Haig had decided to not say anything to Ziegler, because if he knew, there wouldn’t be any hope of walking it back. Haig also hoped in the back of his head that if nothing were said, maybe, just maybe, Connally could talk Jaworski into coming back. The letter, though, kept rattling around in his brain as he relayed all the facts about the tornado outbreak to Ziegler. Soon thereafter, chief speechwriter Ray Price was called in to draft a statement for the President, who would be flying to several states the next day to view damage and console people. The big secret of the Nixon White House was that he was absolutely terrible at human interaction—it was why every one of them was planned and screened in advance. The only truly unscripted and unscreened moment of his presidency was eight days after announcing the Cambodia bombing in 1970. The President had been up all night, keyed up over the protests, the Kent State shooting, and the mass of students that had descended upon the nation’s capital once more. Like a moth to flame, the presence of the students protesting at the Lincoln Memorial, peacefully, drew a sleepless, exhausted leader in. He asked his valet, Manolo Sanchez, if he’d ever seen the Lincoln Memorial. Sanchez said no, so the President told him to get dressed, and at 4:15 am, the leader of the free world and a retinue of perplexed Secret Service agents descended upon the thousands of students sleeping around the Great Emancipator. The students thought they must’ve tripped a little too hard the night before, while the President first recounted his press conference from the day before, and then awkwardly segued into asking what schools they were from, talking football and surfing.
By the time the sun started coming up over the Chesapeake Bay, the President decided it was time to move along, and he had taken Sanchez to the Capitol Building. Nixon walked right into the House chamber, strode to his old desk, and sat down, telling Sanchez to go to the podium and pretend he was the President. That was the scene when Bob Haldeman, having been woken by an urgent call, walked into the chamber and found the two in there, Nixon applauding his valet like he’d just given a noteworthy performance of King Lear. Since that morning, for four years now, the President had been studiously scripted, holding little 3x5 notecards to help him remember people and things about them. Nothing was left to chance when it could be planned, but a trip like this was going to be hard to choreograph. It’s hard to filter people in towns that had been demolished, or to keep the President from reacting in anything but a human way when confronted with the most destructive weather event in American history.
The speech, followed by a tightly regulated press conference, would take place at seven that evening, allowing for the national news broadcasts to lead into it and once again giving Nixon a chance to look presidential. Ray Price, a wordsmith of great renown, crafted another very good speech for a President who wasn’t great at delivering them—his talent was generally considered to be wasted on Richard Nixon. The three networks did their part, covering the disaster and pivoting to informing viewers after the stories ran that the President would be live on immediately after this broadcast, so please stay tuned. When 7:00 pm came, Richard Nixon took the long walk down the hallway to the East Room, took the podium, and began to speak.
“My fellow Americans, tonight I come to you on the heels of a great tragedy. Yesterday, a catastrophic weather event took place over a multitude of states, spawning numerous tornadoes and severe thunderstorms that caused terrible damage to cities, towns, and farms. We mourn every one of the approximately 350 lives taken by these storms, and we share the pain of those that were injured or lost loved ones in them. I have spoken with the leadership in Congress, and we are all in agreement that these Americans must be helped. Estimates are that over six hundred million dollars in damage has been suffered, and entire towns, from Xenia, Ohio to Tanner, Alabama, have been wiped from the Earth. There is no point in being a great nation if we do not work to help our fellow citizens in their hour of need, and so tomorrow, both houses of Congress will vote on the Federal Emergency Funding Act, so that we may begin the work of helping those who survived to rebuild their homes and their lives. In the meantime, we urge you to help the Red Cross as they work to meet the immediate needs of those who survived the tragic events of yesterday. Furthermore, I plan to ask Congress in the coming weeks for funding to establish a more robust early-warning system for smaller communities across the nation. Tanner and Xenia both lacked the equipment to give proper warning to citizens before these tornadoes struck. In an era of nuclear weapons and these serious weather events, we must have a populace that is properly warned in sufficient time so they may take all necessary precautions to survive such a situation. Tomorrow, I will fly to visit a number of these stricken communities and show them that the government of the United States stands behind them, ready to assist in all their needs. Tonight, I ask all of you to pray for these people, that they have the strength to carry on in the days ahead. I thank you for your time, and now I will take some questions.”
Despite CBS’ Dan Rather’s hand being first up, Nixon ignored him, his distaste for the smooth baritone Texan evident, and chose Jules Witcover from the Washington Post instead. “Mr. President, are you using this time to reconsider your position on the subpoenas from the House Judiciary committee?” “That’s not what I’m here to discuss tonight, and I’m sure the people across the country without homes right now could care less about Watergate. Next question,” Nixon said, jutting his finger at R.W. “Johnny” Apple from the New York Times. Apple always played ball. “Mr. President, there have been reports that Secretary Kissinger is close to a peace agreement between President Sadat and Prime Minister Meir. Are they true, and if so, will you be participating in any signing ceremony?” “Well, I cannot comment on negotiations in detail, because this is an extraordinarily delicate situation. These two nations, Egypt and Israel, have been to war four times in less than thirty years, and if Secretary Kissinger can bring peace to these two nations, it will be a momentous accomplishment. I do not want to prematurely celebrate anything, but yes, if there is a peace agreement, or if I can help the negotiations in any way, I would be pleased to travel to the Middle East,” the President replied. “Tom,” he said, pointing at NBC’s Tom Brokaw. “Mr. President,” Brokaw asked in that deep, rumbly voice already famous to the country, “do you think it would be inappropriate for you to travel anywhere to represent the country when you are facing an impeachment vote?” Despite the TV makeup and low resolution of the cameras, Nixon’s face turned noticeably redder. “Mr. Brokaw, let me tell you something. Until the day that the Senate convicts me of any impeachment charge, I am the President of the United States, and as President, there is nobody else who should represent our nation besides myself and Secretary Kissinger. While the Secretary of State is an able man, there are occasions where the President is the only person who can properly represent this nation, and by God, I will do it until the day I leave this office in 1977.” Brokaw shot back, “Do you honestly believe you’re going to serve your full term?” Nixon, to the shock of everyone, shot out from behind the podium and took two steps towards Brokaw. Wielding a microphone in his right hand and his left index finger jutting straight out, his voice projecting the barely contained fury of a man pushed to his limit, Richard Nixon uttered words that would be long remembered after he left office. “I will not leave this office until my term is up or they wheel me out in a coffin, you understand me?” He thrust the microphone at Ziegler and stormed out of the East Room.
Commentators struggled to find polite terms to describe what they had witnessed. Television had not yet become the argumentative wasteland that the future 1990s would see. Outside of William F. Buckley’s arguments with Gore Vidal during the 1968 election season, politesse was the order of the medium. Because of this, the language used by people such as David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, and Frank Reynolds was guarded, but once you broke the code, you understood how abnormal the situation was. Cronkite, the voice of Middle America, pushed the furthest into the boundaries of television news. “What we’ve witnessed tonight is clearly a President that is struggling with the burden of an impeachment vote pending and the myriad challenges of his office. Mr. Nixon was displeased with the question from NBC’s correspondent and made that very clear. Ron Ziegler, the President’s press secretary, had instructed the reporters tonight to steer clear of Watergate questions, given the tragedy that took place yesterday across the heartland of the country, but the beauty of a free press in America is the freedom to ask those questions even when those in power don’t want to hear them. You can see how the President felt about that, and I’m sure that the Judiciary Committee members in the House were also watching. Many people in Washington will be watching to see how those folks react to tonight’s events.”
While Cronkite was pontificating, Rather was quietly pulled aside out of the East Room by Julian Reed, John Connally’s longtime communications aide. Reed toid Rather to leave the White House as inconspicuously as possible and walk over to the Willard Hotel’s bar. He’d learn more then. Just yourself, Reed instructed, no camera crew. Rather grabbed a notepad and pen off the stationery table, tucked them inside his suit jacket, and headed out of the grounds. The Willard was a natural choice, because not only had Connally made it his home for his first month in D.C., but it was east of the White House, exactly where reporters were steered out if they didn’t return to the press room in the West Wing. Rather made his way into the Willard, walking into the bar area. A Secret Service agent spied him, and guided him back into and then across the lobby, around a corner, to a table where the Vice President sat. Two other agents sat nearby, holding newspapers that a casual person would think were being read, while they watched the area like a hawk. The third agent took a seat at a table in front of the Vice President, and no windows were behind him. Clever, Rather thought. These guys know their business.
“Hello, Dan,” Connally said, standing up and shaking his hand. The two knew each other going back over ten years, two Texas boys made good. “Have a drink. I’ve got some Wild Turkey here.” Rather accepted the offer and sat down across from the man likely to be President before the year was out. “Sir, I have to ask why we’re meeting here.,” Rather said. “Hell, Dan, just call me John, alright? Two Texas boys having a drink. What did you think of our President’s performance tonight? Wasn’t it something else?” Connally winked at Rather. “Well, si—John, I think he’s a little unbalanced now. Did he get any sleep last night?” asked Rather. “Oh, he bedded down around four, woke up at eleven. He didn’t lose it because he lacked sleep, Dan. There’s something else he’s lost that’s the real issue,” replied the Vice President. Really now? What’s that? His marbles? Rather kept a poker face, honed over many late nights in Houston during his time there reporting. “Dan, I’m giving you a bit of an exclusive here, but the rules, of course, are that you cannot disclose your source here. Things are delicate at the moment, and are likely to get more so soon. Leon’s quit.” Rather almost lost the poker face at the last two words. “Are you serious, John?”
“Yeah, Dan, he quit last night. Dick said or did something and it was too much, I guess. Wrote a letter chewing the President out, dropped it on his desk while Dick was getting updates on the tornadoes. I talked to him earlier, asked if he’d come back, and he said no, he was done. Haig wants to try and convince him back, Dick is screaming about betrayal. He’s done a good job overall sticking to work lately since he told Congress to shove their subpoena up their ass, except for when it comes to the tapes. Just the very mention of them sends him flying off the handle again. You saw what happened earlier. The man’s losing his nerve. I suspect he’s going to be leaving sooner than he thinks. I don’t see how any man or woman in Congress can look at that tantrum and vote no on impeachment. It’s a damn shame, he really is a good man deep down, he just don’t know how to deal with things in a healthy manner.” Rather was furiously taking notes. “Okay, so what are you looking for?” “Dan, I think you should take this story and make sure it’s on the morning news. That’s all. The people need to know these things. One more thing, and this is just for the sake of demonstrating how serious this is: Jaworski made allusions to the President having broken the law. His own lawyer. You can’t use this part from me, you’ll have to get someone else to be your source on that, but Leon told him that they have two different views of the law, and that the President has gone between technical compliance of the law to outright evading and breaking it. Leon said he couldn’t serve a man who would behave in that fashion, and so he was resigning.”
Connally tossed off his drink and stood up. “Dan, a pleasure to see you again. I hope you find that second source. In fact, if you go sniff around Dupont Circle, you might find Leon.” The Vice President walked out of the Willard. Rather sat there staring at the rest of his bourbon, then saw there was some left in the decanter on the table. He poured the rest of it out, and took a long drink. This is probably the first vice-president since Aaron Burr trying to shove out the President, except he’s got good cause here. Not like Nixon hasn’t done enough on his own, though, and he probably has no clue John’s pulling his strings. A real master of this game, Rather thought. I’ve never seen Congress act so fast on anything as they have impeachment since John became the VP. I bet he’s talking to friends up on the Hill, too. John Connally, Deus Tex Machina. The CBS reporter laughed so hard at that phrase he spilled a bit of his bourbon.