WI Nixon doesn't cover up Watergate?

Thothian

Banned
Richard Nixon had the character flaw (among others) of being loyal to a fault. But suppose when the Watergate burglars are arrested and Nixon is informed of the plan by Haldeman or someone like that, he has a flash of insight that it's his hide or theirs.

It's my understanding that Nixon had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in, and that the articles of impeachment were about his abuses of power in covering it up.

So, WI he immediately throws all the conspirators in the WH staff to the wolves, and goes on TV decrying "the criminal conspiracy by overzealous members of my administration. I've beaten my political opponents at the ballot box plenty of times. I don't need to break the law to do it. Those who worked for me and thought I would approve of criminal methods to influence the sacred American political process obviously don't know me very well." ? Basically, WI Nixon throws everyone to the wolves as soon as he finds out about the break-in?

What effect would this have on the rest of his presidency? Would this butterfly away impeachment? Would it butterfly Reagan into the presidency in '76?
 
It would most likely save him from impeachment, assuming no other shenanigans came to light. The break-in would be an embarrassment. He would overcome it because McGovern was too extreme for 1972 and made missteps like failing to vet Eagleton and then throwing him under the bus.
 
Oops, forgot 1976.

If Reagan didn't win in OTL 1976 with Ford tainted by suspicions of a corrupt bargain, I don't see him pulling it off in TTL. Other conservative candidates would run and split his vote, and a moderate takes the nomination (possibly Ford, as an incumbent VP instead of incumbent President).

Carter still wins in 1976. The 8 year itch helps the Dems and the sleaze factor from the Nixon administration scandals give Carter an advantage on the character issue.

Only change from owning up is that Nixon does better personally.
 
The truth is Nixon didn't need to, he was the most popular president at the time. If he did do it, he shot himself in the foot.
 

thorr97

Banned
It would also mean that there'd still be a Republic of Vietnam and the North Vietnam would more closely resembled North Korea and likely be every bit as impoverished - but without any chance of getting its own nukes.

With Nixon both still in the White House and still popular there'd be no way he'd let South Vietnam fall. And he wouldn't even need put a single US soldier on the ground to achieve that. He'd just honor the existing military equipment sales and have the Air Force run a few Arc Light strikes on the advancing NVA columns - thereby turning the North's divisions into so much churned and burnt ground. With yet another grand offensive utterly destroyed - the Tet Offensive was a stunning military defeat for the North as well - I think the Communist rulers in Hanoi would have some very hard times ahead of them and it'd be they on the defensive throughout the rest of the 70s.

When Nixon would end his second term he'd do so as a president who truly shaped the world for the better - as the history books would write it. He'd established detente with the Soviets. He'd opened China to the West. He'd won the Vietnam war that the Democrats had started. And he provided a "law and order" alternative to the insanity that the Democrats offered here at home.

Yeah, things would be very different if Tricky Dicky hadn't been so deceptive about the plumbers...
 

Archibald

Banned
And he wouldn't even need put a single US soldier on the ground to achieve that. He'd just honor the existing military equipment sales and have the Air Force run a few Arc Light strikes on the advancing NVA columns - thereby turning the North's divisions into so much churned and burnt ground. With yet another grand offensive utterly destroyed - the Tet Offensive was a stunning military defeat for the North as well - I think the Communist rulers in Hanoi would have some very hard times ahead of them and it'd be they on the defensive throughout the rest of the 70s.

eight million tonnes of explosives (8 million !) were dropped on Vietnam in ten years, with the results we all know. Do you really think some more bombing raids would have changed anything to the overall outcome ?
 
It would also mean that there'd still be a Republic of Vietnam and the North Vietnam . . . . . as the history books would write it. He'd established detente with the Soviets. He'd opened China to the West. He'd won the Vietnam war that the Democrats had started. . .
I'll take it, especially if it means we avoid genocide in Cambodia. Or, are quicker on the uptake when Pol Pot comes to power.

Nixon was not quicker in 1971 when West Pakistan committed genocide in East Pakistan, largely against a particular ethnic group. Or, we sided with our "ally" in the West Pakistan faction and the hell with everything else. Or, a post-WWII commitment of never again regarding genocide might be something believed by more idealistic persons but it plays out in policy not at all.

Or, this whole thing is called Realpolitik, although I'm not at all sure how this shit is supposed to benefit us in the long term. If we bend the path on trade and globalization where it's more genuinely win-win, now you're speaking my language.

========

And you do realize of course that we're going to have to bust Nixon down for sabotaging the '68 peace talks? The thing that really indicts him hook, line, and sinker is the July meeting in his New York apartment with the South Vietnamese ambassador. I'm guessing Nixon himself was not there, although I'd like a definite answer. Anna Chennault may or may not have been there, but the Ambassador was told that she was the go-between.

So, Nixon DOES NOT have the defense that because Johnson cheated at the last minute he "had" to cheat in self defense.
 
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thorr97

Banned
Archibald,

eight million tonnes of explosives (8 million !) were dropped on Vietnam in ten years, with the results we all know. Do you really think some more bombing raids would have changed anything to the overall outcome ?

Yup, I do.

During the Tet Offensive and throughout the war there were plenty of accounts of the effectiveness of US airpower. This, even against spread out guerrilla fighters in the jungles. On the rare occasions when the North was stupid enough to give the Americans the sort of battle we'd been hoping for - i.e. massed formations of enemy units - the US brought that airpower to bear even more effectively. At one point, I believe it was during the Tet Offensive, the Air Force ran a B-52 strike on an NVA division. After the smoke had cleared and the battle ended the US examined the strike zone and found that the B-52s had completely obliterated that NVA division. That the bombers had so churned the ground that there was hardly an intact body left - just bits and pieces. The B-52s were that effective against massed formations.

And that's exactly the sort of attack the North made against South Vietnam. The NVA attacked the South with more tanks than Patton had to attack the Germans with. That final offensive was entirely a conventional one and it was entirely dependent upon there being no US airstrikes to stop it. Such strikes would have essentially eliminated the North Vietnamese Army as a fighting force for years to come. By turning entire divisions into churned mud they not only would have destroyed all of the military hardware the North had so painstakingly acquired from the Soviets but it also would have wiped out thousands and thousands of the North's best trained troops, NCOs and officers. And this, all at a stroke. It would have taken the North a lot longer than just two or three years to reconstitute its army as it did with its previous offensives (Tet and the '72 Offensive.)

So, in this case, and against such an otherwise conventional target? Yes, more bombing raids would have significantly changed the overall outcome.
 
Oops, forgot 1976.

If Reagan didn't win in OTL 1976 with Ford tainted by suspicions of a corrupt bargain, I don't see him pulling it off in TTL. Other conservative candidates would run and split his vote, and a moderate takes the nomination (possibly Ford, as an incumbent VP instead of incumbent President).

Carter still wins in 1976. The 8 year itch helps the Dems and the sleaze factor from the Nixon administration scandals give Carter an advantage on the character issue.

Only change from owning up is that Nixon does better personally.
Ford also had the huge advantage of incumbency IOTL, while ITTL he'd "just" be the vice president (at least, if he still does become vice president ITTL, and, even if he did, I could see Nixon potentially making him not run in 1976 in favor of some like John Connally who Nixon would prefer to succeed him).

I'd say that the 1976 would lean Democrat for the reasons you described, but the Republicans would still have a chance, as long as Nixon's second term was relatively prosperous. However, Cater winning the nomination is far from a given. He was an obscure figure who mainly won IOTL because of the public desire for an "outsider" candidate. Without Watergate, the anti-establishment sentiment wouldn't be nearly as strong.
 
eight million tonnes of explosives (8 million !) were dropped on Vietnam in ten years, with the results we all know. Do you really think some more bombing raids would have changed anything to the overall outcome ?
it would, but the other major factor would that the ARVN would not have their funding gutted by the Democrats. The ARVN were perfectly capable of dealing with the North Vietnamese so long as they had enough money to keep them operating.
 
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21768668

March 22, 2013

' . . . It begins in the summer of 1968. Nixon feared a breakthrough at the Paris Peace talks designed to find a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam war, and he knew this would derail his campaign.

'He therefore set up a clandestine back-channel involving Anna Chennault, a senior campaign adviser.

'At a July meeting in Nixon's New York apartment, the South Vietnamese ambassador was told Chennault represented Nixon and spoke for the campaign. If any message needed to be passed to the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, it would come via Chennault. . . '
Reading this carefully, the only person it says was at Nixon's apartment that July was South Vietnam Ambassador Bui Diem, who of course is different than the guy in the '64 coup.

To me, this is still damning of Nixon.
 
I mean, if Nixon cuts the plumbers loose, what's stopping them from telling the prosecution everything in order to cut a deal, or from leaking everything to the press as a "fuck you"?
 
I think it was a book on Watergate in which Dick was told that the 5 burglars plus the other 2 indicted persons wanted their families taken care of while they were in prison. Dick asked about how much money that was. Then he said, I think we can do that.

But then, on that or another occasional, he didn't want to hear anymore about it and impatiently said to Haldeman, you guys take care of it.

That is, the Nixon Whitehouse including the president himself, couldn't get their shit together.
 
- People trust politicians more.
- Connally, not Ford, becomes VP
- Nixon isn't remembered as a crook.
Connally still wouldn't be VP IMHO, Democrats saw him as a traitor and many in the GOP didn't trust him so he'd never get confirmed. If Ford wasn't picked, my guess is it would be HW Bush or Dole.
 
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