Three: Politics and Ideology

The Enlightenment and Jeffersonian Thought



The Jeffersonian political legacy is probably the most enduring, if not practiced, in American history. This is somewhat ironic because Thomas Jefferson himself would, no doubt, dismiss the whole notion of legacy as the “dead hand of the past” exercising power over the living. But the legacy lives on, most notably in modern conservatism: the call for limited government, emphasis on “states rights,” opposition to an activist judiciary—all are Jeffersonian prejudices. The liberal agenda contains some familiar tenets too: civil liberties, redistribution of wealth, separation of church and state. In short, any policy that promotes the local community as self-governing, as autonomous, as virtually sovereign, with as little interference from distant, centralized authority as possible, embodies the Jefferson Ideal. At the heart of that Ideal resides the Individual—possessor of inalienable rights.

Although these notions may seem peculiarly American, that simply is not the case. They are, rather, products of the Enlightenment—the Age of Reason, as it is called—which filled the 18th century with a spirit of optimism rarely known before or since. As “enlightenment” signifies an infusion of insight in the spiritual sense, its spread generated an almost religious zeal—from the salons of Paris to the western edge of the British Empire in North America. Thus, the vaunted legacy that survived the man originated in the personal philosophy of a disciplined mind--one well versed in Enlightenment Thought.



What is Enlightenment?

The Enlightenment was really an outgrowth of the Renaissance, which swept Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, and it inherited both the humanism and the secularism of that period. It signified emergence from a long period of superstition and bigotry.1 Humanism, in sharp contrast to religious orthodoxy, exalted the dignity of human life and a belief in self-improvement through education. Secularism contended with the temporal power of the Roman Church and worked toward forming nation-states. The Renaissance had also fostered the revival of philosophy and the first stirrings of modern science.

Antecedents of the Enlightenment include Francis Bacon (1521-1626) of England and Rene Descartes (1596-1650) of France. Bacon’s Empiricism laid the groundwork for what became the “scientific method” and helped usher in the Scientific Revolution spearheaded by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo.2 Descartes’ Rationalism—based on the proposition cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”)— galvanized intellectuals and contributed to the growing unrest in France, which was chafing under Catholicism and Absolutism. These philosophical and scientific roads led directly to the Age of Reason.

Arguably the most important single figure in the Enlightenment was the English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Newton removed the last vestiges of supernaturalism from science through publication of Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1685. With the introduction of calculus and the theory of gravity, he created a cosmogony that worked on its own, according to a fixed set of laws, without need of constant Divine Intervention. The Newtonian revolution in physics sparked the “natural law” era of social and political theory. For example, David Hume (1711-1776) tried to formulate a “science of man,” pioneering the development of modern sociology. John Locke (1632-1704) addressed psychological and political issues in a series of very influential essays—rejecting Descartes’ belief in innate ideas—suggesting that Reason was the highest function of the human mind and that man acquired knowledge from his environment through education.3 Accordingly, a group of French intellectuals known as philosophes made Locke’s philosophy and Newton’s physics the cornerstone of their efforts to “enlighten” the educated classes of Western Europe.



Jeffersonian Thought

1.

In 1760 seventeen year-old Thomas Jefferson met the Enlightenment in the person of William Small—professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at the College of William and Mary. Small, who, unlike his colleagues, was neither a drunkard nor an Anglican clergy, had been imported from Scotland to fill a vacancy in the School of Philosophy where Jefferson was enrolled. In addition to Newtonian physics and advanced mathematics, he introduced the works of Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot. Thus, Small was the acknowledged torchbearer of the Enlightenment in Virginia, and a key shaper of the Jefferson intellect.4 Beginning with studies of classical languages—Latin and Greek—then physics, mathematics, a thorough reading of various European thinkers, and an exhaustive five-year apprenticeship of law under George Wythe, Jefferson had, by his mid-20s, formulated his own theories of government and statecraft. What were the major tenets of Jefferson’s thought?

First, it should not be supposed that he possessed a coherent system based on flawless logic—far from it. Jefferson was not averse to clinging to myth if it suited his purposes (a decidedly un-enlightened attitude). For example, he tenaciously held to the belief that the inevitable break from Great Britain had its roots in the 1066 Norman conquest of England, and that North America was the depository of “true Saxon values”—a theory he called Expatriation. Utterly groundless in history, it is only one example of many showing that not all of Jeffersonian Thought was fully rational.5 But three aspects that were founded on sturdier principles include his commitment to an agrarian economy, his extreme distrust of powerful government, and his insistence on establishing a “wall of separation” between church and state.

2.

To Jefferson, the Ideal American would be a yeoman farmer tending his fields by day and reading Homeric poetry by night—in the original Greek!6 As a gentleman-planter himself, it was perhaps natural that his values were agrarian. At the time of the Revolution an estimated 98% of all Americans lived on farms, and Jefferson was clear in his convictions that as long as America’s economy was agrarian, the Republic would endure. “… Let our workshops remain in Europe,” he wrote, imagining that the country would have the same economic status as China.7 Cities and manufacturing should be kept to a minimum. One reason for this bias was morality, for in his view, those who worked the land were the “Chosen People of God.” Husbandry and the rural way of life created virtue in men, whereas urban centers were rife with corruption. But another reason was imminently practical, for farmers were models of self-sufficiency. As a farmer grows his own food, makes his own clothing, and needs purchase only minimal supplies, his dependence on government, banks, and manufacturing decreases. Such independence affords protection against any sort of economic upheaval—such as those that wracked Europe all too frequently.

In this sense, Jefferson was a Physiocrat—i.e. opposed to acquisitive capitalism.8 This is an ideology he would have been well acquainted with during his five years as American Ambassador to France, from 1784 to 1789. The Physiocrats were a group of French writers who called themselves “the economists,” and included such names as Quesnay, Mirabeau, Dupont de Nemours, and Mercier de la Riviere. They advocated what was called “physiocracy”—a rational government based upon natural laws.9 The Physiocrats stood in opposition to the ruthless mercantilism adopted by many European states. Mercantilism involved direct state control over industry, protectionism, and acquisition of colonies. It encouraged rampant empire building and thus made states more aggressive. War was the inevitable outcome, the Seven Years War (from 1756 to 1763) being a good example.10

The Physiocrats sought to discover the natural and “eternal” sources of wealth. Quesnay, for example, held that all wealth was produced by nature—that is, by the land. Only agriculture was “productive,” manufacturing and venture capitalism were secondary sources at best.11 A stable economy could best be created by stimulating agricultural production and maintaining a laissez-faire approach. All the government’s revenue should come from a single tax on crop yields. Ultimately, however, the Physiocratic plan was rejected by the French government; but here, nonetheless, are the origins of modern economics as a study divorced from politics.12


3.

Thomas Jefferson’s celebrated ambivalence toward strong national government was seemingly his raison d’etre, and in fact became the focal point of the surge of 1800 that swept him into the presidency. The Republicans represented the landed interests—who were a majority—anxious to undo twelve years of Federalist rule. That was not to be, of course. Ever the pragmatist, Jefferson knew full well that attempting to dismantle Hamilton’s network of banks and investments would irreparably damage the nation. Nevertheless, he was determined to curtail centralized power in every way possible. Part of his ambivalence can be attributed to fear: did the Revolution succeed in throwing off the yoke of one tyrant merely to replace it with another? Then there was the fact that Virginia—at that time the largest state by far—had little to gain in a federal system. But on a deeper level, there were psychological factors reinforced by influential writers, such as Locke and Montesquieu.

Privately, Jefferson was a man who forever wanted to retreat from the world of affairs and its disorderly conflicts. His was the simple desire to be left alone and to create his
own utopia—reflected by his lifelong obsession with Monticello, the never ending tearing down and rebuilding of the place.13 For Jefferson, the primary political unit is local, the state-level secondary, and the national (if it even exists) a distant third; their powers should decrease accordingly. The theoretical foundations of this ideal democracy can be found in several Age of Reason writers. From John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding came a strong belief in education and the idea of progress—the limitless capacity for self-improvement without need of state-intervention. From the Second Treatise of Government emerged the doctrine of popular sovereignty—in a republic the people are sovereign. But it was Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws that received the most elaborate attention. Montesquieu described four types of government: democratic, aristocratic, monarchic, and despotic.14 The types of states suitable for these depended upon their size, in ascending order. Thus, democracy was fit for a small state, monarchy for a large and powerful one—like France. A globe-spanning empire could best be governed by a despot. In Montesquieu there is, of course, the familiar doctrine of separation of powers. Jefferson devoted much time to its study but always did so selectively, ignoring the alternatives to democracy—some of them favorable—and the admonition to restrict the people to a limited role in their own governance.15 Then there was the practical model of France itself, where the local parlements stood between the people and the national government, providing some measure to check centralized, autocratic power.16


4.

As seductive as the Jeffersonian legacy remains, the historical fact is that large portions of it have been eroded by time. His vision of democracy rooted in an agrarian economy was on the retreat even during his lifetime. The Civil War obliterated his assertion of state’s rights—or at least put it on the defensive. Roosevelt’s New Deal shattered the illusion of “diffuse” national government. But the one undiminished and seemingly unassailable Jeffersonian ideal is that of religious freedom—i.e. separation of church and state.17 The move to abolish state-sponsored religion in Virginia began with his efforts, as a Burgess, to strip the Anglican Church (Church of England) of its “official” status. Laws were still on the books making heresy against the Church a crime. Penalties included exclusion from holding public office, loss of property and custody of children, three years in jail without bond, even death by fire at the stake.18 Jefferson’s efforts in this area eventually yielded Virginia’s Statute for Religious Freedom.

Probably the most significant remnant of the Enlightenment, this sundering of state power from ecclesiastical authority sought to eliminate the likelihood of religious warfare—at least in the New World. America certainly had its share of religious strife, but the real problem was in Europe, where bitter religious wars had been waged for centuries. One major thrust of the philosophes was to remove the specter of superstition from people’s minds once and for all. The main weapon in their arsenal was Deism.19

The roots of Deism can be found in the work of Isaac Newton. The simultaneous development of differential and integral calculus with the theory of universal gravitation inadvertently created a new worldview. The universe, once thought to be the magical creation of God, was now compared to an enormous clock. God was relegated to the role of a clock-maker who then withdrew from all active involvement in the lives of men (much like Jefferson withdrawing to Monticello). Deism stressed the uselessness of prayers and evangelism, scoffed at miracles and revelations, and demanded toleration. If God was not personally concerned with “salvation” of men’s souls, then it was none of the state’s business either.

The French philosophes held Christianity in utter contempt, summarized in Voltaire’s call to “ecrasez l’infame.” Although few of them were explicitly atheist, opinions varied. Rousseau, for instance, considered himself a Christian but made a sharp distinction between the simple truths of natural religion, which all men could agree on, and the elaborate theologies of “high” religions.20 To replace medieval superstition with Reason and supplant miracles with natural law, both underpins the attitude of science and destroys the need to transform orthodoxy into law.

Thomas Jefferson ceased to take Anglicanism seriously while in college, embracing instead his own brand of Deism—calling himself a “denomination of one.”21 The idea of religious freedom did not originate from him, certainly, but he was perhaps its most articulate spokesman. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was a model of its kind, later finding its way into the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Representing the triumph of humanism and secularism, the implications are far-reaching. For the freedom of religion necessitates a freedom from religion—an idea that would have seemed strange to medieval Europeans as well as colonial Americans.



Jeffersonian Fallacies

History has not been terribly kind to Jeffersonian Thought—nearly every one of its cherished precepts has proven outdated, impractical, or downright foolish. Jefferson himself, however, remains the subject of unrelenting interest and study—two hundred and twenty-five years after the Revolution. Obviously, something in his ideology resonates beyond the passing years. Jefferson was a creature of the Enlightenment through and through, yet much of what he believed had little to do with Reason or Logic. For example, his belief that democracy was rooted in the soil, that only independent landed citizens could sustain a republic, was refuted even while he lived. This spoke of a deep aversion to government—any government. John Locke’s “natural state” theory, apparently, had penetrated Jefferson to the marrow and become part of him. He always believed in an idyllic past where men were free from oppressive states—such as the pre-Norman Saxons or untamed Indian tribes. In his mind, Monticello was always that sort of Edenic place.

Jefferson’s famous aphorism, “the earth belongs to the living,” while appealing to a sense of fairness, simply does not correspond to the real world. The doctrine of generational sovereignty, in which he fervently believed, was not taken seriously by anyone in his day or since. Collaborating with French naturalist Georges de Buffon, Jefferson produced elaborate tables showing that an average generation lasts nineteen years. Therefore, all public debts, laws, even constitutions, should be torn up at that time.22 That no nation on earth could possibly function that way ever occurred to him.

But the one Jeffersonian belief that now seems most at odds with reality was his airy fondness of popular revolt. Alone among national leaders, he had defended Shays’s Rebellion, praising the “spirit of resistance” to government that he hoped to keep alive.23 Likewise, he supported the French Revolution, although he departed France well before the worst convulsions. The ensuing years of street violence, the Reign of Terror, and eventual dictatorship of Napoleon, showed just how far such “resistance” could go—despite the rhetoric about trees of liberty and blood of tyrants.

Jeffersonian Thought continues to inspire because in it, only the individual is sovereign. A nation built upon that ideal can only be a republic. In Jefferson, the ideology develops in rarefied planes of abstract thought—ostensibly Reason. But republics like the United States or Great Britain work precisely because they are not based on ideology—they are the results of pragmatism, of trial and error. The horror stories of the 20th century—Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Pol Pot’s Cambodia—reveal what can happen when abstract theories translate into law. Thus, while we revere Thomas Jefferson, we should at the same time be very glad that his opponents prevailed in the end.



Bibliography

Curtis, Michael. The Great Political Theories. Vol.1. New York: Avon, 1981.

Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy. New York: Washington Square, 1961.

Ellis, Joseph J. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Knopf,
1997.

Hofstadter, Richard. The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It. New
York: Vintage, 1974.

Jenkinson, Clay. The Thomas Jefferson Hour. Norfolk: WHRV FM, October 4, 2000.

Jones, W.T. Kant and the Nineteenth Century. New York: Harcourt, 1975.

Randall, Willard Sterne. Thomas Jefferson: A Life. New York: Holt, 1993.

Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization. London: Wadsworth, 1999.


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Securing Individual Liberties

Western liberal-democracy, based upon the memorable phrase "All Men are Created Equal," is popularly believed to be the Guardian of Liberty--that is, of individual freedom. Yet the very notions of "liberty" and "equality" are somewhat incongruous. That is because equality can only be achieved by government intervention. Equality before the Law, or equality in a moral sense (one's value before God), does not mean that all individuals are truly equal: differences in wealth, social status, intelligence, natural ability, and so on, are too painfully obvious. In that case, liberty does not apply uniformly to all citizens, for some enjoy greater freedom than others. So in what kind of government, if not democracy, would individual liberties best be secured?

Utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) believed that freedom of thought and discussion (speech) were fundamental to individual liberties, and all other freedoms--e.g. that of religion and the press--derived from them. To protect the individual conscience from the "tyranny of the majority" was his primary concern. Even where opinions are wrong or dangerous, their unfettered expression is necessary so that there can be a "collision" of thoughts. As a result, the true opinion will always emerge. But where suppression is practiced--as in censorship--a grave disservice is done the truth. Adverse opinions, in Mill's view, work like a sculptor chipping away excess stone to reveal the Monument within. Furthermore, the cultivation of "genius," so vital to any thriving culture, can only occur in an atmosphere of freedom--that is, where individuals are not enslaved to the demands of the state. This classic liberalism, of course, requires a minimalist government, one that is restrained from trampling on individual liberties.

One important implication of the above is the concept of "self-reliance," of the sort championed by Samuel Smiles (a contemporary of Mill's). Starting with the belief that Heaven helps those who help themselves, Smiles attributed national progress to individual effort, thrift, and hard work, while social decay and related evils were "the outgrowth of man's perverted life" (qtd. in Briggs 76). Thus, the self-reliant are independent of government while the poor, the unemployed, and the unfortunate, will always be dependent--and a burden.

Classic liberal ideas, therefore, call the very concept of "citizenship" into question. If one is a citizen of a modern liberal-democracy, what can one expect in terms of rights and entitlements (which signify freedom) as opposed to duties and obligations (which diminish it)? And to what extent are individual liberties compromised in such a system?

Citizenship, by definition, is granted to individuals; this does not mean families or larger groups go unrecognized, but only individuals can enjoy the benefits of citizenship and be held to its obligations. Thus, a delicate balance between the individual and the state has to be achieved in political thought. How responsible are individual citizens for the welfare of the whole? That has long been a serious point of contention. The doctrine of "social citizenship" holds that all citizens are collectively responsible for the whole. Thus, a program of redistributing wealth is justified to provide the lower classes with a set of entitlements--i.e. healthcare, education, job-training, welfare, and so on. This is opposed, however, by the recent trend toward "active citizenship" embraced by the New Right. Active citizenship has two schools of thought: the neo-liberal and the neo-conservative. The neo-liberal aspect would please John Stuart Mill--individualism, limited government, maximum liberty. The neo-conservative aspect, on the other hand, rejects the type of social engineering typified by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Entitlements have to be "earned" (which means they are no longer entitlements) and some obligation must be met before assistance from the government can be forthcoming. Welfare thus becomes "workfare" and the individual comes under greater and greater scrutiny. Thus, interaction between individuals and government increases. Ironically, the one aspect of active citizenship results in more government while the other insists upon less. It's a reflection of the struggle--trying to find a proper balance between the individual and the state.

The egalitarian nature of democracy tends to diminish the upper classes while assisting the lower, resulting in a large middle class. Uniformity of purpose and consensus of opinion are the means to this end. Thinkers such as John Stuart Mill would be appalled, seeing a clear threat to liberty. The natural political environment for the New Right would not be democracy at all, but a sort of aristocracy--what is nowadays referred to as a "meritocracy." Such a society would, sooner or later, abandon all pretense of "equality." One of the great political thinkers of antiquity, Plato, condemned democracy in Athens for this very reason. Men could no more be equal, he thought, than children could be adults or vise-versa. Therefore, a natural aristocracy is the milieu in which the greatest possible individual liberties are secured.



Works Cited

Briggs, Asa. "Samuel Smiles: The Gospel of Self-Help." Annual Editions. 10th ed. Guilford: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 1999.



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Thomas Paine and Revolution

Among the more influential proponents of revolution, both in America and France, was the Englishman Thomas Paine. A world-class propagandist, he is best known for his seminal pamphlet Common Sense, issued on the eve of the American War of Independence. But Paine wrote voluminously throughout his life, concerning himself mostly with the radical politics of the day. It seems best to judge his importance according to the relative successes of the causes he espoused, rather than his personal accomplishments. Unsuccessful in government service (where as officer of the excise in England, he was twice dismissed from his post), he met Benjamin Franklin in London, who suggested immigration to America. Paine arrived at Philadelphia November 30, 1774, finding work as a publisher.

Plunging immediately into waters of controversy, Paine published African Slavery in America, condemning slave trade in the southern colonies--winning for himself, no doubt, both friends and enemies. Sensing the rise of tensions between America and Great Britain, he put together his ideas in Common Sense, which was published January 10, 1776. The pamphlet quickly sold 500,000 copies.

Common Sense contains the classic liberal arguments for minimal government. Obliged only to "restraining our vices," any government was on precarious terms, according to Paine. The pamphlet went on to counter loyalist calls for reconciliation with Britain, offered several plain-spoken reasons for independence (hence the title), and even suggested a new system of representative democracy. As an articulation of the radical view, Paine's influence was later felt, to some extent, in the Declaration of Independence.

The rabble-rousing later continued in England, where Paine became a passionate defender of the French Revolution. In his opinion, a people had the right to overthrow an oppressive government if they wished. In his Rights of Man he bitterly attacked the Revolution's critic Edmund Burke, writing: "that Mr. Burke should commence an unprovoked attack upon them, both in Parliament and in public, is a conduct that cannot be pardoned on the score of manners, nor justified on that of policy." Rights of Man went further and offered a withering review of all European society; monarchy, aristocracy, the Church, poverty, illiteracy, gratuitous warfare--all received his scathing remarks.

Paine's views were decidedly Antifederalist in the American sense, calling for republican government as a way of redistributing wealth--almost an early socialist leaning. In sharp contrast to the New World, the Old World was a land of exaggerated unequality. In Louis XVI's France, for example, a tiny aristocracy enjoyed vast wealth, opulence, and luxury, while the overwhelming majority--more than two million people--was impoverished. There was no middle class to speak of. And far from decrying such injustice, the Church (in league with the state) justified it as "God's Will." This appalled liberal thinkers like Paine.

In Rights of Man Paine accused Europeans of "governing beyond the grave," calling it "the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies." What did he mean by this? Among other things, he was referring to two Old World customs, since banned in America: primogeniture and entail. Primogeniture is the ancient practice whereby the eldest son automatically inherits all of a family's estate when the father dies. In this way, titles, lands, even whole fiefdoms remained firmly in the hands of a very few. Entail, on the other hand, was an ironclad decree passed on for generations within a family, restricting the liberties of descendents, especially regarding marriage arrangements. Both practices worked to concentrate wealth in the hands of the aristocracy.

Thomas Paine's writings were banned in England, where he escaped imprisonment only by fleeing to France, where he had been elected to the National Convention. Nevertheless, he was later imprisoned by Robespierre during the Great Terror. After his release (relieved, no doubt, to find head still attached to body), Paine returned to America at the behest of Thomas Jefferson. But far from being a hero in the United States, he was denounced as an atheist on account of his Deism. Thomas Paine died in New York City on June 8, 1809.

Despite the loss of his reputation, it seems obvious that Paine's outspoken views were right for the time and were instrumental in helping this nation gain its independence, even if they won him little praise here or abroad.


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The Tenor of Current Political Debate


Tuning into the Michael Reagan radio talk-show the other night, I was quite surprised to hear the conservative host openly advocating the use of torture on prisoners taken in the so-called War on Terror. "Torture them until they tell you what you want to know..." he said, unequivocally. Part of it was simple outrage, I'm sure: Paul Johnson, an American citizen in Saudi Arabia, had just been beheaded by al-Qaeda terrorists. But the fact that we're even debating this subject (and that it's going on in the highest reaches of government) raises an alarm in my mind. What has happened to the American psyche? During World War II, for instance, it never occurred to American GIs to mistreat German prisoners of war. Now we discuss the pros and cons of torture. American idealism (often at odds with reality, but that's another issue) represents the apex of Western civilization and humanitarian values. Something has changed. One can see it in the apparent duplicity of Bush Administration foreign policy, deep divisions between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches, intractable partisanship in Congress, and most of all in the virulent tone of current political debate. Consider the assertion of Attorney General John Ashcroft that those who criticize the USA Patriot Act (or, by extension, any Bush Administration policy) should have their patriotism called into question. One constantly hears variants on this theme from the conservative side. Let's consider, for a moment, the meaning of "patriotism" as it applies to this debate.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary a patriot is "One who loves, supports, and defends one's country." The word is derived from the Greek patrios--"of one's fathers," itself derived from pater, or father. This seems a simple enough, common-sense definition. In American terms it is usually understood to mean loyalty to flag, constitution, nation, and people of the United States--to the extent that one is willing to defend them against all enemies foreign and domestic. This does not necessarily mean taking up arms in the military; after all, conscientious objectors may, by law, serve in a non-violent capacity without having their patriotism doubted. Can patriotism, in this context, apply to only part of the United States--in other words, is there regional patriotism? If your patriotism is confined to, say, the southeast, or even to a single state--Virginia, for example--are you truly patriotic? The Civil War was fought over this issue, and Confederate General Robert E. Lee sided with the South because Virginia did. But the resolution of that conflict in favor of the Union should answer the question: one's patriotism cannot be limited to popular majorities, oppressed minorities, or any specific community--white, black, hispanic, religious, non-religious, affluent, impoverished, young, old, male, or female. What about the government? Is it "unpatriotic" for Americans to criticize or otherwise stand in opposition to governmental authority (as Ashcroft claims)? Even taking an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution cannot be used as a litmus test here. Patriotism predated the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and could, therefore, continue unabated even if that document were retired and a new Constitution written. Patriotism doesn't mean loyalty to any particular government, set of laws, institution, or clique of rulers. It has more to do with the integral sovereignty of the nation, and in our country the people are sovereign. But let's concede, just for argument, that patriotism requires defense of the Constitution. Is criticizing President Bush (or the actions of his Administration) tantamount to treason? Not according to the First Amendment of the Constitution which says freedom of speech shall not be abridged. Concerning free speech, Justice William Brennan wrote in New York Times v. Sullivan, (1964) “[it] was fashioned to insure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people…” and that “[it] presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection.” So saying that criticism of the government is "unpatriotic" is like saying the First Amendment is unpatriotic.

The usual defense of this sort of rhetoric is "But we're at war! We must support our troops." After 9/11 a "War on Terror" was declared, and President Bush has conducted himself as if he were Roosevelt during World War II. The question we must ask, however, is if this War is literal or metaphorical. An example of the latter would be something like the War on Drugs--obviously not war in the usual sense, with armies on battlefields and navies on the high seas, but intense governmental efforts to combat some vexing social problem. A literal war, on the other hand, requires that certain questions be answered. For example, with whom are we at war and what is the objective? How is this war to be fought and under what circumstances can it be terminated? If applied to all previous conflicts--Vietnam, Korea, WWII, etc.--nation states were at war in the conventional sense, and each question could be clearly answered. Inability to address the questions, as in Vietnam, created terrible problems. But calling the effort to combat terrorism a "War on Terror" (in the literal sense) is rather misleading. Who is the enemy--al Qaeda? Hamas? Islamic Jihad? Irish Republican Army? The Axis of Evil? At first we went after Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, toppling the Taliban in the process, but then the target became, inexplicably, Saddam Hussein. This shift clouds the issue of with whom we are at war. Next, what is the objective? President Bush has said it is the elimination of terrorism from the face of the earth, but who can take that seriously? The latter set of questions--how the war is to be fought and how it might be ended--can hardly be answered at all. Apparently, the War on Terror will be terminated when, and only when, the President of the United States says it is. Truth is, the War on Terror is even more nebulous than the War on Drugs, and for the government to assume new and far-reaching powers under these circumstances is truly dangerous (and probably unconstitutional).

Every morning I turn to C-Span and listen to the telephone calls on "Washington Journal" (the impetus for this essay, actually) and am continually confounded by what I hear. One always hears conservative callers complaining about "that bunch of liberals"--using the word as if it were an epithet, realizing that it refers to those who hold views similar to my own (essentially, at this point, disgusted with the Bush presidency and prepared to vote Democratic in November). Does this make me a liberal? During the '80s I was a Reagan Republican, and to this day I hold the late President in high esteem. Doesn't mean that I agreed with all his policies, but it wasn't hard to recognize how important his presidency was to the nation. The conservative agenda seemed very appealing to me in those days. My views began to change after getting married, however, as my wife and I struggled in a never-ending battle to make ends meet. I began to see the other side of the equation, and gradually realized that the conservative agenda no longer spoke to me. Although I was no fan of Bill Clinton, I was appalled by the viciousness of the Republican attack on him, culminating in the Monicagate impeachment ordeal. Nevertheless, I actually voted FOR George W. Bush in 2000--an act that I later came to regret. So I'm no "bleeding heart" liberal (just a lot less conservative than before). I consider myself both Independent (neither Democrat nor Republican) and Moderate. To be even more specific, I once took a "political test" to see where I stood in the spectrum: I placed slightly to the left of Colin Powell, well to the right of Bill Clinton. In other words, middle-of-the-road Moderate. The ultra-conservative will have none of this, however. In his view, anything to left of his (extreme) position is liberal (the word spat out with as much venom as possible). There is no recognition of a political spectrum at all, only two extremes: liberal and conservative. Not unlike a computer chip reading binary code--1,0,1,01,0--it is a black and white worldview: you're either for or against, good or evil, Christian or heathen. Hence, a detectable "dumbing down" of the argument--at least from the right. Bush supporters, having lost hands-down the intellectual debate, resort to proclamations of faith ("I support and pray for my President"), extensive scapegoating (Democrats, Bill Clinton, the CIA...you choose), pasting labels on the opposition, and accusations of treason against all who disagree with such mindless trust.

To be fair, there's plenty of demagoguery and hyperbole coming from the left as well--allegations that George W. Bush "stole" the 2000 election (with the help of his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush), that he engineered 9/11 in order to legitimize his presidency, that the sole purpose of the Iraq War was oil, that the Bush Administration is "ruining" the nation, and so on. The facts do not bear any of this out, of course. All indications in the aftermath of the Florida recount debacle suggest that Bush actually won that state by a paper-thin margin--and thus the presidency. Al Gore clearly won the popular vote, but presidents are not elected that way. That Bush was somehow behind 9/11 is ridiculous, for planning of the attacks began during the Clinton years. Although Iraqi oil may have been one consideration in the decision to topple Saddam, I believe the real impetus was part ideological, part personal vendetta (Bush 43 atoning for Bush 41), part religious crusade. And although I agree that Bush has seriously damaged America's credibility and standing in the world, and that his heavy-handed tactics in waging the "War on Terror" are counterproductive, destined to backfire, and are sure to bring nothing but grief, that is hardly "ruining" the nation.

Nevertheless, it is conservative voices that are most guilty of stepping across the line separating demagoguery from legitimate, intellectually-sound debate. One day, again while watching C-Span, I got a chilling insight into the modern-day conservative psyche. The occasion was a meeting sponsored by the Heritage Foundation--a conservative symposium of some sort. The moderator was a middle-aged matron who offered extensive commentary in between guest speakers. Something in the tone of the woman's voice as she spoke of conservative ideals and their vision for America startled me to a realization: she was speaking as though she were the high priestess of some religion. The same sanctimonious manner, sense of moral superiority, tendency to divide everyone into sheep and goats, a certain tacit paranoia that comes from the belief of being under siege. The encroachment of the Religious Right into the Republican Party is a well known, thoroughly studied phenomenon--but this is something different: conservatism itself as a secular religion. It should be noted that religions need not be theistic in nature. Buddhism, for instance, is decidedly non-theistic, neither acknowledging nor denying the existence of God; communism (Marxist-Lenninist) is an atheistic religion, denying God's existence outright, but a religion nonetheless. I hold that modern-day American conservatism has evolved into a de facto secular religion; all the elements are there: divinely-inspired progenitors (Founding Fathers), sacred scripture (Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers, etc.), sacraments (Pledge of Allegiance), hymns (patriotic songs), and most importantly, a "promised land" i.e. America (which is italicized to distinguish it from the real America--the one in which we all live). The conservative's America, which some imagine to have existed in the distant past, is a fantasy land where political dissent doesn't exist; where people accept their stations in life, rich or poor, by the grace of God; where national leaders are obeyed without question and never criticized; where women and minorities have little say in important affairs--and are glad of it; where there is virtually no immigration from non-European countries; where everyone goes to church on Sundays and where baseball is still the national pass-time.

Here are the roots, I'm convinced, of the harshness and intolerance that characterizes recent political discourse (at least from the conservative side). As an independent moderate I regard the differences between Democrats and Republicans--or liberals and conservatives--as philosophical in nature. Giving everyone benefit of the doubt, the left and right both want what's best for the nation, but there are contrasting theories of government at work here. I understand the conservative agenda, even if I don't agree with all of it. The same holds true for the liberal agenda. But where one's political ideology takes on the aura of religious conviction, philosophical disagreement is tantamount to heresy--and thus intolerable. If the Republicans are designated "for God and Country," then the Democrats represent Satan and America's enemies. A recent caller to C-Span declared, "A vote for John Kerry is a vote for Osama bin Laden," reasoning that since al Qaeda and Islamic extremists plan to attack the United States prior to November to defeat George W. Bush, then any American who votes Democratic is siding with the enemy. It is a ridiculous argument, of course, an example of the "either/or" fallacy. I believe that the Bush Administration's misguided policies have actually put America in a more precarious position than before, have made us less secure and more vulnerable, and have simultaneously alienated our most important allies while strengthening our enemies (terrorist attacks increasing, al Qaeda membership growing by leaps and bounds as ever more young Muslims line up to take part in the Jihad). So it could almost be argued that "A vote for George Bush is a vote for bin Laden," but I'll not go there.

One often hears a quote from Benjamin Franklin these days, to the effect, "He who gives up an essential liberty for a measure of safety, deserves neither liberty nor safety." The U.S government, in response to 9/11, seems willing to sacrifice all manner of civil liberties to ensure our "safety." If we allow this to continue, then, with Franklin, I say we deserve neither. To put it bluntly: we have more to fear from a too-powerful government than we do from any terrorist plot. Chances are the vast majority of Americans will never be the victims of terror, but we could all be victimized by the government (from which, short of emigration to another country, there is no escape). This has to do with what I call the "response paradigm"--i.e. the way government chooses to address vital concerns. For example, in the War on Drugs the response paradigm was to treat it as a criminal justice matter. But this policy has been an unmitigated failure, resulting in clogged courts, overcrowded prisons, more--not less--crime, and so on. A more sensible approach would be to deal with substance abuse as a public health issue--getting addicts and small time users into mandatory rehab rather than prison. The response paradigm to terrorism has been, predictably, to treat it as a threat to national security. Problem is, almost any sort of egregious abuse is justified on "national security" grounds (hence, the intra-governmental debate on whether torture can be used on detainees). To create an America that is absolutely safe from terrorist attack will require transforming it into a garrison state. Stalinist Russia would be a good model. Thus, I propose a different response paradigm: terrorism should be treated as a natural disaster, like a hurricane, drought, or flood. Suppose an earthquake had leveled the World Trade Center, or a tsunami had washed away most of the Pentagon? As tragic as that might be, it would not threaten the survival of the nation. President Roosevelt, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, declared, "There is nothing to fear but fear itself." Thus, we should not fear the threat of terrorism, whatever the cost, for that fear is bound to cripple us.


***


The Untold Story of Watergate


DURING the final months of 1998 and the beginning of 1999, we as a nation had the privilege (or misfortune) of watching the grand spectacle of President Bill Clinton's impeachment ordeal unfold on national television. It was especially fascinating to see the United States Constitution in action--the debate in the House Judiciary Committee, the drafting of the articles of impeachment, the vote of the full House, and so on. The trial in the Senate, presided over by Chief Justice Rehnquist, was even more riveting. It was only the second time in American history that such a trial had been held--the first being that of Andrew Johnson after the Civil War--and the outcome was the same: acquittal for the president.

The whole thing reminded me of another near-impeachment: that of Richard Nixon in the '70s. I was a teenager when the Watergate scandal exploded on the scene, and was somewhat bewildered as it grew from a simple burglary to a media frenzy, from a public relations nightmare to a full-fledged constitutional crisis.

The best known books that document the Watergate story--All the President's Men by Woodward and Bernstein, Breach of Faith by Theodore H. White, The Ends of Power by H.R. Haldeman, Blind Ambition by John Dean, Will by G. Gordon Liddy--tell curiously contradictory tales. No one seems to agree on who was behind the break-in of the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) headquarters, and why. The recollections of President Nixon's involvement in the cover-up are also at odds: did he engineer an obstruction of justice or was he duped into complicity? It was not until the 1991 publication of Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin's Silent Coup: the Removal of a President that some of these issues were resolved. Although John Dean--named as the chief culprit in the book--vehemently objected to Silent Coup and even tried to block its publication, others, including Gordon Liddy, John Ehrlichman, even former president Nixon, strongly supported its findings. To better understand the impact of this extraordinary book, therefore, let us unravel the whole Watergate story, layer by layer, to see what lies beneath.


The Watergate Story Unfolds

On the morning of June 18, 1972--a Sunday--President Richard Milhous Nixon, on vacation in Key Biscayne, Florida, first learned of the burglary at the Watergate Hotel the same way most other Americans did: it was front page news. His initial reaction to the Miami Herald's headlines was disbelief, as he later recounted in his autobiography:

It sounded preposterous: Cubans in surgical gloves bugging the DNC! I dismissed it as some sort of prank... the whole thing made so little sense. Why? I wondered. Why then? And why, of all places, the Democratic National Committee? Anyone who knew anything about politics would know that a national committee headquarters was a useless place to go for inside information on a presidential campaign. The whole thing was so senseless and bungled that it almost looked like some kind of setup. (qtd. in Colodny and Gettlin 165)

From the moment of their capture in the DNC offices it was obvious that the five Watergate burglars were no ordinary criminals--clad in business suits and rubber gloves, carrying photographic and electronic bugging equipment. Their identities, when revealed, bore this out: Bernard Barker, a Miami businessman, had participated in the 1961 Bay of Pigs operation (a CIA-backed, failed invasion of communist Cuba); the other Cubans, Eugenio Martinez, Virgilio Gonzalez, and Frank Sturgis, had CIA connections as well. More intriguing was the fact that the fifth burglar, James McCord, was an ex-CIA agent and currently on the payroll of Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP). Moreover, items found on their persons tied them directly to the CRP: $5300 in crisp, new $100 bills; an address book; a motel-room key. The serial numbers on the $100 bills were traceable to Barker's Miami bank account, which were then traced to a $25,000 cashier's check originally intended for Nixon's re-election campaign. Four other CRP checks, totaling $89,000, had also been deposited in the same account. The address book contained the telephone number of another ex-CIA man--E. Howard Hunt--a former White House consultant. The key opened a motel-room door at Howard Johnson's just across the street from the Watergate. Inside that hastily abandoned alcove, among the debris, were more $100 bills sequentially matched to those found on the burglars. Within a few days it was evident that this break-in was the work of a rogue branch of the CRP. The question was, who authorized the breaking and entering? Was it a secret, low level operation or did their orders come from higher up--perhaps from the White House itself? McCord and the Cubans weren't talking; Hunt had disappeared; the other implicated CRP official, G. Gordon Liddy, was silent as a corpse.

Along with the intense media scrutiny came a host of governmental investigations. The White House, by presidential directive, launched its own inquiry. Even though some skeptics believed that Nixon himself may have ordered the break-in, the consensus among those who studied the matter was that the President indeed had no prior knowledge, as stated by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Theodore H. White: "No shred of evidence nor any serious allegation made by anyone indicates that Richard Nixon was party to, or instigator of, the grand stupidity of the break-in. He had been too long in politics to run so great a risk for stakes so small; and besides, he was too busy for such trivia" (160).

Meanwhile, the FBI was conducting a criminal investigation, looking into the activities of Hunt and Liddy. Both had been in telephone contact with Barker just before the break-in. Liddy was linked to the funds that bankrolled the operation. When the FBI questioned CRP Finance Committee Chairman Maurice Stans, he readily admitted receiving the $25,000 check but held that he had passed it to Liddy, and that was all he knew.

On September 15, 1972, the newly named Watergate Grand Jury handed down seven indictments, charging Liddy, Hunt (who had by now surrendered), McCord, Barker, Sturgis, Martinez, and Gonzalez with conspiracy and second degree burglary, among other things. The honorable Judge John J. Sirica foresaw a long and wide-ranging trial (Knappman 1:17).

The American public, as might be imagined, found itself assailed by the news media with Watergate-related headlines. Leading the assault was the Washington Post's celebrated duo Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Almost daily came new and ever more bizarre revelations: secret GOP funds linked to John Mitchell (Sept. 29), apparently used to finance covert operations; Haldeman linked to said funds (Oct. 25); wiretaps used against journalists, political opponents, and even allies; a "dirty tricks" campaign directed against Democratic presidential hopefuls (Knappman 1:14-16). On and on it went.

In the criminal trial, which opened January 11, 1973, Howard Hunt and the four Cubans plead guilty. McCord and the stubbornly uncooperative Liddy plead not guilty, but were tried and convicted. All seven were under intense pressure to implicate their superiors, Sirica threatening long prison terms for those who refused to talk. At the sentencing "Maximum John" (as he was known) gave a provisional sentence of thirty-five years to Hunt and forty years each to the Cubans, saying to them:

I have told your attorneys that the sentence that I will impose upon you--and I am making no promise of leniencies... but the sentence I will impose will depend primarily on whether or not you cooperate with the United States Senate... I fully expect you to cooperate absolutely, completely and entirely and whoever from that [Senate] committee, whether it is a senator or whether it is a staff investigator. Whoever it is that interrogates you, you will openly and honestly testify. (qtd. in White 205)

Sirica was referring, of course, to the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin. The Committee hearings, broadcast daily on national television from May to late September 1973, were a de facto indictment of Richard Nixon's presidency, as the American public got an unprecedented look into the inner workings of the Executive Branch. Utilizing electronic surveillance expert Samuel Dash as chief counsel/investigator, the Ervin Committee publicly dissected the White House and the CRP. Although the main targets were Nixon's top aides--Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Colson--the investigators established their case from the bottom and worked their way up, each figure being assigned his "satellites," or junior officers (White 232-233).

Thus, the public learned of one Jack Caulfield, an ex-New York City detective who had worked in Nixon's 1968 campaign and then secured a job under Ehrlichman. Caulfield employed another former cop, Tony Ulasewicz, who functioned as what Colodny and Gettlin refer to as a "presidential gumshoe" (96). Ulasewicz was paid $22,000 a year plus expenses, out of unspent campaign funds, to criss-cross the country digging up dirt on political opponents. For example, his first assignment had been to canvass Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts where Senator Edward Kennedy's automobile had plunged off a bridge, killing a young woman. Secret information--especially if deleterious to a Kennedy--had premium value in Nixon's White House.

Watergate burglar James McCord cracked on the day of Sirica's admonition and now told all he knew before the Committee, implicating John Dean and Jeb Magruder. Thereafter, it became a foot race, one official after another rushing to the prosecutors, offering testimony in exchange for immunity. Only Gordon Liddy remained defiant, refusing to testify before the Grand Jury or the Ervin Committee. John Dean, on the other hand, hired a lawyer and began bargaining for leniency. He accused Haldeman of allowing $350,000 to be used to pay Hunt and Liddy "hush money," and Ehrlichman of ordering him to get Hunt out of the country, while he, Dean, destroyed the contents of Hunt's safe. Although both accusations were later proven to be facile lies, the President was forced to fire Haldeman and Ehrlichman.

According to Nixon biographer Jonathan Aitken, John Dean then became the President's chief accuser before the Senate:

Dean's testimony was sensational but uncorroborated. He began by reading a 245-page statement lasting over seven hours. Its essential message was summarized in the New York Times headline the following day: "DEAN TELLS INQUIRY THAT NIXON TOOK PART IN COVER-UP FOR EIGHT MONTHS." Unlike all the previous witnesses, who had simply confessed to their own complicity in a variety of nefarious activities at a low or medium level, sometimes implicating others, Dean launched an all out assault on the integrity of the President. (491)

He also "dredged up several unsavory items from the cache of negative evidence he had been hoarding for leniency bargaining purposes" (Aitken 492). Among these was the infamous "enemies list," originally an August 16, 1971 memorandum from Dean to Haldeman aide Lawrence Higby, consisting of 20 names. It reads, in part: "This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration. Stated a bit more bluntly--how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies" (qtd. in Knappman 1:97). The list later expanded to include well over 200 names of organizations and individuals from the media, academia, and entertainment fields. Among the methods Dean suggested to "screw" an enemy was to initiate an IRS audit. There is no evidence, however, that Nixon ever saw this list or even knew it existed before Dean disclosed it to the world.

The Ervin Committee also heard about the Plumbers--a Special Investigations Unit--from Dean at this time. Assigned to stop leaks of sensitive government information to the press, the Plumbers had focused much of their attention on Daniel Ellsberg--the Rand Corporation employee responsible for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. Over the Labor Day weekend of 1971 the Plumbers had burglarized the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding, using some of the same personnel as in the Watergate. Hunt and Liddy had run this operation, too.

Dean then implicated the President in the orchestration of a "cover-up"--the White House's failed attempt at damage control. The cover-up entailed two fundamental aspects: 1) immediately after the botched break-in, Howard Hunt disappeared and began demanding large sums of money, sums which were duly paid out of campaign funds; 2) the "smoking gun" conversation between the President and Haldeman in which Nixon ordered the CIA to halt the FBI investigation.

Magruder's testimony provided a major disclosure: under oath, he declared that the authority to bug the DNC had come directly from CRP Chairman John Mitchell (White 235). Mitchell, however, denied the allegation. The former Attorney General readily admitted being present at a January 27, 1972 meeting at which Gordon Liddy presented his campaign intelligence plan, complete with CIA-made charts. Mitchell described it thusly:

"[It was] a complete horror story that involved a mishmash of code names and lines of authority, electronic surveillance, the ability to intercept aircraft communications, the call girl bit and all the rest of it." His reaction: "I told him to burn the charts and that this was not what we were interested in. What we were interested in was a matter of information gathering and protection against demonstrators." "Why didn't you throw Mr. Liddy out of your office?" Dash asked. "Well, I think, Mr. Dash, in hindsight I not only should have thrown him out of the office, I should have thrown him out of the window."
(qtd. in Knappman 2:12)

John Ehrlichman was defiant in front of the Committee, declaring that the President, by virtue of his office, had the right to commit acts otherwise deemed unlawful. This assertion set in motion an entire episode as the senators debated constitutional law, tracing precepts and statutes back to seventeenth century England. Not even the King of England, it was said, had the right to enter a private abode uninvited.

But by far the most decisive testimony came from former White House aide Alexander Butterfield, who revealed the existence of a secret taping system. In his short, fifteen-minute session before the Committee, it began to dawn on, first the media, then the general public, that the answer to Senator Howard Baker's question--what did the President know, and when did he know it--somewhere had an answer.

What followed was a protracted struggle for the White House tapes, as both the Senate Watergate panel and special prosecutor Archibald Cox vied for their possession. Tapes of nine specific meetings were requested (and denied), so it was given to Judge Sirica to decide. The battle of the court briefs went thusly: a ruling would be issued--such as Sirica's August 29 decision, ordering the President to release the tapes--and the White House would have ten days to respond. That response was invariably a refusal on the grounds of "executive privilege." Nixon cited the precedent of what he called "the Jefferson Rule," pointing out that President Thomas Jefferson had once refused a court order to turn over his personal correspondence. He had instead submitted a written summary, and the Supreme Court then ruled in the president's favor (Knappman 2:129).

Meanwhile, calls for Nixon's resignation or impeachment were getting louder and ever more shrill. The American Civil Liberties Union pushed for impeachment. The AFL-CIO demanded his resignation. Senator Edward Kennedy threatened impeachment if the President continued to defy the court order. On October 12, 1973, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered the White House to surrender the tapes under subpoena.

The President, determined to retain control of the tapes, found himself faced with these options: he could flat out refuse, and risk impeachment; or he could comply and suffer the consequences (probably impeachment). Nixon, however, chose a third alternative, and this led to the sensational Saturday Night Massacre.

In the President's view, Archibald Cox was an employee of the Executive Branch--hired by Attorney General Elliot Richardson--and had to obey the President's orders. Nixon had sent Cox a letter instructing him not to seek any more tapes or documents. Cox saw himself as answerable only to the Attorney General, with the power to subpoena any material from anyone--including the President of the United States. Richardson, loyal to both men, was caught in the middle and was ready to tender his resignation if instructed to fire Cox.

President Nixon, it must be said, based part of his rationale on tensions with the Soviet Union. During the Yom Kippur War between Egypt and Israel, the United States had airlifted massive supplies, including tanks, to the badly routed Israeli army. The U.S.S.R. was supplying the Egyptians. The threat of an armed conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union caused Leonid Brezhnev to summon Henry Kissinger to Moscow. Back in Washington, new Chief-of-Staff Alexander Haig "showed Richardson a 'brutal' letter from Chairman Brezhnev which contained threats later used as a reason for a worldwide alert of U.S. forces" (Doyle 190). Should Brezhnev perceive, it was argued, that the President did not have control of his own government, the Soviets just might be tempted to risk an armed attack. Therefore, on October 20, 1973 the President instructed Richardson to fire Cox. When Richardson offered his letter of resignation, it fell to his deputy William Ruckelshaus, who also resigned. The job of executioner then passed to the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, who duly fired the special prosecutor.

The backlash against the Saturday Night Massacre was ferocious. Angry protests demanding impeachment were held across the nation. On October 23 the House of Representatives aired impeachment resolutions and began an impeachment inquiry by month's end. It was, according to Aitken, the beginning of the end of Nixon's presidency:

The news broke like an exploding firestorm. The TV networks interrupted their regular programmes with apocalyptic bulletins and special reports. NBC's anchorman John Chancellor reflected the mood of the media as he opened his newscast with the words, "The country tonight is in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional crisis in its history... nothing even remotely like it has happened in all our history." (509)

Part of Nixon's strategy in the Cox firing, of course, was to simultaneously surrender the nine tapes under subpoena. The President's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, had begun the process of transcribing the tapes in late September. Still, there were problems: several of the tapes requested simply did not exist. On one occasion the tape machine had run out of tape before a meeting--a fact later verified by the Secret Service--and another was a telephone call that had never been recorded in the first place. Nevertheless, the newspapers had a field day with the "missing tapes" story. Then there were the mysterious gaps and erasures, including the famous 18-minute gap during a conversation between the President and H.R. Haldeman.

The political and judicial machinery continued to grind. On November 1st Leon Jaworski was named as new special prosecutor and, if anything, the investigation intensified. On the 26th of that month an "Index and Analysis" of the Watergate tapes was submitted by the White House to Judge Sirica--the President continuing to maintain that other tapes and documents were still protected by executive privilege.

On March 1, 1974 the Watergate Grand Jury indicted seven in the cover-up: John Ehrlichman, H.R. Haldeman, John Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon Strachan, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson. Although the fact was not revealed until some months later, Richard M. Nixon was named as "unindicted co-conspirator."

In light of the impeachment proceedings occurring in the House, Judge Sirica directed the Grand Jury to report its findings to the Judiciary Committee. Thus, there were now three government entities fighting for possession of the White House tapes: the Justice Department, the Senate Watergate Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee (who issued a subpoena for them on April 4).

On May 9, 1974 the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Peter Rodino, began impeachment hearings against the President. The composition of the Committee--twenty-one Democrats and seventeen Republicans--left Nixon with little hope of averting a recommendation to impeach. And if the process continued in the Democrat-led House, impeachment was certain. For despite the Constitution's eighteenth-century language about "Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors," the truth is that impeachment is, and always has been, a political act--politicians sitting in judgment of other politicians (Aitken 513). Here, partisanship weighs heavier than criminal culpability. The accumulated and ongoing effects of Watergate had severely eroded the President's support in Congress, even among Republicans. Whether removing the President from office was "just" or not, partisanship would take over to eliminate a political liability.

After two months of official evidence-gathering and testimony, the House Judiciary Committee released its final report--an eight-volume, 4133-page document. Two days later, July 11th, the Ervin Committee released its 2250-page report. And on the 24th the Supreme Court ruled against the White House on the tapes--all material under subpoena had to be turned over. From this point on, Richard Nixon accepted the inevitable: resign or be impeached.

On July 30, 1974 the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment. They were as follows:

Article I--obstruction of justice. Adopted by a 27-11 vote, the article listed nine methods by which the President "delayed, impeded, and obstructed" various government agencies as they worked to investigate the Watergate burglaries and other criminal activities.

Article II--abuse of power. Adopted by a 28-10 vote, the article accused the President of such things as using the IRS to institute tax audits of political opponents and critics of the Administration, illegal wiretaps, authorizing and maintaining a Special Investigations Unit (the Plumbers), and so on.

Article III--defiance of subpoenas. Adopted by a 21-17 vote, the article charged that the President sought to impede the House Judiciary Committee by refusing to comply with eight subpoenas for 147 taped conversations and other evidence.

According to constitutional procedures, once approved by the House Judiciary Committee, the articles of impeachment would go to the full House for debate and a vote. If approved, the matter would then go to the Senate for a trial, and if convicted--by a three-quarters vote--the President would be removed from office. But with virtually all political and public support gone, Richard Nixon circumvented the process by tendering his resignation on August 9, 1974--the first president ever to do so--leaving Vice President Gerald Ford as the new Chief Executive.


Political Espionage in the Nixon White House

It should not be supposed that domestic spying--that is, political espionage--began with Richard Nixon. Lyndon Johnson's men had spied on and harassed Barry Goldwater in the 1964 campaign (White 99). Nixon was convinced that the Democrats had eavesdropped on his telephone conversations during the 1968 campaign (Aitken 402). Not one to take it lying down, he fought fire with fire by nurturing his own intelligence-gathering programs, both before and after his election to the presidency.

The Administration's siege-mentality was, in many ways, based on a real threat. During the '60s the country was at war--in Vietnam and at home. Opposition to American involvement in Southeast Asia had reached a fever pitch; university campuses across the nation were under siege. The assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., heroes to the younger generation, had precipitated a domestic crisis. Militant groups such as the Black Panthers and the Weathermen were engaged in violent resistance to authority. Between 1969 and 1970 there were 40,000 bomb threats, 3000 bombings, forty-three deaths, and $21 million in property damage--all of it political (Aitken 412).

Against this setting Nixon called a meeting for June 5, 1970 with all the heads of the nation's Intelligence Community. Present were J. Edgar Hoover (FBI), Richard Helms (CIA), General Donald Bennet (DIA), Admiral Noel Gayler (NSA), with H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Bob Finch, and Tom Huston representing the White House. The President reprimanded them sharply for not getting the job done in terms of stopping domestic terrorism. Nixon ordered them to form a committee and to draft a plan on how to counter the terrorists. The final report was written by the 29 year-old Huston (one of the more radical temperaments in the Administration). The Huston Plan, as it later became known, called for the creation of a super police-force with broad, extra-constitutional powers. Under this Plan, the government could intercept anyone's mail, wiretap anyone's phone, infiltrate any suspicious group. Surreptitious entries (black-bag jobs) were authorized, as well as use of the IRS against anyone deemed a threat. Incredibly, President Nixon approved the Plan and sought to enact it, not through legislation but through fiat--simply on the authority of the memorandum. The one stumbling block to Huston's remarkable coup, however, was J. Edgar Hoover, who objected on constitutional grounds. The Huston Plan was abandoned after only five days, and Huston himself was eventually dismissed, but the whole episode demonstrated the lengths to which Nixon was willing to go in the name of "national security."

The White House soon realized the futility of depending on established intelligence sources, such as the FBI, and sought ways to develop its own--the first example being the private security force, under Ehrlichman, of Jack Caulfield and Anthony Ulasewicz. When Ehrlichman was promoted to head the new White House Domestic Council, becoming the number three man behind Haldeman, a young attorney from the Justice Department was chosen to replace him: John Wesley Dean III. Thus, Dean assumed his duties as counsel to the President while at the same time inheriting a built-in spy unit.

Among the greatest threats to national security, in Nixon's eyes, were leaks of sensitive government information to the press--plans to withdraw from Vietnam, raids into Cambodia, arms-reduction talks with the Soviet Union--all had been leaked to the press. The Administration responded by wiretapping journalists and suspected sources--low level staffers such as Morton Halperin, who worked for Kissinger. But, as the President later admitted to Dean, "[The taps] never helped us. Just gobs and gobs of material: gossip and bullshitting... the tapping was a very, very unproductive thing" (qtd. in White 126).

The Nixon Administration's counter-intelligence operations were thrown into hyperdrive, however, by the June 13, 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers in the New York Times. This was the summary of a 7000-page survey of America's role in Vietnam under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, entitled "The History of U.S. Decision Making in Vietnam" (Aitken 419). The document had been stolen by Daniel Ellsberg and turned over to the Times for publication. Ellsberg was indicted for the theft, but the damage had been done. Nixon himself was sanguine about the matter, which he regarded as embarrassing only to the Democrats; it was Henry Kissinger who made it a white-hot issue, telling the President, "[It] shows you're a weakling..." (qtd. in Aitken 420). As a result, the President charged John Ehrlichman with finding a way to stop the leaks. Ehrlichman's response was to form a Special Investigations Unit--later known as the Plumbers. Heading this outfit was Egil "Bud" Krogh and Kissinger protégé David Young. Recruited from Treasury was former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy. In his autobiography Will Liddy gives his assessment of the Plumbers: "The Ehrlichman presence was Krogh. Kissinger was represented by David Young... I owed my position to John Mitchell. The only other presence not represented was Charles Colson. It was inconceivable to me that Colson would not have a presence in such an enterprise" (204). But Liddy soon met the Colson representative--E. Howard Hunt, and "[t]he empty space on my organization chart was filled. All the heavy hitters were accounted for" (204).

The highest priority on the Plumbers' agenda was the successful prosecution of Daniel Ellsberg. In working up the government's case, motive had to be established: was Ellsberg a lone wolf--merely an anti-establishment liberal--or was he perhaps a KGB operative? He had, after all, studied at Cambridge University in England, the place that "had proved so fruitful in the recruiting of Soviet spies among the British intelligentsia" (Liddy 217). And had not a complete set of the Pentagon Papers, including pages not even the New York Times would publish, been hand delivered to the Soviet Embassy in Washington? Liddy, Hunt, and company thought that a psychiatric profile would be useful, but what they obtained from the CIA was inadequate. From FBI wiretap reports it was known that Ellsberg, who had a long psychiatric history, would telephone his psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding of Beverly Hills, at all hours. Fielding's records on his patient would be most revealing, it was thought. Liddy suggested that a black-bag job was in order (Liddy 218). The proposal was submitted to John Ehrlichman's office and eventually approved.

On August 25, 1971 Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy flew to California on a reconnaissance mission. Fielding's office was photographed inside and out (after hours, Hunt had convinced a cleaning woman to let them in). Back in Washington, the photographs were studied by Krogh, who gave a green light on the entry but with one change: neither Hunt nor Liddy were to personally do the break-in. Hunt's response was to contact some of his CIA friends--Cubans who had served under him in the Bay of Pigs invasion (Liddy 227-28).

Over the Labor Day weekend the clandestine team assembled at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, equipped with Minox miniature cameras, radio receivers, and laundered cash--straight from White House coffers. On the evening of September 3rd they swung into action: Hunt kept Dr. Fielding himself under surveillance at his residence; the Cubans, among them Bernard Barker and Eugenio Martinez, broke into the office; Liddy, armed with a knife, stood watch outside.

When the Cubans finally emerged from Dr. Fielding's office, the team repaired to their hotel room for a "post-burglary" celebration. But here transpired an incongruous scene which, at the time, baffled Liddy. While Hunt opened a bottle of champagne, Barker announced that no file for Daniel Ellsberg had been found. Liddy believed the operation a failure, but when he reported the facts to Bud Krogh in Washington, Krogh seemed unconcerned; he was only relieved that the break-in had been "clean"--i.e. undetected (Liddy 230). In light of later developments, such as disclosures of Hunt's continued work for the CIA, Gordon Liddy has since rethought the whole caper, as explained in Silent Coup:

Liddy thought the Fielding office episode a failure, and was puzzled because back at the hotel room, Hunt and the Cubans celebrated with champagne. Today, Liddy wonders whether Hunt and the Cubans may well have concealed the fruits of the Fielding break-in from him, found just what they had sought, photographed it, and whisked the results back to their true employer, the CIA. Otherwise, what was there to celebrate? (117)

With Liddy left in the dark, this was yet another foreshadowing of things to come. There were intrigues within intrigues within intrigues.

Although the operations of the Plumbers were gradually phased out, this predilection for political espionage resurfaced in the President's re-election campaign. In a 1971 memo submitted to John Dean, Jack Caulfield outlined a proposal for an independent security firm especially designed to serve the CRP. With a price tag of $500,000, he called it Operation Sandwedge. Sandwedge, patterned after the Intertel operation run by DNC Chairman Larry O'Brien and the Kennedys (Nixon's arch-foes), had "offensive and defensive" capabilities, for use against the Democrats (Liddy 251).

Dean tried to sell Sandwedge to Mitchell and Haldeman--without success--then lowered his sights by approaching Haldeman aide Gordon Strachan and CRP Deputy Campaign Director Jeb Magruder. Their repeated efforts on Dean's behalf yielded no results. Finally, Dean, in a somewhat duplicitous manner, turned to Gordon Liddy. At a meeting with Liddy and Bud Krogh, Dean emphasized the need for an offensive plan to counter the Democrats, saying, "There's an election coming up next year. We've had a taste this summer of how the other side can be expected to operate. We've got to be able to counter that with an absolutely first-class intelligence operation" (qtd. in Liddy 252). What Dean described was much more elaborate than Sandwedge, with twice the funding. He asked Liddy to draft a completely new plan, as explained in Will:

The need for what Dean was proposing was obvious, and I certainly had no reluctance to go to war. But it would be an undeclared war and what I would be doing was clearly illegal. It was all too prevalent a ploy in the White House for juniors to invoke the name of the President to advance some idea of their own without the knowledge of their superiors. I was willing to go to war for the President, but not for John Dean. (253)

Liddy agreed to draft a new proposal but insisted on getting the approval of Ehrlichman and Mitchell. He received assurances that such approval would be forthcoming.

To facilitate his new task, Gordon Liddy left the White House and went to work at the CRP under the title of General Counsel. After conferring with intelligence exert Howard Hunt, and with charts developed by the CIA, what he came up with was called GEMSTONE. Under its various subheadings, named for precious and semi-precious stones, GEMSTONE did the following:

DIAMOND was a counter-demonstration plan, designed to break up any interruptions at the Republican Convention.
RUBY provided for the infiltration of spies into Democratic presidential campaigns.
EMERALD was for the interception of radio transmissions of the Democratic nominee's aircraft.
QUARTZ was for microwave interception of telephone traffic.
CRYSTAL was the electronic surveillance center.
SAPPHIRE designated a houseboat to be used as a site for call girls to lure Democratic officials, where they would be photographed and compromised.
OPAL listed the targets for surreptitious entry: Muskie's headquarters, McGovern's headquarters, DNC headquarters at the convention site, and so on.
GARNET outlined phony and obnoxious demonstrations in favor of Democratic candidates.
TOURQUOIS called for the sabotage of air conditioning units at the Democratic Convention, which, in mid-summer, would likely ruin the whole event.
(Liddy 271-75)

All this was to cost just under one million dollars.

On January 27, 1972, as later recounted before the Ervin Committee, Gordon Liddy presented his GEMSTONE proposal to John Mitchell in the Attorney General's office. Dean and Magruder were also present. Mitchell rejected the proposal out of hand, saying it was "too expensive." He also told Liddy to burn the charts.

Having been led to believe that Mitchell himself had asked for the intelligence operation, Liddy was stung by the rejection and lashed out at both Dean and Magruder. The latter, however, assuaged him by saying the issue was not GEMSTONE's illegality, but its price tag. A scaled-back version would have to be drafted. In short order, a $500,000 plan was presented, and again rejected, then a $250,000 plan. That proposal got no response at all, drifting in whatever purgatory it is that such things inhabit. Liddy finally concluded that GEMSTONE was dead.

Then one day, about the first of April, Liddy received a call "out of the blue" relaying a message from Magruder: GEMSTONE had been approved (Liddy 297). One week later he received the initial funding for the project--$83,000 in $100 bills--from Hugh Sloan, CRP's Finance Committee treasurer. The clandestine team included Liddy, Hunt, and James McCord, who were all on the CRP payroll. Hunt's operatives, Barker, Gonzalez, et al, were paid under the table. Most of the $83,000 went to McCord to purchase electronic surveillance equipment--a $30,000 transmitter, a van, transceivers, etc. One of the prime targets under the OPAL subheading (for surreptitious entry) was Senator George McGovern's campaign headquarters on Capitol Hill. Liddy was in the process of casing the place and obtaining layouts when he was called into an unexpected meeting with Jeb Magruder.

"Gordon, do you think you could get into the Watergate?" he was asked (qtd. in Liddy 302). Liddy was annoyed because the DNC headquarters was not among the targets for surreptitious entry, nor was it budgeted for. He accepted the assignment, but not without misgivings:

I was disturbed by this turn of events because it was not the situation I had agreed to, nor outlined in GEMSTONE. My deal called for me to choose the targets and the timing. Once again, control was being taken away from me. In the intelligence business it is the consumer who tasks the agency with the requirement, but the professionals determine how and when to get it. That custom was being broken. (Liddy 303)

As preparations for the first Watergate break-in were being made, Liddy was asked to do some money laundering for the CRP. First, he received from Sloan a package of signed traveler’s checks left over from the 1968 campaign. The transaction was handled through Bernard Barker's Cuban connections. Then he received the $25,000 cashier's check (which the FBI later used to link the CRP with the Watergate burglars), and four other checks drawn on a bank in Mexico City (Liddy 305-06).

The target date for the first Watergate break-in was May 26. Hunt's Cuban operatives were in town by the 22nd, and on the 26th they registered in the Watergate posing as representatives of the (fictitious) Ameritus Corporation. That evening the group staged a banquet in the hotel's Continental Room, staying well past midnight. This ploy was chosen because a corridor connected the banquet room and the DNC offices. However, the burglary could not be carried out that night or the next due to various, unexpected problems.

The group was finally successful on the 28th. The DNC was penetrated, bugs were placed on various telephones, and "Barker had two rolls of 36-exposure 35-mm film he'd expended on material from O'Brien's desk" (Liddy 320). Moreover, the operation was undetected--a success.

The information obtained by the electronic listening devices, however, was virtually worthless. What's more, one of the bugs was not transmitting properly. Liddy continued to report to Magruder, handing over transcribed telephone logs, but Magruder seemed more concerned about the contents of various file cabinets in the offices. Under the impression that the main objective had been to bug Larry O'Brien's phone, Magruder's fixation over files struck Liddy as odd. The significance of this will be explored presently.

On June 12 Magruder again summoned Liddy to his office and proceeded to grill him about the contents of DNC files, asking "how many file cabinets there were and their proximity to O'Brien's office" (Liddy 325). As he ordered a second DNC break-in, Magruder "instructed that we go in there with all the film, men, and cameras necessary to photograph everything in [O'Brien's] desk and in those files" (Liddy 325).

On June 16 the clandestine team assembled, once again, in Washington to execute the assignment. While Liddy and Hunt manned the control post at the Howard Johnson's, James McCord and the Cubans broke into the DNC for the second time. They were, as we know, detected and apprehended. The story of the aftermath has been told elsewhere.


The Silent Coup Revelations


Not even Gordon Liddy, intimately and criminally involved in the Watergate burglaries, knew the true objective of the two break-ins, nor did he know who had ordered them (using Magruder as a channel). He assumed that CRP Chairman John Mitchell had approved GEMSTONE and then requested the DNC break-ins. Only later did he discover both assumptions to be false. And as for the objective, he stated in Will: "The purpose of the second Watergate break-in was to find out what O'Brien had of a derogatory nature about us, not for us to get something on him or the Democrats" (325). That was also false.

In 1984 political analyst Len Colodny and newspaperman Robert Gettlin began an exhaustive seven-year investigation into the whole Watergate affair. The result, Silent Coup, is a multi-faceted book which offers one stunning revelation after another. To wit:

• How a military spy ring operated within the White House, reporting to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in opposition to Nixon's foreign policy.
• How reporter Bob Woodward concealed his military intelligence background, Pentagon contacts, and White House sources, protecting them--and their hidden agendas--with the code name "Deep Throat."
• How White House Chief-of-Staff Alexander Haig worked to conceal the military spy ring and was the driving force behind President Nixon's resignation.
• How newspapers such as the Washington Post and New York Times sought to discredit Silent Coup, and how media giants "60 Minutes" and Time magazine were pressured not to publicize its findings.


But by far the most fascinating disclosures are those concerning former White House counsel John Dean. For in its pages, Dean emerges as the chief villain in the whole Watergate saga. In July 1970 when John Ehrlichman was appointed to head the White House Domestic Council, a replacement was needed for presidential counsel. The prime candidate was Dean. At Justice, Dean had been a passing acquaintance of Gordon Liddy. Liddy had, even then, been warned by his supervisor about Dean: [He] advised me to be careful of what I said around Dean. When I asked why, he explained that Dean was an 'idea thief.' If one mentioned a good idea in Dean's presence, one remotely in Dean's area of official interest, before one's memorandum was out of the typewriter, Dean's would be on the appropriate desk, crediting himself with the idea" (Liddy 183).

Once settled in the White House, Dean realized that he was unsupervised and pretty much on his own. To expand his territory, he hired an assistant, former Army officer Fred F. Fielding, setting up what was, in effect, a small law firm. In that position Dean had access to a variety of sensitive materials, such as the aborted Huston Plan, old campaign stratagems SEDAN CHAIR I and II (the planting of operatives inside the Muskie and McGovern campaigns), and of course, the Sandwedge proposal. Although Dean later claimed before the Ervin Committee that he had "little knowledge" of Anthony Ulasewicz, Colodny and Gettlin maintain that Dean was deeply involved with him: "Despite Dean's denials, [he] knew precisely who Ulasewicz was, often ordered him into action through Caulfield, and later issued orders to him directly without an intermediary" (103).

It soon became clear to John Dean that intelligence-gathering was the key to power in Nixon's White House. He bragged about it in his book Blind Ambition: "It did not take [my superiors] long to notice that the counsel's office could perform intelligence work for the White House... [we] built up a reputation for such intelligence investigations--some juicy, many simply laborious--and we handled them while the ordinary legal work hummed along" (qtd. in Colodny and Gettlin 104).

As a result of Dean's intelligence work during a massive anti-war protest (May 3, 1971), Haldeman assigned him a specific task in the re-election campaign: counter-demonstration work. Such a limited role, however, did not appeal to Dean. He sought from Haldeman a "grant of authority" to conduct a broader intelligence operation. All his efforts were rebuffed, as Haldeman repeatedly insisted that he limit himself to anti-war demonstrations.

Undismayed, Dean continued to search for ways to enhance his power within the White House. One of these was the aforementioned "enemies list." Another was an assignment he gave to Ulasewicz to investigate the "Happy Hooker" ring of Xaviera Hollander in New York. The idea, of course, was to identify any of her customers who happened to be Democrats. Ulasewicz duly investigated, but reported that just as many Republicans as Democrats were among Hollander's clientele (Colodny and Gettlin 108). Although the information was useless, it does reveal a Dean penchant for salacious material.

John Dean's efforts to become the "intelligence czar" of the Nixon Administration, as documented in Silent Coup, thus sheds new light on Liddy's recollection of the meeting at which Dean proposed a new intelligence operation for the CRP--what became GEMSTONE. Liddy believed that the request had come from John Mitchell, but there is no evidence to support that (thus, Mitchell's repeated refusals to authorize GEMSTONE). Magruder testified before the Senate, and wrote in his book An American Life, that Mitchell, at a March 30, 1972 meeting in Key Biscayne, not only authorized the third GEMSTONE proposal but specified the DNC as a target for surreptitious entry. But according to Colodny and Gettlin,

Mitchell consistently denied that he ever discussed an illegal break-in with anyone, and insisted that he never granted an approval. He told the [Senate] Watergate Committee that the GEMSTONE paper he saw contained no mention of break-ins or wiretaps and that Magruder must have been under pressure from someone [italics added] to get some sort of Liddy plan okayed. Mitchell testified he forcefully rejected the plan and told Magruder, "We don't need this, I am tired of hearing it out, let's not discuss it any further." (126)

Magruder has since admitted that Mitchell never approved GEMSTONE, much less ordered the DNC break-in. And he was under considerable pressure from the White House: namely, from John Dean. According to Silent Coup, Magruder was trapped: "So trapped, we believe, that [he] gave the CRP's go-ahead to fund the scaled down GEMSTONE without Mitchell's approval, using the funds that were already under Magruder's own control" (127). As we've seen, GEMSTONE included no provisions for a break-in at the Watergate. Liddy's account in Will describes his annoyance at losing control over GEMSTONE's operations, including the unbudgeted-for DNC break-in. Nixon was right--there was precious little to be gained from the Democratic headquarters. The real action was elsewhere--at the convention center or within the McGovern campaign. This raises serious questions as to why the DNC was chosen for the break-in: why the great risk for so little return?

The answer involved a certain Washington attorney named Phillip Mackin Bailley. Bailley ran a practice that represented drug dealers, petty criminals, and prostitutes. He was also quite profligate, having "an unordinate ability to persuade young women to sleep with him, then to pose nude as he photographed them" (Colodny and Gettlin 128). Having gone to law school with many aspiring politicians, Bailley dabbled in Democratic politics and had contacts that worked in the Democratic National Committee's Watergate suite.

One of Bailley's female companions went by the name of Cathy Dieter (true name: Erika L. Rikan). Dieter ran a prostitute ring, and all this information was recorded in Bailley's address books--names, phone numbers, etc. Code names were used, and one of the more prominent ones--"Clout"--referred to a woman named Maureen Biner. Biner and Dieter were in fact roommates--that is, whenever Biner was not staying with her lover: presidential counsel John Dean. Thus, it is not at all unlikely that Dean knew about the prostitute ring. Maureen Biner is now Mrs. John Dean.

Phillip Bailley's main contact at the DNC was Spencer Oliver, the executive director of the Association of State Democratic Chairmen. During 1971 and early 1972 Bailley visited the DNC offices repeatedly, missing Oliver (who was away) but striking up a friendship with his secretary, Ida M. ("Maxie") Wells. According to Silent Coup:

Bailley told us he learned that Oliver traveled a lot and that the Governor's office was almost always vacant. It was, in short, a perfect set up for what Cathy
Dieter had in mind. Bailley says that he then found someone at the DNC with whom he could do business, telling her, "I have friends who can make your out-of-town people happy at night." He stressed that these were college educated ladies and that they were just across the street, referring to the Columbia Plaza. According to Bailley, at this and in subsequent meetings and phone calls with Cathy and Bailley, the DNC contact agreed to take part in the operation. (131)

Thus, the Cathy Dieter prostitute ring set up appointments through Bailley's DNC contact, using the phone in Oliver's office or the one in the vacant Governor's office. It was the knowledge of this activity that drew Dean's interest to the Watergate--knowledge obtained from his wife-to-be, Maureen.

Apparently, what sparked the break-in was the April 6, 1972 FBI raid of Phillip Bailley's law office and residence. Although Bailley was not arrested at that time, his address books were confiscated--at least one of them listing the name Maureen Biner. Bailley was eventually indicted for violations of the Mann Act--transportation of young women across state lines for immoral purposes--convicted and disbarred. A few weeks after the FBI raid, Gordon Liddy was summoned to Magruder's office and asked if he could "get into the Watergate" (Liddy 302). Therefore, according to Silent Coup, the true objective of the Watergate break-in was not, as Liddy thought, to bug Larry O'Brien's phone, but to retrieve information of the Cathy Dieter prostitute ring and bug Spencer Oliver's telephone, as well as the one in the Governor's office.

While Liddy was kept in the dark, Howard Hunt and his Cuban operatives went in with full knowledge of what was being sought. Colodny and Gettlin make this point clear: "In a recent interview given for the purpose of this book, and breaking silence after many years, Watergate burglar Rolando Martinez told us that the [wire]tap was not placed on Larry O'Brien's telephone, but on the one in the Oliver/Governor's area" (142). Similarly, Frank Sturgis reported that he had never gone near O'Brien's office and had received no instructions to enter or search it.

When the burglars were apprehended, they were discovered in the vicinity of Oliver's office, which was at the opposite end of the suite from O'Brien's. Furthermore, Martinez had on his person a notebook with a small key taped to it. The FBI, through trial and error, eventually discovered the purpose of the key: it opened a drawer in Maxie Wells' desk (Colodny and Gettlin 163). One of the objectives of the break-in, then, was to retrieve something from that desk.

Knowing of John Dean's complicity in these matters, his subterfuge when later advising his client--the President--becomes glaringly obvious. It was Dean's idea to use the CIA to halt the FBI investigation. According to Aitken (who had carefully studied Silent Coup):

[Dean] receives and transmits all the inside information on Watergate. For different reasons the key players trust him. Liddy regards him as the damage control officer of the break-in. Haldeman and Ehrlichman give him the assignment of conducting an internal White House inquiry into what happened. Acting FBI director Gray allows Dean to sit in on all FBI meetings and interviews on Watergate after being told by him that as president's counsel he will report what he learns directly to the President. This was pure fiction, but it provided Dean with a most advantageous listening post on the progress of the FBI's investigation. Thus, it was from Gray that Dean learned that the FBI were confused about the motives for the break-in and had formed a theory that it
might have been a CIA operation. Gray also gave Dean a remarkable new idea for getting everyone off the hook. "I remember telling Mr. Dean..." Gray later testified to the Senate Select Committee, "that the FBI was going to pursue all leads aggressively unless we were told by the CIA that there was a CIA interest or involvement in this case." (475)

Thus, Colodny and Gettlin contend that Dean tricked the President and H.R. Haldeman into adopting this strategy as a means to conceal his own guilt (200).

Dean, it must be said, has never admitted to any of this directly; therefore the case presented in Silent Coup should be regarded as a provocative, albeit convincing, theory. It is convincing because it is so thoroughly documented: 150 on-the-record interviews, use of the Senate Watergate Committee and House Judiciary Committee testimony and documents, analysis of the White House tapes, papers in the National Archives, the wide variety of Watergate literature (Colodny and Gettlin 467). However, Dean has confessed indirectly. In 1992 John and Maureen Dean sued Colodny and Gettlin for libel--an action that resulted in the publisher halting distribution of the best-seller. To prepare for trial, the authors produced copies of all the relevant documents and interview tapes--welcoming, in fact, the opportunity to confront Dean with the evidence in a court of law. As public figures, the Deans were compelled by law to prove that information in Silent Coup was false and that Colodny and Gettlin published it knowing it was false (Fechter).

Apparently, the Deans were warned by their lawyers about the strength of their opponent's case, for they filed a motion to withdraw the suit prior to the trial date. The Silent Coup authors promptly filed their own motion to stop Dean from withdrawing his suit, resulting in the bizarre scenario of the defendants (the accused) insisting upon their day in court over the protests of the plaintiffs. For seven years the deadlocked suit/countersuit "bounced among law offices from Los Angeles to Tampa to New York to Washington" (Soteropoulos). The matter was finally settled out of court. The Deans were barred from discussing the terms of the settlement, but Colodny and Gettlin were free to republish with impunity. One cannot help wonder just what it was that Dean did not want disclosed in court.

"He's done nothing but call it names," said Colodny, "He can call it garbage, he can call it trash. But Mr. Dean had a chance to disprove it, and for me to have to go running in and take the extraordinary step of preventing Mr. Dean from running out of the courthouse... I think it's a real vindication of Silent Coup" (qtd. in Soteropoulos).


Conclusions

The Watergate scandal has been called "the last skirmish of the Vietnam War" and is perhaps best understood in that context. The anti-war movement had deeply divided the country and made nearly all Americans re-examine the role of world superpower it had assumed after World War II. Americans are always distrustful of government, even in the best of times, therefore the presence of a criminal element in the Nixon Administration created a pathological anti-Nixon hysteria nationwide.

The President's men saw themselves as soldiers engaged in a deadly cultural-political war, convinced that the Democratic Party was leading the nation to ruin. As for the illegality of actions the Plumbers, and later the CRP took on the President's behalf, Liddy writes in Will:

I am asked frequently whether I believe in "blind obedience" to orders from legitimate authority, the code that permitted many Germans to carry out genocide. I do not. There is a point beyond which I will not go, and that is anything my conscience tells me is malum in se (evil in and of itself) or my judgment tells me is irrational. I have no problem with doing something that is malum prohibitum (wrong only because of the existence of a law prohibiting it). An example of malum in se would be the sexual assault of a child. In every society such a thing would be recognized as wrong. An example of malum prohibitum, on the other hand, would be the statute prohibiting driving through a stop sign without coming to a complete halt. Absent such a law, to do so would be a morally indifferent act. (289)

Are there any heroes or villains in this tale? Who were the truly guilty, the wrongly disparaged, or the blameless? That depends upon one's political bias, I suppose. I was in high school when all this was going on (1973). I had a history teacher named Mr. Pociask, who was an ardent Nixon-hater. More than a few of Pociask's classes were devoted to schooling us on the treacheries of the 37th president. Such a bias, no doubt, would place Nixon at the top of the villain's list followed by nearly every member of his administration. That is the assumption of Theodore H. White--one of my sources for this paper. In sharp contrast, Jonathan Aitken was a personal friend of Mr. Nixon and wrote this summation: "Richard Nixon, both as a man and a statesman, has been excessively maligned for his faults and inadequately recognized for his virtues... Because of his Shakespearean complexity he will probably continue to polarize biographical opinion after his death, just as he polarized political opinion throughout his career" (577).

The pivotal source that I've used, of course, is Silent Coup, and since its authors hail from journalistic backgrounds squarely on the left, one would expect little sympathy for the ex-president from them. I must say their treatment is fair--Nixon is far from blameless, but neither was he the impetus for Watergate. The President, along with his most trusted aides, were duped and skillfully maneuvered by John Dean. If one believes the conclusions of Silent Coup, as I do, the truth of the matter is as follows:

• John Dean's ambition to dominate intelligence activities in the Nixon Administration and CRP led to the break-in of the DNC. Then in an effort to conceal his guilt, Dean engineered the cover-up.
• Many of the President's men, including Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Magruder, and Colson, were involved in illegal activities independent of Dean's machinations.
• From all that I've read, John Mitchell appears to be innocent and was convicted by the perjury of others, particularly Magruder.
• The only heroic figure to emerge from all this is G. Gordon Liddy, who defied all attempts to coerce testimony from him.

As for the former president, I agree with Aitken that he has been unjustly maligned and used as a scapegoat for the country to vent its frustrations on. The Watergate break-in, of course, was not his fault. But his mismanagement of the resulting scandal--fueled by bad advice from self-serving counselors like Dean--led to his downfall. The greatest accomplishments of Richard Nixon--ending the Vietnam War, arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, the China Initiative--should rank him as one of our most important presidents. But whatever his relative strengths and weaknesses, and historical opinion yet to come, he was, without a doubt, the most endlessly fascinating president of the twentieth century.


Works Cited

Aitken, Jonathan. Nixon: A Life. Washington: Regnery, 1993.

Colodny, Len and Robert Gettlin. Silent Coup: The Removal of a President. New York: St. Martin's, 1991.

Doyle, James. Not Above the Law: The Battles of Watergate Prosecutors Cox and Jaworski. New York: Morrow, 1977.

Fechter, Michael. "Watergate Scandal Never Dies." February 22, 2000. .

Knappman, Edward W. Watergate and the White House. 3 vols. New York: Facts on File, 1973-1974.

Liddy, G. Gordon. Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy. New York: St. Martin's, 1980.

Soteropoulos, Jacqueline. "Watergate Book Lawsuit Settled." February 22, 2000. .

White, Theodore H. Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Knopf, 1975.