay Public Doubt,” New York Times, November 21, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/11/21/issue.html.
“Dammit Fred, this is a pretty late date”: Woodward and Bernstein, The Final Days, 82, 84.
“Well, I guess we better go see”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 254.
Sirica noted that Buzhardt: Sirica, To Set the Record Straight, 189.
“[Sirica] was almost impassive”: Jaworski, The Right and the Power, 27.
“Obstruction of justice”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 255.
Chapter 45 The Rose Mary Stretch
“When are we going to get moving?”: O’Neill, Man of the House, 255.
O’Neill’s patience was wearing thin: Ibid., 256.
Exasperated with Rodino’s foot-dragging: Breslin, How the Good Guys Finally Won, 82.
“the miniskirted lawyer”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 167.
“an attractive, perceptive woman”: Jaworski, The Right and the Power, 28.
“Because you have more”: Wine-Banks, The Watergate Girl, 13.
“Volner got her story”: Jaworski, The Right and the Power, 28.
“I used my head”: Statement of Information, 9:689.
“Perhaps some sinister force”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 182.
“He realized that he couldn’t keep erasing”: Wine-Banks, The Watergate Girl, 138.
“Three people could have erased”: Jaworski, The Right and the Power, 69.
“[The erasure’s] importance was more symbolic”: Sirica, To Set the Record Straight, 201.
“At first we kept playing short segments”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 263.
They played the tape over and over: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 205.
“We knew that we had turned the corner”: Ibid.
“The guy got hit with his own bat”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 264.
“I’m certain that everybody who had a chance”: Ibid., 267.
“For the greatest gut fight”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 197.
The pressure on the White House was coming: Drew, Washington Journal, 153.
Mrs. Nixon’s staff had built a snowman: Oliver F. Atkins, President and Mrs. Nixon Pose with a Snowman (1973), photograph, White House Historical Association, https://library.whitehousehistory.org/fotoweb/archives/5017-Digital-Library/Main%20Index/Events/1127926.jpg.info; Carl Sferrazza Anthony, “The Nixon White House Christmas Seasons,” December 21, 2018, https://medium.com/@nixonfoundation/the-nixon-white-house-christmas-seasons-1e5870693db8.
“It’s important, Al”: Jaworski, The Right and the Power, 54.
As he got into his car, Jaworski saw: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 269.
Chapter 46 “Do I Fight?”
Gerald Ford was confirmed: Cannon, Time and Chance, 231
As a man who had dedicated: Ibid., 258.
He continued to live in his regular home: “National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: President Gerald R. Ford, Jr., House,” National Park Service, https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NHLS/85003048_text.
Weicker’s office turned over to the IRS: Weicker, Maverick, 95–96.
“In terms of public opinion”: Ibid., 96.
“I don’t think it’s Watergate, frankly”: “Goldwater Says Doubt Lingers Over ‘How Honest’ President Is,” New York Times, December 18, 1973, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/12/18/91059429.html?pageNumber=31.
“Would you be interested”: Breslin, How the Good Guys Finally Won, 95.
“Have you made up”: Ibid., 97.
“My god, if this wasn’t the president”: Fields, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, 74.
By mid-December, Rodino had settled: Ibid., 73.
“We will have to become counsel”: Ibid., 118.
The staffing efforts in the final weeks: “Whereas: Stories from the People’s House,” July 30, 2019, U.S. House of Representatives History, Art & Archives, https://history.house.gov/Blog/2019/July/7-30-hotel_congressional/.
On December 21, an inquiry staffer: Breslin, How the Good Guys Finally Won, 110–11.
“I don’t want anything done by machine”: Ibid., 111.
The attorneys and investigators kept the pink cards: Maureen Barden, interview by Timothy Naftali, September 28, 2011, transcript, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/forresearchers/find/histories/barden-2011–09–28.pdf.
Ultimately, the inquiry would amass: Benjamin Jonas Koch, “Watchmen in the Night: The House Judiciary Committee’s Impeachment Inquiry of Richard Nixon” (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2011), https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/ETD-UT-2011–05–2696/KOCH-DISSERTATION.pdf.
Days after Kieves created that first card: Breslin, How the Good Guys Finally Won, 104–05.
A final, humbling insult from 1973: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, 692.
After Christmas, frantic to show: “The Administration: Cutting Back on Candor,” TIME, January 7, 1974, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,910952,00.html.
Once Nixon was sequestered: Woodward and Bernstein, The Final Days, 104.
“As we in the family”: Eisenhower, Pat Nixon, 397.
Chapter 47 Flutter and Wow
The tapes were just half-a-millimeter wide: “White House Tapes: Taping System History: Technology of the White House Tapes,” Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes.
“The American presidency hung in the balance”: Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 289.
A few moments later, prosecutor Carl Feldbaum: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 172–73.
“It was like that with Watergate”: Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 289.
Most of the testing happened: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 180.
“Such was the power of the federal judge”: Ibid., 173, 183.
“I came up the hard way”: Sirica, To Set the Record Straight, 204.
“I found the whole thing disgusting”: Ibid., 205.
“The amount of information the experts were able to glean”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 183.
Together, they had seemingly excavated: Lesley Oelsner, “Sirica Court Told Erasures on Tape Came After Oct. 1,” New York Times, January 17, 1974, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/01/17/79637466.html?pageNumber=1.
Explaining their work to Sirica’s court: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 275.
The electromagnetic heads: Advisory Panel on White House Tapes, “The EOB Tape of June 20, 1972: Report on a Technical Investigation Conducted for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia,” May 31, 1974, https://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/forensic.audio/watergate.tapes.technotes1–2.pdf.
“It would have to be an accident”: Sirica, To Set the Record Straight, 199.
“six impossible things”: George F. Will, “End of the Nixon Administration?,” Washington Post, January 18, 1974, http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/Watergate/Watergate%20Items%2010290%20to%2010597/Watergate%2010434.pdf.
“obstruction of justice, suppression of evidence”: “The Crisis: A Telltale Tape.”
“The White House treated her so shabbily”: Wine-Banks, The Watergate Girl, 138.
The deeper the investigators got: Jaworski, The Right and the Power, 123.
“Other tapes contained audible blips”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 313.
After the huge study of the June 20 tape: Ibid., 315.
“We were eager to see their reactions”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 216.
On January 30, Richard Nixon arrived: Richard Nixon, “Address on the State of the Union Delivered Before a Joint Session of the Congress,” January 30, 1974, American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-state-the-union-delivered-before-joint-session-the-congress.
The Arab embargo had led: David Bird, “The Energy Crisis, an Upheaval No Nation Can Escape,” New York Times, January 27, 1974, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/01/27/148763902.html?pageNumber=157.
that winter, half of the respondents: James R. Murray et al., “The Impact of the 1973–1974 Oil Embargo on the American Household,” NORC Report No. 126 (1974), https://www.norc.org/PDFs/publications/NORCRpt_126.pdf.
The government calculated that prices: Drew, Washington Journal, 24.
“liver, kidney, brains”: Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), 57.
“overriding aim”: Nixon, “Address on the State of the Union.”
“One minute of Watergate”: Ervin, The Whole Truth, 261.
“Every time you get a little bit ahead”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 316.
“a disgusting display of uncontrolled backbiting”: Ben-Veniste and Frampton, Stonewall, 196.
“I want you to know that you are in no danger”: Doyle, Not Above the Law, 301.
On February 12, the special prosecutor attended: Prendergast, The World of Time Inc., 363.
“I believe it was always his intention”: Ibid., 364.
“The information in 1973 had moved faster”: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, 692.
The White House lawyer argued: Bill Kovach, “White House Moves to Narrow Grounds for an Impeachment,” New York Times, March 1, 1974, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/03/01/356972062.html?pageNumber=1.
Doar and Jenner both argued: “How a Fragile Centrist Bloc Emerged as House Panel Weighed Impeachment,” New York Times, August 5, 1974, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/08/05/79632795.html?pageNumber=14.
“Impeachment is a Constitutional remedy”: Drew, Washington Journal, 162.
“There had to be something of a persistent problem,” Evan Davis, interview, September 29, 2011, C-SPAN, https://www.c-span.org/video/?306747–1/evan-davis-oral-history-inverview.
“Are they careful?”: Barden, interview.
In addition to the squads of typists: Koch, “Watchmen in the Night.”
