Spiro - You're Fired!
November 4, 1973
In Greece, student demonstrators, opposed to the country's dictatorship, clash with police.
The Israeli Air Force systematically destroys what remains of the Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian and Iraqi Air Forces, destroying most of the Arab warplanes at their bases on the ground. They also bomb as many airports as possible in those countries to prevent arial re-supply from the outside.
In the Mediterranean, off the coast of Lebanon, an Israeli Navy Sa’ar 4 missile boat is engaged and seriously damaged by the Soviet destroyers Soobrazitelnyy and Slavny. The Soobrazitelnyy is seriously damaged and forced to put in to the neutral port of Beirut, where the Lebanese government, under pressure from Israel and the United States, is forced to intern the Soviet crew.
In Washington the White House and the Capitol are encircled by large Agnew Get Out demonstration.
November 5, 1973
John Dean admits to prosecutors that he destroyed Howard Hunt’s notebooks, which contained incriminating details about the White House Plumber’s Squad activities in 1971 and 1972.
Israeli forces encircling the city of Damascus cut-off all access in and out of the Syrian capital. While Israeli forces do not enter the city, special units do undertake reconnaissance and sabotage missions within Damascus.
After a meeting with the French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert (who has been in Jerusalem meeting with the Israeli leadership prior to his visit to Cairo), President Sadat of Egypt announces that he will observe a ceasefire in place along the Sinai front, and that the Egyptian Army will engage in combat operations only if attacked by Israeli forces. In Jerusalem the Cabinet orders Israeli units on the Sinai front to engage in only defensive operations, thus signalling a tacit acceptance of Sadat’s ceasefire. Sadat quietly encourages Jordan and Syria to accept the ceasefire as well.
The previous day’s anti-Agnew protests in Washington continue.
November 6, 1973
The Syrian, Jordanian and Iraqi Army attempts to relieve the siege of Damascus. They are repelled with heavy losses by the Israelis. More Soviet supplies and technicians arrive by air at Aleppo in Northern Syria.
U.S. Navy aircraft bomb the Soviet-built naval facility at Tartus, Syria.
The Turkish government prohibits U.S. Air Force aircraft based at Incirlik, Izmir and Ankara, Turkey from using its air space in order to operate in Syrian airspace.
Israel announces that it will fight Jordanian Army units fighting in Syria, but that its troops will not enter Jordanian territory unless provoked by a direct attack from that country.
A Grand Jury is convened in the District of Columbia to hear a case for indicting Richard Milhouse Nixon, 37th President of the United States, on a series of criminal charges.
In Northern California, Donald DeFreeze, who earlier in the year walked away from a work detail at Soledad Prison, has joined a group of urban guerrillas which he calls the Symbionese Liberation Army. He calls himself General Cinque. His group assassinates Oakland's Superintendent of Schools, Marcus Foster, because he favored identity cards, which the group denounces as fascist.
Roger Abritten, the brother of an Indiana National Guard soldier killed in Vietnam, and himself a Vietnam War veteran from 1969-70, fires a sub-machine gun at the White House from Pennsylvania Avenue, killing a NPR news producer and wounding two gardeners. Abritten is killed by Secret Service sharp shooters. The Agnew Administration reacts by ordering units of the 82d Airborne Division to take-up station in a perimeter around the White House.
"Senator, what can I do for you?" President Agnew asked as Senator Barry Goldwater was escorted into the Oval Office. As usual Don Rumsfeld trailed closely behind to monitor the conversation.
Goldwater gave Rumsfeld a withering stare. "Is he your answer to Dick Nixon's taping system?"
"It'll be okay, Don. Give me a few minutes with the Senator."
Unhappy at being dismissed, Rumsfeld shuffled out of the Oval Office.
"Now, Senator what..."
"Resign. Tonight. Right now."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You asked me what you could do, and that's it, Mr. President. Resign before it's too late," Goldwater said.
"How dare you? No one can come in here and talk to the President that way."
"It's about time someone did. Your intransigence is destroying our party and our country. In the name of God, resign before you flush what's left of your reputation away, and take the rest of us with you."
"Senator - Barry? You mustn't listen to the nattering nabobs of negativity. There's no way thirty-four Republican Senators are going to lay down and ..."
"You really are a cretin. I don't know who's been feeding you that horse crap, Agnew, but you haven't got a hope in Hell of winning. Anyone who's telling you otherwise is leading you to certain disaster, or they're living in a fantasy world of their own. If you don't resign this office tonight, you will be removed tomorrow. You will go down in history as the first President to be removed from office. You'll be a joke, a sad asterisk among Presidents. You won't even be a former President: if we remove you, you lose the right to the title."
Agnew glared at Goldwater with open hostility. "You presume to lecture me? You couldn't even carry ten states. You're washed-up, a has been, a never was. Get out of my office!"
"Look, don't be a fool. This is your last chance. I'm telling you that more than sixty-seven Senators are ready to vote you out. You've got until tomorrow morning. For the love of your country, God, yourself, whatever moves you, don't try and play chicken with this."
"You want me to call the Secret Service, Senator?"
Goldwater left and Rumsfeld came back in.
"What did he want?" Rumsfeld asked.
"He says they've got more than sixty-seven votes to remove me. He wants me to resign."
"Poppycock! You can't get sixty-seven Senators to vote for motherhood in this town. Oh, they might agree on the concept, but they won't risk being seen voting on the same side as their most despised adversaries on the other side of the aisle."
"But if we've lost Goldwater?"
"Barry Goldwater is an old man," Rumsfeld said. "He couldn't even win the Presidency against a flaming liberal. What does he know? Do you really think more than a handful of Republican Senators are going to risk having to explain to their constituents - our silent majority - that they voted to remove a President of their own party in order to replace him with one who worked for Jack Kennedy? You think Paul Fannin or Jim Buckley or Bob Dole will take a risk like that? Do you think any of them have the guts to face down Jesse Helms or Ronald Reagan? That's what they'd be doing; because we know both of them are counting on our agenda succeeding, and it will. We just have to have the guts to stand our ground."
"Still, Goldwater was on our side, until now."
"We'll be here long after he's retired,' Rumsfeld said. 'Do you think Nixon would have folded right now?"
"No."
"So, Mr. President, are you ready to throw in the towel where Richard Nixon wouldn't have? Is that how you want history to remember you?"
The President speaks from the Oval Office
Good evening my fellow Americans. Tomorrow the Senate will vote on my fitness to continue as your President. I am sad to have to report that many who serve in that body, who I thought of as my friends, have been listening to the nattering nabobs of negativity, enough so that they have allowed themselves to lose sight of the facts. Well, let me take this opportunity to put the facts before you, the American people.
When I came to Washington, it was to help President Richard Nixon fulfill a scared trust that you had given to us with your votes: that was to lead this nation into the nineteen-seventies with honor and to a higher standard of leadership than we knew in the nineteen-sixties. Many of the loopy limousine liberals who led us to disaster in the nineteen-sixties could not accept our victory, so they conspired to bring President Nixon low. They did not succeed, although they plague Richard Nixon to this day with false charges and innuendos. Side-by-side with President Nixon I helped to prove that there was a better way for this nation.
By an accident of fate and circumstance, I know find myself in this office, as your President. At this hour our troops fight around the world against an intractable enemy - an enemy of liberty and of freedom - an enemy that cannot stand American values and thus will not stop until they have destroyed us. Tonight we and our valiant ally in Israel face grave peril - a peril which could consume the world in the fires of Armageddon - a peril brought on by the enemy's relentless conspiracy to destroy all free men and women everywhere in the world. We stand toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union tonight not because we wish to match our power to theirs, but because we know that to give-in to dictators anywhere is to surrender our freedoms everywhere. This is the bloody lesson of World War II, that appeasement is a suicidal folly. So we will not repeat this folly, we will stand tough in the face of the oppressor until freedom wins through.
The nattering nabobs - the Limp Liberals, they do not understand this - or they say they do not understand with a disingenuous nod of feigned innocence. They would rather see America weak, divided and compromised, all in the furtherance of a big state, socialist agenda which is antithetical to all America represents and all our fathers and brothers have fought and died for in two World Wars and in Asia. They hate me because I expose their hypocrisy and because I will not admit defeat in the face of their threats. They turn their knives on Agnew because Agnew - and Agnew alone - will stand-up to the tyrant. They come for me because I alone will never surrender, will never compromise, will never appease the Soviet tyrant and the liberal lobby at the expense of our liberty. That is why they wish to remove me.
I appeal to you, my fellow citizens, do not allow them. Flood your Senators with letters and telegrams, tell them how you really feel. Let them know you stand with me in defense of our freedoms. It is time for the silent majority to let loose a howl of indignation which will send the Limp Liberals forever cowering in their Harvard Libraries and Yale Clubs, never to come out and trouble America again. Rise-up my friends, and tell these enemies of American freedom how much you love liberty, and that you want me here defending you and your family against those who would take all you have and leave you only bitter tears and chains. Tell your Senator to vote no to my removal, and yes to American freedom.
Let me leave you with this final thought, my friends. The man they would replace me with is a Roman Catholic. So we must ask if there is not a deeper foreign conspiracy at work here, if not from Rome some anti-American power is seeking to use the institutions of our democracy to subvert us from within. Communism and popery share much in common in that regard, and both must be guarded against. Do not let this happen, my friends. Tell your Senator not to succumb to the wily plots of Cardinals or Commissars. Tell them to support my Presidency, because in doing that they vote to support your freedom. Good night my friends, and may God Bless the United States.
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As a matter of public interest the networks ran the speech in its entirety. Immediately thereafter, the last part generated a debate about the broadcasting of bigoted speech, and a great deal of speculation about what the anti-Catholic remarks had said about Spiro Agnew the man. The Vatican and the Soviet Union both officially protested the content of the speech, as did a number of other officially Roman Catholic nations.
Whether it was Agnew who wrote the end of that speech or one of his staff (it was hard to imagine that Pat Buchanan - a devout Roman Catholic - penned the last paragraph, although the rest of it sounded like him [he claimed credit for all but the last paragraph which he claimed not have seen before Agnew actually spoke the words on television] ) - they had overlooked the fact that a number of the one hundred Senators who would be deciding President Agnew's fate were themselves Roman Catholics, or had Roman Catholic constituents, who were offended by his remarks.
November 7, 1973
A shoulder fired anti-aircraft missile brings down a United Airlines 727 chartered by the U.S. military during its final approach to Tan Son Nut Airport in Saigon, killing 7 crew and 112 U.S. service personnel belonging to 2d Brigade, 34th Infantry Division (Iowa National Guard). In a rate move, spokespersons for the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong both deny that they did this.
Syrian radio broadcasts the announcement that President Hafez el-Asad and his Ba’ath party regime have been overthrown: Asad himself is executed by the military. Luai al-Atassi, a former President of a past military regime, is recalled as the interim, largely figurehead President of a government run by a council of top Generals. The new government says it will fight for "Syria’s total sovereignty" and immediately blames the incompetence and corruption of the Asad regime for Syria’s military losses to Israel.
Beginning at 11:30 am EST, with the Chief Justice of the United States, Warren E. Burger, presiding from the chair, the Clerk of Senate read off the names in alphabetical order. Each Senator would provide a voice vote, which would later be confirmed by a signed ballot. A vote of two-thirds of those present (66 votes out of 99) are required to remove President Agnew form office.
Vote of the United States Senate on the first article of impeachment: accepting bribes in the course of his public duties.
The vote for removal was: 90 voting to convict, 9 voting to acquit.
Senator Herman Talmadge (D-GA) was absent from the voting.
The following 9 Senators voted to acquit Spiro Agnew:
Dewey F. Bartlett (R-OK)
Wallace Bennett (R-UT)
Marlowe Cook (R-KY)
Paul Fannin (R-AZ)
Clifford Hansen (R-WY)
Jesse Helms (R-NC)
James A. McClure (R-ID)
Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Storm Thurmond (R-SC)
Chief Justice Burger accepted the tallies from the Clerk of the Senate.
Burger: "The vote of the duly elected members of the United States Senate being 90 in favour of conviction, and only 9 opposed, and the vote to convict being greater than the Constitutional requirement of two thirds of the members present being required to vote in favour of removal, I hereby declare that Spiro Theodore Agnew has been Constitutionally removed from the office of President of the United States, and in accordance with Article One, Section 3, Clause 7 of the Constitution, Spiro Theodore Agnew is disqualified from holding and enjoying any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States."
"I do hereby direct the United States Marshall for the District of Columbia here present to deliver this certificate of removal, here signed by me, and witnessed by the Clerk of the United States Senate and the President pro-tempore of the United States Senate, forthwith to the afore named Spiro Theodore Agnew and direct him to immediately vacate the offices of the President of the United States. I also include this judicial order, signed by myself, directing whatever officers of the United States in any capacity or rank to provide the United States Marshall for the District of Columbia with whatever assistance he may require in fulfilling the charge of delivering the removal from office to said Spiro Theodore Agnew, and do direct them to assist in the removal of the same Spiro Theodore Agnew from the offices of the President of the United States if the Marshall should so require them."
Burger handed the certificate and the judicial order to the Marshall.
"At this time I will order a proroguing of the vote on the other five articles of impeachment in order to dispatch current pressing business. I call the Speaker of the House of Representatives, James Maurice Gavin, to come to the chair in order to receive the oath of office."
James Gavin, accompanied by his wife Jean and the Majority and Minority Leader of the Senate, came forward to the chair.
Before the full Senate (less only Senator Herman Talmadge (D-GA)) Chief Justice Berger administered the oath of office to the 39th President of the United States.
"My fellow Americans, I accept this office with an awesome sense of responsibility, and at a perilous time in our nation's history. The course of domestic and world events have propelled us to a place of trouble and challenge few of us could have expected to find ourselves in just a few months ago. I enter into the office of President with the full understanding that you did not elect me to this post, and that I serve as President at your sufferance. Today I ask only for your faith and good wishes as I take-on the immediate problems that our nation faces, with the resolve to persevere, and the knowledge that our great country stands for peace and freedom. My comments on this occasion will be brief, as the business of our nation commands my urgent attention. Let me only say that our Constitutional form of government has been affirmed; the rule of law has been upheld and power has been transferred peacefully as our Founders envisioned in such a circumstance. Therefore, my fellow citizens, I ask for your prayers and in the coming days I shall have more to say to you about the state of our nation."
The new President turned to Caspar Weinberger, now his Chief of Staff, and said "Get me Secretary Haig, then Secretary Bush. Have the Chief Justice sign the cable we prepared, then get his and mine sent over the hotline a-sap."
The President, accompanied by the Chief Justice adjourned to the ceremonial office of the President of the Senate, from where Gavin could complete the necessary calls.
Walter Cronkite noted during a broadcast of the removal and Gavin’s swearing in that Agnew’s removal came on the first anniversary of the 1972 Presidential election, the results of which had started the process which led to Agnew’s installation as President. Agnew served as acting President and 38th President from January 20 – November 7, 1973.
The following messages were transmitted over the U.S.-Soviet hotline.
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TO: Leonid I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
FROM: Warren Burger, Chief Justice of the United States of America
DATE: November 7, 1973
General Secretary Brezhnev,
I do hereby certify that Spiro Theodore Agnew has been removed from the office of President of the United States in accordance to the means prescribed by Article One, Section 3, Clauses Six and Seven of the Constitution of the United States of America. As of this date Mr. Agnew no longer holds any office or authority for the United States.
I do further certify that Mr. James Maurice Gavin has Constitutionally and legally succeeded to the office of President of the United States of America and has duly sworn the oath of that office before me on this date. James Gavin is form this point forward the Constitutional and legal President of the United States of America with all of the authority, responsibility and privileges of that office fully vested in him.
Please accept the following message from President Gavin accordingly.
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TO: Leonid I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
FROM: James M. Gavin, President of the United States of America
DATE: November 7, 1973
General Secretary Brezhnev,
I have, as of this date, ordered that our Strategic Forces stand down from their recently heightened state of Alert. I have further ordered all units in of the United States military currently deployed in the Mediterranean Sea to stand down from any direct confrontation or challenge to any vessel, aircraft or unit of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I have done this to allow time to enter into negotiations to reduce the current state of tension and conflict in the Middle East region.
Doctor Henry Kissinger of Harvard University is currently in Moscow. Dr. Kissinger speaks in my name and with my authority. I do at this time appoint Dr. Kissinger as my Special Executive Assistant for Strategic Global Relations and do afford to him the rank of full Ambassador. Please receive Ambassador Kissinger as my personal emissary and listen to what he proposes.
We have scaled back our alert and will imminently enter into discussions with Israel to facilitate a withdrawal from all Syrian territory (save the Golan Heights which shall be subject for further negotiation), and to facilitate ceasefire negotiations with all the parties. We are encouraged by the current ceasefire proposal made by President Sadat as a beginning point for further discussion.
I invite Foreign Minister Gromyko or any other representative of your choice to meet with me here in Washington and the soonest opportunity to facilitate a stand-down from the current state of tension.’
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The U.S.S. Independence and the U.S.S. Roosevelt are ordered to stand-down and not to directly confront Soviet ships in the Mediterranean.
Secretary of State Bush and his assistant James Baker are sent on a mission to Israel, Egypt and Algeria to arrange an immediate cease fire (The Algerians have expressed a willingness to act as intermediaries with the Syrian regime).
Art Henry, the United States Marshall for the District of Columbia, stared across Pennsylvania Avenue at the West Entrance to the White House. It was protected by uniformed soldiers of the 82nd Airborne, who ringed the White House grounds and had erected sandbag defenses. At regular intervals along the sandbag barricade they had established strong points protected by a heavy M-60 machine gun and several troopers.
Art Henry had served in Korea, armed troops alone did not make him nervous – just the idea of going-up against them, and facing down an M-60 positioned in front of the gate. Between him and the troops was a phalanx of press, eager to turn their cameras on anyone coming close to the barrier. As he crossed Pennsylvania Avenue and came into the glare of the television lights, Art Henry hoped to God that whatever happened, he didn’t pee his pants on national television.
"I’m the United States Marshall of the District of Columbia, and I am here to serve a court order on Mr. Spiro Agnew," Henry told the Sergeant who met him at the gate. He looked like just about every Sergeant Henry remembered from his time in the service; tough as nails with a permanent scowl on his face.
"Is it true the Senate has given President Agnew the heave-ho?" The Sergeant asked Henry.
"Mr. Agnew no longer has any official responsibility," Henry said. "President Gavin is currently running the government from the Capitol."
The Sergeant gave Henry a curious look, like he wasn’t sure if he should agree or shoot the interloper. To Henry’s relief an officer showed-up at the gate and told the soldiers to let Marshall Henry pass.
Art Henry walked past the soldiers and was greeted by a man who identified himself as a Secret Service Agent. "This way, Marshall" he said.
Spiro Agnew sat in the Oval Office not knowing what to do. He had watched the proceedings in the Senate, counting the votes until he knew, as did everyone else watching, what the outcome would be. He watched the Chief Justice’s proclamation with a stunned feeling of detachment. He watched James Gavin sworn into his office, and he noted that abruptly all the phone lines into the Oval Office went dead. Spiro Agnew sat waiting, not knowing what would come next. Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Robert Bork were nowhere to be found. None of the Secret Service Agents paid him much attention.
The door from the hallway opened (for the first time the person opening the door didn’t bother to knock) and a Secret Service Agent came in with another man who looked nervous, but determined.
"Who are you?" Agnew asked.
"My name is Arthur Henry, and I’m the United States Marshall for the District of Columbia. I am hereby …"
"You’re fired," Agnew barked.
"You don’t have the authority to do that, Mr. Agnew. I am here to deliver a notice of your removal from the office of President of the United States. I also have a Court order authorizing me to physically remove you from the Presidential offices, should that be necessary." Henry said.
"The President has directed that we should take you out through the tunnel to the Treasury building," the Secret Service Agent said. "‘He wants to spare you the humiliation of having to leave the White House amidst the horde of press out there. In fact, the President would like us to take every effort to spare your personal dignity. Now, sir, you don’t want to have us physically remove you, do you sir? I mean, that would just be too much, after everything?"
Agnew glared at the Secret Service Agent. His hackles jumped every time he used the term the President in the third person. He rose to his full height – Agnew was taller than Henry but not as tall as the Secret Service Man. Both men watched him with guarded expressions.
"I have personal items here," Agnew said.
"Everything will be cataloged and you will be able to reclaim any personal items," the Secret Service Agent said.
After a moment, during which he rubbed the wrinkles from his suit and fixed his tie, Spiro Agnew walked out of the Oval Office.
Art Henry breathed a sigh of relief. Only then did he realize that he was still holding the removal order and the court order. Not knowing what else to do with them, the Marshall left them on the President’s desk.
( from James M. Gavin A Call to Duty: A Memoir)
Jean stood at my side as I took the oath of office beside the Senate President’s chair. Although she had been shocked when I first told her about the Congressional leadership’s proposal back in September, as indeed I was, she gave me her full support when I decided that I had to follow the call of duty in the matter, for the sake of our country. When I did become the President, she bore it with dignity and grace. It was very hard for her to go from the private life we had enjoyed, with an anticipation that I might retire sometime in the next few years, to the very public life of becoming First Lady on hardly any notice; and then under these most trying circumstances at that. To her credit she accepted the change with a stoicism and a sense of duty that I could only admire. Still, I felt like a world-class heel for putting her through all of it.
When I became President I gave a brief address. We had not prepared a long speech, as we knew the situation would be tense, and there were a number of pressing issues to be managed. That being the case, I limited myself to stating the obvious – that I was an un-elected President taking-up the office in the most unusual and tense of circumstances. I asked for the people’s prayers and appealed to their faith in our system of government, though one could hardly blame them if the past year hadn’t stretched that faith beyond its breaking point.
Cap Weinberger, whom I knew from ADL’s business with Bechtel, had become one of my advisers in the run-up to the removal. In addition to his work for Governor Reagan in California, he had also been President Nixon’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and as such he had a solid overview of the federal government. I was very pleased when he agreed to become my Chief of Staff. I knew him to be competent and to have an exceptional mind, both qualities I would need during the transition and to defuse the crisis we found ourselves in.
I had to get rid of Agnew’s people in the White House. My understanding was that they were a big part of the problem. At the same time I felt that it was very important that I signal my support for the professionals in the wider government who had continued to do their jobs through it all by not instituting a wholesale purge of the Cabinet or the top levels of the government outside of the White House staff. Fortunately many of these people were holdovers from the Nixon Administration and had been largely untouched by the Agnew Administration, which helped, as there were few underlying personal loyalties to the ousted President which might have caused resentment.
Defusing the very tense situation with the Soviets had to be my first priority, as all out nuclear war, which Agnew had seemed willing to risk, was unacceptable to me. Having previously consulted with Secretary of State George Bush about Dr. Henry Kissinger’s mission to deliver a message to the Soviet leadership, I now promoted him instantly to Ambassador (he was not confirmed by the Senate, but in the emergency I was hoping that no one would focus on that technicality until it was all over) and gave him a grand sounding title, which would emphasize the authority I was giving him to deal with Leonid Brezhnev and other Soviet leaders. Kissinger had fulfilled a similar role (albeit under less precarious circumstances) for Nixon, and the Soviet leaders knew him, and he knew them. I was hoping that would give to both sides a level of confidence necessary to coming together once we replaced the saber rattling from our end. To help Kissinger I scaled back the alerts and called off our naval forces. I knew the Soviets would immediately detect the draw down of our alert, and I was hopeful that giving them a little breathing room in the Med would immediately enhance Kissinger’s credibility as my emissary. I also sent a personal message to Brezhnev to that effect, and invited him to send Gromyko to Washington as soon as possible.
Secretary of Defense Alexander Haig, whom I knew only as a passing acquaintance, was taken aback by my orders and protested the reduced alert (though not the withdrawal to a safe distance of our naval units), but as President, I had my way. Some thought I should have sacked Haig and replaced him with his deputy, Robert Froehlke, but I disagreed with that idea. As I said, I did not wish to be seen as taking a knife to the government just when stability was most needed. Haig to his credit knew how to follow orders, even when he disagreed with them, and he followed through. He also arranged to send the messages to Brezhnev from Chief Justice Burger and myself on the hotline to the Kremlin (though I later understood from Kissinger that their end of it was actually some physical distance from the leadership, which slowed down the transmission of our messages).
As for the problems which lay at the heart of the crisis, I sent Secretary Bush himself to Israel, Algeria and (hoping President Sadat would receive him) Egypt, where he was to work with the parties to bring about a ceasefire, while Kissinger worked toward that same end in Moscow. Much as I could have used Bush’s personal counsel at my side, I thought it was far more important that I send a high level emissary to the region as a direct symbol of the change that had taken place in our government’s policy toward the war.
I conducted the first few hours of my administration from the ornate office of the President of the Senate, located in the Capitol. I did this to afford Spiro Agnew the opportunity to vacate the White House with as much dignity as possible. I even directed the Secret Service to try and get him past the gaggle of press which had enveloped the building. I did this not just for the sake of Agnew personally, but because I believed with Agnew’s removal, and Richard Nixon’s mounting legal troubles, the Presidency had taken all the hits it could bear. I had no desire to prolong anyone’s agony, and we did not need to see the humiliation of the Presidency rubbed in our faces, which would have been the effect of a public departure (or forced removal) of Agnew from the White House. Enough would be said and written about him in the next few days and weeks, and I was sure the press would be after him for an comment or interview. But on the night of his removal, we all deserved his quiet exit from the scene. Fortunately, Agnew got the point, though I’m told his departure was still done in the manner of a petulant child being kicked out of a favorite playhouse. No matter, he had brought it on himself.
I did not arrive at the White House until late on the evening of November 7, well after Agnew and his entourage had left. Upon arriving I noticed the soldiers deployed around he White House, and I ordered Cap to immediately get them and their sand bags removed. He made some comment about security, to which I replied:
"This place looks like it’s in Santiago," I said, referring to the capital of Chile, where there had recently been a military coup. "We don’t need that, get them out of here."
These soldiers were from my own beloved 82d Airborne, and I took no pleasure in ordering them away. Later, once matters had calmed, I had a reception at the White House for them, to show that my order had not been personal to the men of that division. Even if we had faced some sort of imminent threat of public violence, I felt that it was symbolically necessary for us to remove anything that looked as if the White House was being occupied by the military, or that we were afraid of our own people. As I noted to Cap, we did not want to invite any parallels between our situation and that of Chile, or of recent events in South Vietnam.
I stood in the Oval Office for the first time as President with both a feeling of relevance and – I will admit this now – panic. Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? What do I do now? I thought. Doubts did enter my head once I actually came face-to-face with the trappings of the Presidency, up until that moment it had all seemed surreal, a sort of quasi-military command charged with correcting the wrong steps of my predecessor. But now I stood alone as the man in charge, in the shoes of Washington, Lincoln, FDR and Ike. I quickly wrestled the doubts and fears down, because that was not the time to let them loose.
I sat in the President’s chair for the first time and tried to call the Pentagon, only to discover that the telephones had been shut-off, no doubt to prevent private citizen Agnew from causing any trouble in his last hours in the Oval Office. I summoned a Secret Service Agent with a loud – and most un-Presidential – bark, and asked that the telephones be switched on again. While I waited I noticed that Spiro Agnew’s family photographs were still on the credenza. There was one of his daughter Pamela lined with black bunting. She had been murdered by terrorists the previous June. That I reflected was a horrible burden for any father to bear, and it made Spiro Agnew seem a little more human, and all the more pitiable. But, no matter any personal thoughts, I had to concern myself with cleaning-up his mess, and that would not be easy. War with the Soviets was still a tangible threat as November 7 became November 8.
Waiting for the telephones, I noticed two folded court orders sitting on my desk. One was the official order removing Spiro Agnew from the Presidency. This, despite the low point it represented, was a historic document and I felt should be treated as such. The other was the Chief Justice’s bench order requiring the U.S. Marshall to physically remove Agnew if necessary. As he was gone, I saw no point in preserving this, which only reflected the darkness of this sorry chapter in our history.
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White House Staff Changes:
Chief of Staff: Caspar Weinberger
Deputy Chief of Staff: Theodore Sorenson
Press Secretary: Roger Mudd
Special Executive Assistant to the President for Strategic Global Relations: Amb. Henry Kissinger
Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs: Brent Scowcroft
Director of the Office of Management and Budget: Paul Volker
Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy: Gov. John A. Volpe
Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors: Walter B. Wriston
White House Counsel: Nicholas Katzenbach
President Gavin’s White House Staff includes an eclectic mix of Republicans and Democrats. When asked about this, President Gavin says "I want to hear from all sides; good ideas don’t wear a party label."
President Gavin announces that there will be no wholesale purge of the Executive Branch. Rather he will work with the Nixon and Agnew appointees currently in office who "are willing to work with me. I have announced to all concerned, if you do not wish to work with me, resign today. If you decide to stay, then I expect you will work with this administration toward the goal of providing good governance for our nation. The performance of each and every official who stays will be judged according to that criteria and not in terms of which President appointed him or her to office."
November 8, 1973
The United States Supreme Court rules 7-0 in the case of United States v. Richard M. Nixon that Richard Nixon’s Oval Office recordings and the transcripts made of them under the supervision of the Special Master appointed by the District of Columbia Federal District Court could be introduced by special prosecutor Archibald Cox as evidence before the currently convened Grand Jury reviewing the criminal charges against Richard Nixon.
The Justices struggled to write an opinion that all seven could agree to. The stakes were so high, in that the tapes most likely contained evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the former President and his men while Nixon was still in office, that they wanted no dissent. Furthermore, all this occurred just as Nixon’s successor, Sprio Agnew, was being tried on six articles of impeachment, and that added to the politically charged atmosphere of this decision.
The seven Justices who heard the case contributed to the opinion and acting Chief Justice William O. Douglas delivered the unanimous decision. After ruling that the Court could indeed resolve the matter (Nixon’s lawyers tried to argue that the Court had no jurisdiction over the tapes) and that Cox had proven a "sufficient likelihood that each of the tapes contains conversations relevant to the offenses charged in the indictment," the Court went to the main issue of executive privilege. The Court rejected Nixon's claim to "an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances."
Chief Justice Warren Burger recused himself from involvement in the decision because he was then presiding over the removal trail of President Agnew. Justice William Rehnquist recused himself as he had held a position in the Nixon Justice Department during the first part of the time period covered by the tapes, and he believed that this created a conflict of interest for him .
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