Could Nixon have survived Watergate?
- Thread starter Alexpira
- Start date
Yes. What sunk Nixon was not the actual break in, but the cover-up. If he hadn't covered it up, he would have been able to stay President, albeit he would have been a bit damaged.
As Hubert says... Having Libby & the other low level plumbers take the bullet right at the start would have settled the whole thing swftly. Another sordid episode of the underside of politics.
The stupidity in trying to lie about something so petty revealed the dysfunctional thinking with Nixion & his inner circle. Contrast this with how brutally Nixon threw his strong ally & friend Agnew under the bus. It was a embarrassment how curtly Nixion cut him off. The inconsistency left Nixon's staff confused and looking for exit strategies.
The stupidity in trying to lie about something so petty revealed the dysfunctional thinking with Nixion & his inner circle. Contrast this with how brutally Nixon threw his strong ally & friend Agnew under the bus. It was a embarrassment how curtly Nixion cut him off. The inconsistency left Nixon's staff confused and looking for exit strategies.
Or . . . the Watergate burglars wanted their families taken care of while they took the rap. Sounds eminently reasonable to me.
I mean, on a couple of different levels, I'm sorry the world works this way. But it does, or at least this is one major way it does.
And apparently, the Nixon administration was too dysfunctional to be able to successfully do this.
I mean, on a couple of different levels, I'm sorry the world works this way. But it does, or at least this is one major way it does.
And apparently, the Nixon administration was too dysfunctional to be able to successfully do this.
Agnew was caught red handed taking bribes from mobsters.
Nixon got a little paranoid, seeing as how he left the White House $25,000,000 richer than he was when he moved in.
So this is pretty incorrect. Nixon was in no way Agnew's friend. He considered Agnew to be an idiot, often saying "No assassin in their right mind would kill me. If they did, they'd end up with Agnew!" He even wanted to take Agnew off of the ticket in 1972, but Agnew proved too valuable of an attack dog. Nixon didn't suddenly cut Agnew off when the scandal started; rather the scandal was the final breaking point in a relationship that was almost dead. As for those on Nixon's staff who changed sides, some (such as White House Counsel John Dean) did fear being made scapegoats for Watergate. But the fall of Agnew was not cited as a reason for this. Instead Dean mainly blames the "Berlin Wall" of Ehrlichman and Haldeman. Others who flipped mainly did so out of fear of jail time. Again, Agnew doesn't really feature in this.
With term limits, I tend to think a modern U.S. president is a lame duck the last two years of his or her presidency anyway.
So, Nixon post-Watergate? It would be this uphill battle on steroids!
I was in my early 20s in those days, and thought then (as I still do) that it was incredible the way group-think had seized the Nixon White House in that nobody, particularly the more seasoned members of the staff, stood up and said, in effect, "This is nuts. We have this election in the bag. McGovern is so far out there he's going to lose like Goldwater did in '64--and what do we stand to gain? Not one damn thing. And what if something goes wrong, especially if one of those bozos talks? No; call off this garbage. At worst we may not carry a couple of states apart from Massachusetts and the District, but so what?"
If someone had the guts to challenge the very notion of the break-in as high risk / low gain, it could have been stopped before it got started. Then Nixon's second term would have been more or less run of the mill until the Agnew scandal broke, at which point Spiro = zero. He'd get shitcanned so fast that if you blinked, you would have missed it. Jerry Ford gets named VP, but it's debatable he'd get the nod in '76.
If Nixon serves the full two terms by virtue of Watergate getting short-circuited, 1976 isn't necessarily a poisoned chalice: there would be no hangover. Much depends on whom the GOP nominates: Ford would be seen as a nice guy but of debatable executive material; Reagan might be viable but might not have quite enough to get over the top. Could be a compromise candidate, along the lines of a Howard Baker who would have had to have made a name for himself by some means other than Watergate.
If someone had the guts to challenge the very notion of the break-in as high risk / low gain, it could have been stopped before it got started. Then Nixon's second term would have been more or less run of the mill until the Agnew scandal broke, at which point Spiro = zero. He'd get shitcanned so fast that if you blinked, you would have missed it. Jerry Ford gets named VP, but it's debatable he'd get the nod in '76.
If Nixon serves the full two terms by virtue of Watergate getting short-circuited, 1976 isn't necessarily a poisoned chalice: there would be no hangover. Much depends on whom the GOP nominates: Ford would be seen as a nice guy but of debatable executive material; Reagan might be viable but might not have quite enough to get over the top. Could be a compromise candidate, along the lines of a Howard Baker who would have had to have made a name for himself by some means other than Watergate.
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I've been surprised at the type and amount of ideas he entertained. Universal income, health care, I think there are others too. I suppose I need to set aside my military history and fantasy novels and walk up to the village library and see what is available on Nixon.
Driftless
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I couldn't stand "Tricky Dicky" when he ran and when he was elected. I thought he needed to be removed from office. @1940 LaSalle covered the common sense points above of what Nixon should have done.
However, with the passage of time and hindsight, he could have been remembered as a very good, maybe even a great president. The diplomatic breakthroughs with China and Soviets have had enormous and long lasting impact. The environmental legislation that was passed by congress, but with Nixon's tacit support. We could have had universal health care, but Teddy Kennedy overreached (by his own later regret). What-might-have-been.
Nixon is a character out of a Greek tragedy.
However, with the passage of time and hindsight, he could have been remembered as a very good, maybe even a great president. The diplomatic breakthroughs with China and Soviets have had enormous and long lasting impact. The environmental legislation that was passed by congress, but with Nixon's tacit support. We could have had universal health care, but Teddy Kennedy overreached (by his own later regret). What-might-have-been.
Nixon is a character out of a Greek tragedy.
Yep. He did a lot for Native Americans too. Something that hasn't been forgotten.
A lot depends on if there are fundamental changes in the Executive branch staff. If he keeps the same dysfunctional crowd around, or brings in the same lot but with different names then things may stagnant at the Watergate year levels. Getting to the positive effects outlined above depends in part on a properly functioning Executive staff. Who pays attention to getting legislation through Congress & not on barricading the White House, searching for security leaks, and assembling enemies lists.