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Richard Nixon: The Unraveling of a Presidency
On Saturday, October 20, 1973, President Richard Nixon fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox and ordered the FBI to seal the Watergate Special Prosecution Force's office. FBI agent Angelo Lano, who had been leading the investigation of the Watergate break-in for sixteen months, protested: "We can't do that." Lano and his team had already concluded that Nixon was implicated in a cover-up, with Lano believing "that man's going to jail."
Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre pushed America across a psychological line. Despite sixteen months of Watergate revelations-dirty tricks campaigns, wiretapping of aides and newsmen, an "Enemies List" for IRS targeting, and the Plumbers' break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office-most Americans weren't considering impeachment. With the exception of liberal congressman Robert Drinan, Democrats had avoided advocating impeachment despite controlling Congress.
Nixon risked everything to hide his tapes because they revealed his conspiracy. When five men working for his reelection committee were caught planting listening devices at Democratic National Committee headquarters in June 1972, Nixon faced a historic choice: turn them in or obstruct justice.
Nixon chose obstruction. Meeting with Chief of Staff Haldeman on June 20, he went straight to damage control. In the infamous "smoking gun" conversation of June 23, Nixon ordered Haldeman to have the CIA lie to the FBI about the investigation being a national security matter. The cover-up expanded to include hush money payments to burglars' families and coaching administration officials to lie to investigators.
After the Saturday Night Massacre, Democratic House leaders made two crucial decisions. First, they would pursue impeachment hearings-no longer avoidable after Cox's firing. Second, they assigned the House Judiciary Committee-twenty-one Democrats and seventeen Republicans-responsibility for shaping articles of impeachment and deciding whether to bring them to the full House. Peter Rodino, an untested Newark politician who became chairman after a shocking primary upset removed Emanuel Celler, would lead the effort despite initial doubts about his abilities.
Rodino approached impeachment with the ghost of Andrew Johnson weighing heavily on him. To avoid a partisan prosecution that would divide the nation and likely fail in the Senate, he sidelined the committee's partisan counsel Jerome Zeifman, a favorite of hard-line impeachers. Instead, he sought a general counsel "of high intellectual standing" who was "not partisan," preferably a Republican.
After an extensive search, Francis O'Brien, Rodino's chief of staff, found John Doar, a registered Republican who had worked for Eisenhower and stayed through the Kennedy administration. As a Justice Department civil rights division attorney, Doar had been a diligent force for change in the South. Rodino gave him free rein to hire a single, integrated staff without separate Republican and Democratic counsels.
Behind Doar's methodical approach lay shrewd political strategy. Neither Rodino nor Doar wanted a repeat of 1868's partisan failure. Any impeachment articles needed broad bipartisan support to pass both the committee and eventually the Senate. This required sensitivity to Republican members' concerns and to Democrats from pro-Nixon districts. From the beginning, Rodino, his aide O'Brien, and Doar personally cultivated "the middle"-members torn between suspecting Nixon's impeachability and facing political pressure against impeachment.
The bipartisan coalition forming among committee members continued to develop as they grappled with their constitutional duty. The seven undecided representatives-Republican "Mugwumps" like Caldwell Butler, Hamilton Fish, Bill Cohen, and Tom Railsback, along with Southern Democrats Walter Flowers, James Mann, and Raymond Thornton-found themselves increasingly aligned as they studied the evidence.
Their impromptu meetings began at the House water cooler on July 9, where the Republicans discussed their shared concerns about justifying impeachment to constituents. When Fish observed that Nixon's presidency was "already a tragedy... a great American tragedy," they realized their pivotal role and decided to reach out to Southern Democrats in "the same boat."
By late afternoon on July 23, the White House learned that the Southern Democratic wall was crumbling. Alexander Haig called Alabama Governor George Wallace, hoping he could influence Walter Flowers, but Wallace refused to speak with anyone except Nixon himself.
Nixon called Wallace at 3:52 PM, essentially groveling for help. Wallace played coy, claiming he hadn't examined the evidence and refused Nixon's request to call Flowers, saying Flowers might resent the interference. After hanging up, Nixon told Haig, "Well, Al, there goes the presidency."
The next day brought another devastating blow when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Nixon that executive privilege couldn't prevent sharing presidential tapes with criminal investigators. White House counsel Fred Buzhardt, who had previously heard the incriminating tapes, immediately recognized this meant game over.
At 7:00 PM on July 27, 1974, the committee voted 27-11 for the first article of impeachment, with Butler, Cohen, Fish, Flowers, Mann, Railsback, and Thornton forming the bipartisan core supporting it. Republicans Hogan and Froehlich also voted yes. The abuse of powers article passed 28-10 on July 29, and a third article regarding Nixon's refusal to comply with committee subpoenas also passed, though with fewer Mugwump votes.
Nixon made one final desperate attempt to save himself. Buzhardt and Haig had transcripts made of the June 23, 1972 tape-the smoking gun showing Nixon ordering the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation-and invited Charles Wiggins, Nixon's most ardent defender on the committee, to read it. Wiggins was devastated, feeling personally betrayed. "Holy smoke! It's all over," he told Haig. In a rare political 180-degree turn based purely on facts, Wiggins announced he would vote for impeachment when it reached the full House.
When the White House publicly released the June 23 transcript on August 5, Nixon's remaining Senate support collapsed to just seven senators. Recognizing his support had evaporated, Nixon tasked speechwriter Raymond Price with drafting a resignation speech on August 6. After meeting with Republican congressional leaders on August 7, Nixon announced his decision to resign on August 8, effective the next day.
Had Nixon not resigned, he would certainly have been impeached by the House and likely convicted by the Senate. Rodino and Doar had been right about the preconditions for a successful presidential impeachment: a commonly accepted baseline of facts, trust among committee members, and disciplined bipartisanship from leadership.
