Read The Wars of Watergate Online
Authors: Stanley I. Kutler
Transcripts of my interviews will be deposited in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, in Madison. I also intend to make them available to the Nixon Archives. My copies of the 1975 interviews with members of the “Fragile Coalition” also will be deposited there.
The history of Richard Nixon is a growth industry. Books by Stephen Ambrose, Roger Morris, and Herbert Parmet are the latest entries, and more are promised. Nixon historians will have to confront Watergate. The existing executive, legislative, judicial, and prosecutorial records will serve well, but more primary sources eventually will see the light of day and perhaps offer new perspectives and revelations. The contemporary reportage will remain valuable as a source for understanding the unfolding of the story and the national reaction to it. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,
All the President’s Men
and
The Final Days
; Elizabeth Drew,
Washington Journal: The Events of 1973–1974
; John Osborne,
The Nixon Watch
; and J. Anthony Lukas,
Nightmare
, are the most important accounts from the time. But there is
nothing quite like
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon.
It is filled, to be sure, with evasions, half-truths, and self-serving explanations. Still, Nixon provides—almost in spite of himself—extraordinary insights into his thoughts and behavior. Without question, it is one of the most useful of presidential memoirs.
Spiro T. Agnew, Palm Springs, California, January 14, 1989
Donald Alexander, Washington, D.C., May 8, 1987
Scott Armstrong, Washington, D.C., February 9, 1987
Benton Becker, Miami, Florida, December 5, 1985
Robert Bork, Washington, D.C., June 17, 1987
Garry Brown, Washington, D.C., October 7, 1987
Stephen Bull, Washington, D.C., May 5, 1987
Dean Burch, Washington, D.C., May 5, 1987
Mrs. J. Fred Buzhardt, Columbia, South Carolina, September 25, 1986
Richard Cates, Madison, Wisconsin, February 6, 1988
William Colby, Washington, D.C., October 9, 1987
Barber Conable, Washington, D.C., May 28, 1985
Samuel Dash, Washington, D.C., February 5, 1986
John Dean, Beverly Hills, California, April 16, 1988
Elias Demetracopoulos, Washington, D.C., June 25, 1985; May 5, 1987
Harry Dent, August 31, 1986 (telephone), Columbia, South Carolina, September 24, 1986
William Dixon, Madison, Wisconsin, November 20, 1985
Don Edwards, Washington, D.C., July 15, 1986
Robert Finch, Pasadena, California, March 4, 1987
Zane Finklestein, Alexandria, Virginia, May 30, 1985
Leonard Garment, Washington, D.C., May 29, 1985; June 26, 1985; April 12, 1988
Mordechai Gazit, Tel Aviv, Israel, December 29, 1985
Kenneth Geller, Washington, D.C., May 26, 1988
Ernest Griswold, Washington, D.C., May 4, 1987
John Hart, New York, February 18, 1986
Richard Helms, Washington, D.C., July 14, September 23, 1988
Bernard Hollander (telephone), August 7, 1986
Elizabeth Holtzman, New York, April 11, 1986
Tom Charles Huston, Indianapolis, Indiana, September 1, 1988
David Keene, Madison, Wisconsin, August 14, 1985
Egil Krogh, Seattle, Washington, August 20, 1986
Melvin Laird, Washington, D.C., June 27, 1985
Wolfgang Lehmann, Washington, D.C., May 8, 1987
Jake Lewis, Washington, D.C., July 22, 1985; July 14, 1986
Charles Lichenstein, Washington, D.C., November 22, 1985; February 7, 1986; July 16, 1986
Morris Liebman, Chicago, June 14, 1988
Steven Lynch, Washington, D.C., October 10, 1985
Robert McClory, Washington, D.C., May 8, 1987
John Mitchell, Washington, D.C., December 30, 1987; February 9, April 11, 1988
Tom Mooney, Washington, D.C., July 14, 1986
Richard Moore, Washington, D.C., December 5, 1987
Thomas Moorer, Washington, D.C., June 25, 1985
Jack Nelson, Washington, D.C., August 22, 1985
Allen Otten, Washington, D.C., October 10, 1985
Henry Petersen, Sunderland, Maryland, August 23, 1985
Howard Phillips, Vienna, Virginia, August 23, 1985
Franklin Polk, Washington, D.C., December 18, 1986
Vladimir Pregelj, Washington, D.C., February 11, 1988
Henry Reuss, Washington, D.C., May 15, 1985
Elliot Richardson, Washington, D.C., May 14, 30, 1985
William Ruckelshaus, Seattle, Washington, August 21, 1986
William Safire, Washington, D.C., February 6, 1986
James St. Clair, Boston, April 10, 1987
Donald Santarelli, Washington, D.C., August 26, 1987
Father Don Shea, Washington, D.C., May 15, 1986
David Shepard, Madison, Wisconsin, April 4, 1988
Earl Silbert, Washington, D.C., February 10, September 30, 1988; February 23, 1989
John Stennis, Washington, D.C., June 25, 1985; June 27, 1985 (telephone)
Robert Stripling (telephone), March 24, 1989
Mike Wallace, New York, December 12, 1986
Clay Whitehead, McLean, Virginia, May 25, 1988
Charles Wiggins, Los Angeles, February 5, 1985
Tim Wyngaard, Washington, D.C., May 15, 1985
Jerome Ziefman, Washington, D.C., February 5, 1986
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation Papers
FL Gerald R. Ford Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
HBC House Banking and Currency Committee Papers
HJC House Judiciary Committee
H.R. House of Representatives
LC Library of Congress, Manuscript Division
NA National Archives
NCF Nixon Central File
NP Nixon Papers
NPF Nixon Personal Files
NTSB National Transportation Safety Board Papers
NYT New York Times
PPPUS:GF Personal Papers of the President of the United States: Gerald R. Ford
PPPUS:LBJ Personal Papers of the President of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson
PPPUS:RN Personal Papers of the President of the United States: Richard M. Nixon
SJC Senate Judiciary Committee
SSC Senate Select Committee to Investigate Presidential Campaign Activities
SSF Staff Secretary Files (Ford and Nixon Papers)
U.S.S. United States Senate
TT Tape Transcript
U.S. v. M United States v. Mitchell, et al.
WGSPF Watergate Special Prosecution Force
WHCF White House Central Files (Ford and Nixon Papers)
WHT White House Transcript
WP Washington Post
WSJ Wall Street Journal
1.
Haldeman Notes, September 11, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 46, NP; Richard Nixon,
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
(paperback ed., New York, 1979), 2:218–22.
2.
David Frost,
“I Gave Them a Sword”: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews
(New York, 1978), 183.
3.
TT, President, Dean, and Haldeman, September 15, 1972 (5:24
P.M.
–6:17
P.M.
),
U.S. v. M
, NA.
4.
PPPUS: RN, 1973
, Speech, April 30, 1973, 333; Buchanan to Nixon, December 8, 1972, Haldeman Papers, Box 230, NP; Garment to Haldeman, January 19, 1973, Garment MS, LC; Garment Interview, May 29, 1985.
1.
Kim McQuaid,
The Anxious Years: America in the Vietnam-Watergate Era
(New York, 1989), offers an insightful synthesis of the period.
2.
PPPUS: LBJ, 1963–1964
, April 21, 1964, 1:513; Eric F. Goldman,
The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson
(New York, 1969), 334, 335–37; Louis Heren,
No Hail, No Farewell
(New York, 1970), 253. Paul K. Conkin,
Big Daddy from the Pedernales: Lyndon Baines Johnson
(Boston, 1986), offers a recent sensitive portrayal of Johnson.
3.
Allen J. Matusow,
The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s
(New York, 1984), 144; George Reedy,
Lyndon B. Johnson: A Memoir
(New York, 1982), 123. See Robert A. Caro,
The Path to Power
(New York, 1982), for a lengthy discussion of the negative aspects of Johnson’s earlier career.
4.
NYT
, May 27, 1964, July 18, 1964.
5.
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak,
Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power
(Signet ed., New York, 1968), 502; Goldman,
Tragedy of Johnson
, 228; Matusow,
Unraveling of America
, 143.
6.
Lloyd A. Free and Hadley Cantril,
The Political Beliefs of Americans
(New Brunswick, 1967), 173.
7.
Reedy,
Johnson
, 138.
8.
PPPUS: LBJ, 1963–1964
, September 25, 1964, 2:1126.
9.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969
(New York, 1971), 68; John M. Orman,
Presidential Secrecy and Deception
(Westport, CT, 1980), 98; William C. Berman,
William Fulbright and the Vietnam War: The Dissent of a Political Realist
(Kent, OH, 1988), 29. Also see
The Pentagon Papers
(New York, Bantam Books, 1971). In June, Bundy had told the President that the “defense of U.S. interests is
possible, within these [i.e., the current] limits, over the next six months.” In other words, the war was not to be widened during the campaign. Matusow,
Unraveling of America
, 149, citing
Pentagon Papers.
10.
Berman,
Fulbright
, Chapters 2, 3; Goldman,
Tragedy of Johnson
, 176.
11.
Berman,
Fulbright
, 23–26, 69–70; David Halberstam,
The Best and the Brightest
(Penguin ed., New York, 1983), 496–503, 510.
12.
Berman,
Fulbright
, 24, 26–27; Goldman,
Tragedy of Johnson
, 182–83; Halberstam,
Best and the Brightest
, 509. In his memoirs, Johnson cited the Fulbright-Cooper exchange, in effect blaming Congress for its future failure to withdraw consent for widening the war. But he never mentioned Nelson’s challenge. Johnson,
Vantage Point
, 118–19. Fulbright later publicly apologized to the Wisconsin senator. AP dispatch (FBI spying),
Madison (Wisconsin) Capital Times
, July 17, 1988.
13.
New York Herald Tribune
, May 23, 1965.
14.
Matusow,
Unraveling of America
, 154; Kathryn J. Turner,
Lyndon Johnson’s Dual War: Vietnam and the Press
(Chicago, 1985), 176–77.
15.
Ronald Steel,
Walter Lippmann and the American Century
(Boston, 1980), 578; Michael Davie,
LBJ: A Foreign Observer’s Viewpoint
(New York, 1966), 36–37; John Tebbel and Sarah Miles Watts,
The Press and the Presidency: From George Washington to Ronald Reagan
(New York, 1985), 493.
16.
Goldman,
Tragedy of Johnson
, 439.
17.
Halberstam,
Best and the Brightest
, 778.
18.
David Halberstam,
The Powers That Be
(New York, 1979), 6. Johnson,
Vantage Point
, 530; Eugene McCarthy,
Up ’Til Now
(Orlando, FL, 1987), 178;
PPPUS: LBJ, 1967
, June 27, 1967, 1:656; Doris Kearns,
Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
(New York, 1976), 315–16. Henry Kissinger,
Years of Upheaval
(Boston, 1982), 86–87, presented a concise condemnation of the treason of the intellectuals—according to Kissinger.
19.
Kearns,
Lyndon Johnson
, 8; Tebbel and Watts,
Press and the Presidency
, 490;
PPPUS: LBJ, 1968–1969
, January 17, 1969, 2:51; Harry McPherson,
A Political Education
(Boston, 1972), 261.
20.
Turner,
Johnson’s Dual War
, 181–82, 179. The fickleness of the press sometimes was inexplicable. During Johnson’s January 17, 1967, press conference, reporters raised no questions regarding Vietnam.
21.
Reedy,
LBJ
, 140; Richard Whalen,
Catch the Falling Flag: A Republican’s Challenge to His Party
(Boston, 1972), 100–01.
22.
Orman,
Presidential Secrecy
, 108; Kearns,
Lyndon Johnson
, 393; Goldman,
Tragedy of Johnson
, 159–60, 201–02, 523–24.
23.
PPPUS: LBJ, 1963–1964
, October 9, 1964, 2:1266.
24.
Kearns,
Lyndon Johnson
, 251; Chalmers M. Roberts,
First Rough Draft: A Journalist’s Journal of Our Times
(New York, 1973), 252; Valenti,
Human President
, 367.
25.
Heren,
No Hail, No Farewell
, 209–10.
26.
Johnson,
Vantage Point
, 148;
PPPUS: LBJ, 1966
, May 17, 1966, 1:519.
27.
Kearns,
Lyndon Johnson
, 20–21; Berman,
Fulbright
, 15.
28.
George Herring, “The War in Vietnam,” in Robert A. Divine (ed.),
Exploring the Johnson Years
(Austin, TX, 1981), 39–40; Peter W. Sperlich and William L. Lunch, “American Public Opinion and the War in Vietnam,”
Western Political Quarterly
, March 1979, 32:21–24.
29.
Congressional Record
, 89 Cong., 1 Sess. (September 2, 1965), 22761–63. Two years later, Nixon persisted in his belief that China pulled the strings in Vietnam but then dropped hints that perhaps the United States should “change” China. “Taking the long view, we simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations.… The world
cannot be safe until China changes.” Richard M. Nixon, “Asia After Viet Nam,”
Foreign Affairs
, October 1967, 46:111, 121.
30.
Orman,
Presidential Secrecy
, 106.