Original subtitles

- In these folders are more

than 1,200 pages of transcripts...

- Maybe, just maybe, if I give them

a little bit of it, that that'll be enough.

- Verifying the authenticity of the tape itself is crucial,

and that can only be done by having the President comply

with the House Judiciary Committee's subpoena in full.

- President Nixon could be confronted

with an adverse decision from the Supreme Court

just as the House of Representatives

prepares to vote on impeachment.

- Former Nixon aide Frederick LaRue

pleaded guilty of conspiring to obstruct justice.

Donald Segretti, the dirty trick specialist,

pleaded guilty. - John Dean, a key figure

in the Watergate case, pleaded guilty today.

- Jeb Stuart Magruder, went to court today

to plead guilty to conspiracy charges.

- For the first time in American history,

a former Attorney General of the United States,

Richard Kleindienst, pleaded guilty today to a crime.

male narrator: Despite a parade

of confessions and looming impeachment proceedings,

President Richard Nixon continued to fight.

but now, Watergate Special Prosecutor

Leon Jaworski was asking the Supreme Court

to force Nixon to surrender 64 tapes

for use in prosecuting Nixon's former inner circle.

- Jaworski, who could have gone in the side--

which is the way you really go in--

goes up those stairs with a couple

of young guys around him, and there are crowds chanting.

And I imagine that Jaworski must have been in tears inside.

- Well, it says "Equal justice under law,"

so we ought to win, Phil.

Although filming of Supreme Court arguments

is prohibited, an audio recording was made.

Nixon's lawyer, James St. Clair,

argued that presidential executive privilege

was total and absolute, even for evidence of a crime.

Ostensibly, the prosecutors just wanted the tapes

to prosecute Nixon's former aides,

but everyone realized that this was also about

the potential impeachment of Richard Nixon.

And finally, everyone also realized

that this wasn't just about Richard Nixon, either.

It was about something much, much larger.

In part because three Supreme Court Justices

were Nixon appointees,

the White House was optimistic.

- There is a thing called executive privilege,

and it is recognized,

and it does have standing in law,

and I did think that there was a real chance

that people would say the inner-most conversations

of the President in the Oval Office

certainly are--are, are immune

from, uh, the courts.

- Nixon has seen, in his own career,

Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower

make that argument successfully and feels confident.

It's part of the reason he doesn't destroy the tapes

in the first place.

Two weeks went by.

Then, on July 22,

with Supreme Court's decision still unknown,

the House Judiciary Committee announced that its debate

over impeachment would start in two days,

at 8:00 PM on July 24.

And for the first time in history,

a Congressional debate would be televised live.

- The House of Representatives doesn't easily change

its rules and traditions, but today it gave

the impeachment inquiry the right to open its debate

to television. - The very next day,

July 23, the Supreme Court suddenly announced

it would hold a special session

the following morning. - Good morning.

The Supreme Court has just ruled

on the tapes controversy, and here's Carl Stern

who has that ruling.

- It is a unanimous decision, Doug, 8-0--

Justice Rehnquist took no part in the decision--

uh, ordering the President of the United States

to turn over the tapes.

- It's an 8-0 unanimous opinion

that President Nixon must obey the subpoenas issued

by special Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski, and turn over

64 disputed White House tapes to Mr. Jaworski.

What we do not know yet is whether or not

the President will obey that order.

- No man is above the law.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled

in favor of our right

to compel the President to produce this evidence.

The rest is history.

With Congressional debate on impeachment starting

later the same day, the obvious question

was whether Congress would get the tapes, too,

but Jaworski wouldn't say.

- Do you expect the House Judiciary Committee

to make an application with Judge Sirica for those tapes?

- I really have not the slightest idea.

- Would you oppose an application by

the House Judiciary Committee for those tapes?

Even after the Special Prosecutor's

victory at the Supreme Court, Nixon continued to defy

Congressional subpoenas, but pressure was mounting.

- Unless the President wishes to plead the 5th Amendment--

privilege against self-incrimination--

I think, now, as a result of this decision,

he should voluntarily turn these tapes over

to the House Committee.

- I think the decision goes a long way to vindicate, uh,

the subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee

and to establish the proposition

that, uh, non-compliance with the House subpoena

was itself a cause for impeachment.

- Attorney James St. Clair has let it be known his office

has at least researched the possibility

of non-compliance.

There is, of course, also the option

the President will comply with the court's decision.

St. Clair has said it could take up to two months

to prepare the tape material for Sirica's court.

- He's standing on the beach in San Clemente,

and they tell him that he's lost

the Supreme Court decision.

And a message goes back to, uh, Washington--

"What would happen if we defy the court?"

And Al Haig replies,

"Instant, um-- uh, instant impeachment."

Just one hour before the impeachment debate

was scheduled to begin, James St. Clair announced

Nixon's decision.

- I have reviewed the decision of the Supreme Court

with the President.

He's given me this statement, which he's asked me

to read to you, and this is the President's statement

as he gave it to me.

"While I am, of course, disappointed in the result,

"I respect and accept the Court's decision.

"and I have instructed Mr. St. Clair to take

"whatever measures are necessary

to comply with that decision in all respects."

- One hour later, on live national television,

Peter Rodino opened public debate

on the impeachment of Richard Nixon.

- The Committee will come to order.

Throughout all of the painstaking proceedings,

I, as the chairman,

have been guided by a simple principle:

the principle that the law

must deal fairly with every man.

Now, the American people and the whole history

of our republic demand

that we make up our minds.

- News Secretary Ronald Ziegler indicated to us

that the President had no intention of, uh,

watching the hearings.

Uh, note, I suppose we should say that, uh,

during the Watergate hearings, we were told much

the very same thing at that time--

that the President seldom if ever watched them.

We learned later in the transcripts

that he indeed watched a good deal of them.

The debate immediately revealed

Elizabeth Holtzman as a new political rock star.

Holtzman was the daughter of Eastern European immigrants,

a graduate of Harvard Law School,

newly elected to Congress, 32 years old.

- And how many of us have not quarreled

with Presidents in the past?

Democrats or Republicans over agricultural policy

or environmental policy or foreign policy or whatever.

Does that give any President-- President the license

to burglarize our home?

To wire tap our phones?

To open our mail?

I submit that if it does, we have gone down

the long road to tyranny,

and that the blessings of liberty that we formed

this Constitution 200 years ago to preserve

will vanish very quickly.

And I would like to remind my colleagues

that under the Constitution of the United States,

we in the House of Representatives,

through the power of impeachment,

have been given the duty

to preserve this Constitution.

- This Committee has heard evidence

of governmental corruption unequalled in the history

of the United States.

The cover-up of crimes,

obstructing the prosecution of criminals,

tax violations and personal enrichment

at public expense.

Bribery and blackmail, flagrant misuse

of the FBI, the CIA, and the IRS.

Most Republicans, however,

continued to defend Nixon.

- John Dean did something wrong,

in my opinion.

And Ehrlichman did something wrong.

One of them requested

that the CIA provide bail money

for these defendants.

And they were promptly rebuffed,

of course, by the CIA, but that was a wrongful act.

There's not a word--

not a word, ladies and gentlemen,

of presidential knowledge or awareness or involvement

in that wrongful act.

After two hours, the debate was interrupted

by a bomb threat.

- It's necessary that we do recess

for a period of time.

- There has been a bomb threat,

and, uh, the Committee has recessed,

and the room is being cleared.

I don't know many details except to say that

it was a telephone bomb threat.

It reached the Committee just moments ago.

When debate resumed the following day,

America discovered another rising star:

Barbara Jordan of Texas.

- The fact is that on yesterday,

the American people waited with great anxiety

for eight hours

not knowing whether their President

would obey an order of the Supreme Court

of the United States.

Earlier today, we heard

the beginning of the preamble to the Constitution

of the United States.

"We, the people..."

It's a very eloquent beginning.

But when that document was completed

on the 17th of September in 1787,

I was not included in that "We, the people."

I felt somehow for many years that George Washington

and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake.

But through the process of amendment, interpretation,

and court decision,

I have finally been included

in "We, the people."

Today, I am an inquisitor

and hyperbole would not be fictional

and would not overstate the solemness that I feel

right now.

My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete,

it is total,

and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator

to the diminution,

the subversion,

the destruction

of the Constitution.

- It isn't the Presidency that is in jeopardy from us.

We would strive to strengthen

and protect the Presidency,

but if there be no accountability,

another President will feel free

to do as he chooses.

But the--but the next time,

there may be no watchmen in the night.

Republicans David Dennis and Trent Lott

gave the strongest speeches opposing impeachment.

- The March 21 payment to Hunt was the last

in a long series of such payments

engineered by Mitchell, Haldeman, Dean,

and Kalmbach, and later on LaRue,

and all, so far as appears,

without the President's knowledge or complicity.

- We are faced with impeaching the President.

The line must be drawn directly to the President,

clearly to the President.

This has not been done.

But they hadn't reckoned

with Elizabeth Holtzman.

- The President discussed the matter

of paying Hunt ten separate times

in a conversation on March 21st

with Dean and Haldeman.

And the last time the President discussed it,

he said, and I quote, "That's why,

"for your immediate thing, you've got no choice

"with Hunt but the 120 or whatever it is, right?

"Would you agree that that's a buy-time thing?

"You'd better damn well get that done, but fast.

Well, for Christ's sake, get it."

Perhaps some people find ambiguities

in that conversation.

I don't.

I became district attorney many years later

of Brooklyn, New Yor..

And I had the opportunity to listen to wire taps

of mafiosi and other criminals conspiring,

and I remember thinking, "This is what I heard

in the White House of the United States."

And I was very saddened by that.

Nowhere in the thousands of pages of evidence

presented to this committee

does the President ask,

"What does the Constitution say?

"What are the limits of my power?

"What does my oath of office require of me?

What is the right thing to do?"

Meanwhile, even after

the Supreme Court decision,

the special prosecutors were still fighting for the tapes.

- Before Judge John Sirica,

Jaworski's soft drawl did not quite mask his anger.

"I must say, in all candor, that our experience so far

has been very poor, very disappointing."

Reference to missing tapes, gaps, and buzzes

was unmistakable.

The President's lawyer tried to argue,

James St. Clair saying legal work might delay

delivery of the tapes, but Judge Sirica,

brandishing his Supreme Court ruling, interrupted.

"You're making this thing

more complicated than it should be."

Sirica sent St. Clair and Jaworski into a side room

treated them to a pot of coffee,

and told them to come out with an agreement

or he'd impose one.

It was a no-lose proposition for Jaworski,

who came out with a White House guarantee

that he'll have the first tapes by next Tuesday.

After three days of debate

and just before the first vote on impeachment,

Vice President Ford gave a speech.

- And it's my judgment that the evidence

is overwhelming that he had nothing to do with

the so-called cover-up.

So the President, in my judgment,

is innocent, and will be exonerated.

But even among Republicans,

the tide had begun to turn.

One of the first was a conservative from Chicago.

- The only materials

which we have received have been--have come from

the grand jury and from the special prosecutor.

It seems to me the President's failure to comply

threatens the integrity of our impress--

the impeachment process itself.

His action is a direct challenge

to the Congress, and the exercise

of its solemn Constitutional duty.

- What sealed Nixon's doom

was when four young Republican congressmen

came out and voted for the first article

of impeachment.

Hamilton Fish of New York...

- I am a Republican.

In these proceedings, I have attempted

to discipline myself in partisan neutrality.

- Caldwell Butler of Virginia...

- A power appears to have corrupted.

It is a sad chapter in American history,

but I cannot condone what I have heard.

I cannot excuse it, and I cannot, and will not,

stand still for it.

- Tom Railsback of Illinois...

- We are considering impeaching a man,

Richard Nixon, who has been in my district twice

campaigning for me,

that I regard as a friend.

- Bill Cohen of Maine.

- It's been said that an impeachment proceeding

will tear this country apart.

And to say that it will tear the country apart

to abide by the Constitution is a proposition

that I cannot accept.

I think what would tear the country apart

would be to turn our backs on the facts

and our responsibilities to ascertain them.

- That's what put Nixon down,

'cause it had to be bipartisan

if the Judiciary Committee was going to impeach.

- Those votes were symbolically

outsized and huge.

Had they all been Democratic votes alone,

who knows what the outcome might have been.

- Mr. Butler. - Aye.

- Mr. Cohen. - Aye.

- Mr. Lott. - No.

- Mr. Froehlich. - Aye.

- Mr. Moorhead. - No.

- Mr. Maraziti. - No.

- Mr. Latta. - No.

- Mr. Rodino.

- Aye.

- 27 members have voted "aye."

11 members have voted "no."

- And pursuant to the resolution,

Article I, that resolution is adopted

and will be reported to the House.

- And Nixon refused to resign,

thought that he would fight this thing in, uh--

in the Senate of the United States.

He knew he would be impeached by the full House,

but that he could prevail in a--in a trial in the Senate,

uh, where you need, uh, two-thirds of the votes

of the senators to convict.

Congress began preparing

for an impeachment vote

by the full House of Representatives

and a subsequent Senate trial.

But then, only a few days later,

there was yet another surprise.

- President Nixon stunned the country today

by admitting that he held back evidence

from the House Judiciary Committee.

- The President made public three new transcripts

of meetings with his former chief aide,

H. R. "Bob" Haldeman,

all June 23, 1972.

- Well, now, on the Democratic break-in, um,

we're back in the problem area,

because the FBI is not under control

because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them.

John Dean concurs now with Mitchell's recommendation

that the only way to solve this

is to have Walters call Gray and, um--

and just say, "Stay the hell out of this."

We don't want you to go any further on it."

And that's not unusual.

- Fine. Fine.

- They say the only way to do that

is from White House instructions.

The proposal would be that Ehrlichman and I call him.

- Good. Play it tough.

That's the way they play it,

that's the way we're gonna play it.

- Okay, then we'll do that.

- They should call the FBI in

and say that for the country,

don't go any further in to this one, period.

Tell them, "Lay off."

- Yeah, that's-- that's the basis we do it on.

- I don't want them to get any ideas

that we're doing it because our concern is...

political.

- They had asked for some tapes.

Nixon had called to review them in April.

One of them was the tape of June 23rd.

He had heard the tape and felt he couldn't survive it,

and that's why he didn't turn the tapes over.

And we were all called up to Camp David

early in August, Sunday,

and I had felt Nixon couldn't survive.

And I said, "We don't recommend Nixon resign,"

but we take this problematic tape

and we simply drop it on the public.

The revelation of the tape will be the thing

that convinces Nixon's people, his strong supporters,

that they can't even support him anymore.

Then he has to resign.

- The tapes were not turned over to Judge Sirica

but rather immediately released to the public.

Why did that happen?

When a lawyer feels that his client

has caused him to make a misrepresentation

to a tribunal,

under the lawyer's rules of ethics,

that's a serious problem.

- James St. Clair, the President's lawyer,

threatened to resign unless Mr. Nixon

released the transcripts, and stated that Mr. St. Clair

had no knowledge of the untruths

in the President's earlier defense.

- Are you going to quit because the President

didn't tell you the whole truth?

- Interfering with an FBI investigation

can be obstruction of justice,

a felony, but almost as damaging

are other disclosures in that June 23rd conversation

revealing a pattern of lies and distortions

by Mr. Nixon and his men about Watergate.

- I knew that the Justice Department

and the FBI were conducting intensive investigations,

as I had insisted that they should.

The White House Counsel, John Dean, was assigned

to monitor these investigations,

and particularly to check

into any possible White House involvement.

- But the transcripts show that six months before,

H. R. Haldeman told the President

that Dean was in on the cover-up.

- It was clear that Nixon had orchestrated

the cover-up just about from the minute

after the break-in, and so at that point

there was nothing for the Republicans to fall back on.

- The fact that there have been so many

of these bombshells--

this is the story, and then this is the story

and then this is the story and, um--

I just think that when you add it all up,

uh, we have reached a point of no return.

- And I shall support...

those portions

of Article I of the bill of impeachment.

- What I thought I knew about Richard Nixon was,

"This person is not going to resign."

He will, in a Texas phrase,

"Fight it till the last dog dies."

Because he will always be able to convince himself,

I can win it.

- And you have the defense secretary,

James Schlesinger,

warning the Joint Chiefs of Staff that any orders,

any last minute, crazy orders that come out

of the White House are going to be vetted by

the civilian leadership and the military

before, you know, it's instituted.

Basically, if the President orders the Marines

to come out of the barracks and surround the White House,

to pr--you know, and announces a coup,

you know, don't obey that presidential order.

This is bordering on--

on treason, but this is the point that they were at

and the fears that they had.

- I always said that we would be in trouble

if General Haig put on his uniform

when he went to work that day.

- If the President, clearly,

makes the decision to resign,

I am not going to feel that it was the wrong decision,

but I do feel I am not going

to suggest to him that he resign.

- Perhaps the toughest assessment came

from Senator Robert Dole, the former chairman

of the Republican Party.

Dole said that for Republicans

who are trying to get reelected

in November, as he is...

- The Republicans wanted him out of office.

Just look at the timetable.

If the impeachment had gone forward,

there would have had to been a House vote

then there would have to be a trial in the Senate.

That would be September/October.

In November, there are going to be elections

for the House and Senate.

If that trial had taken place--

an impeachment trial of Nixon-- how many Republicans

do you think would have been elected

to the House and Senate?

And so Congressional Republicans mounted

an all-out emergency campaign

to persuade Nixon to resign.

- Senators Scott and Goldwater arrived

at the White House first. They were followed

a few moments later by House Minority Leader

John Rhodes. - Barry Goldwater,

the great conservative, led a delegation

of Congressional Republican leaders

to the White House to meet with Nixon.

And Nixon said, "Barry, how many votes

do I have in the Senate

for acquittal?"

Fully expecting that Goldwater would tell him,

you know, "'X' number and growing."

Goldwater looked at him and he said, "Maybe four,

right now, Mr. President, and you don't have my vote."

- We, uh, had a good, thorough discussion,

and I think I speak for

my two colleagues when I say that

we were extremely impressed.

- That was a defining moment,

because he had relied on those

in this tight inner circle.

And you know, one thing we politicians are very good at

is kidding ourselves, particularly as far

as our popularity is concerned.

- We have told him that the situation is very gloomy

on Capitol Hill...

and, uh...

that it is a...

very distressing situation.

And we gave him further evaluations

which I think ought to remain, uh,

between ourselves.

But getting Nixon to resign wouldn't be easy,

in part because Nixon feared what might come afterwards.

- It seems inconceivable that he will not resign.

He says, firmly, that he will not.

What he may be doing is a kind of plea-bargaining.

Once he becomes a private citizen,

it is--it is easy to see years

of $100,000-a-month legal fees ahead of him

even if he never went to jail.

He hasn't got that kind of money left.

- If President Nixon resigns, what are the possibilities

of his being indicted and facing trial on charges?

- What do you suppose Congressional reaction would be

if the President issued a pardon for himself

or for any of his assistants faced with jail or prosecution?

- I just could--can't imagine that kind of a thing

being done by him.

Uh, I think he'd leave under, uh,

a much greater cloud than he is now.

During this time,

Haldeman and other former Nixon aides

desperately begged Nixon for pardons.

Nixon refused, but his own resignation

now seemed inevitable.

- All week, uh, people have begun

to just sort of gather outside the White House.

This, uh applause you hear--

what has happened is that a moving van

has just pulled up over at the White House.

It may just be that the van is going

down Pennsylvania Avenue, but at any rate, uh,

it pulled up here, and, uh, some of the people

in this crowd, uh, began to, uh--

to applaud when it did.

- I am aware of the intense interest

of the American people

and of you in this room

concerning developments today and over the last few days.

This has, of course, has not been a--

has been a difficult time.

The President of the United States

will meet various members of the bipartisan leadership

of Congress here at the White House

early this evening.

Tonight at 9:00, Eastern Daylight Time,

the President of the United States

will address the nation

on radio and television from his Oval Office.

- And we were in the office

that night, and-- and I remember

Katharine came downstairs

and--and she said, "No gloating."

This was before Nixon went on air to--

And--and let me tell you, there was no chance

that we were gonna gloat.

And Woodward and I went off to a little room

and watched it by ourselves.

- What was Watergate?

The five wars of Watergate:

First against the anti-war movement,

then against the news media,

the war against the Democrats,

the war against justice,

and then the war against history.

- Olly--

No, only the CBS crew now

is to be in this room during this.

Only the crew.

- No, there-- no, there will be no picture.

Good evening.

This is the 37th time

I have spoken to you from this office.

Throughout the long and difficult period

of Watergate,

I have felt it was my duty to persevere.

To make every possible effort to complete the term of office

to which you elected me.

In the past few days, however, it has become

evident to me

that I no longer have

a strong enough political base in the Congress

to justify continuing that effort.

I have never been a quitter.

To leave office before my term is completed

is abhorrent to every instinct

in my body.

But as President,

I must put the interests of America first.

Therefore...

I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

Vice President Ford...

will be sworn in as President

at that hour, in this office.

- My feeling, and I think Bob's, too,

was of absolute awe.

Awe that, one, the system had worked--

yes, that we had had a part in it--

but that this thing was gonna end

the way it ought to end.

And that, uh...

You know, awe that it had come to this.

The next morning,

using his last hour as President

to address his cabinet and staff,

Richard Nixon gave the best speech of his life.

- This office, great as it is,

can only be as great as the men and women

who work for and with the President.

This house, for example.

I was thinking of it as we walked down this hall.

This isn't the finest house.

Many in Europe, particularly,

and in China,

Asia,

have paintings of...

great, great value.

Things that we just don't have here

and probably will never have

until we are a thousand years old,

or older.

But this is the best house.

It's the best house

because it has something

far more important than numbers of rooms

or how big it is.

Far more important than numbers of

magnificent pieces of art.

This house has a great heart,

and that heart comes from those who serve.

And then Nixon concluded

with a recommendation that,

as he must have realized, applied to him above all.

- Always remember

others may hate you,

but those who hate you

don't win unless you hate them,

and then you destroy yourself.

- Nixon, as he leaves the White House here

to board the helicopter

for the flight to California.

And there's the President waving goodbye.

You hear the applause.

- Preserve, protect, and defend...

- Preserve, protect, and defend...

- The Constitution of the United States...

- The Constitution of the United States...

- So help me, God. - So help me, God.

- Congratulations, Mr. President.

But Watergate was far from over.

One remaining question was whether to put

Richard Nixon in jail.

- After he resigned in August,

we said, "Let's amend the indictment

"and add him as a defendant.

He is now a private citizen."

When people commit crimes, they should pay the price.

Leon said, "The publicity would ruin the trial.

You couldn't go to trial for a very long time."

And we all said, "No problem.

"We all will come back.

"We'll go on to our other lives,

"but we will come back to try the case

whenever it is appropriate."

And Leon said, "No."

And while we were having this internal argument

in the office, the pardon came down.

- I, Gerald R. Ford,

President of the United States,

do grant a full,

free, and absolute pardon

unto Richard Nixon.

- I heard it on the radio and I called Woodward.

And, uh, I woke him up

and I said, "You're not gonna believe what happened."

And he said, "What happened?"

And I said, "The son of a bitch

pardoned the son of a bitch."

- Uh, President Ford

did, uh, infinite injury

to a fun--the fundamental principle

of good government embodied in the, uh, phrase:

"Equal justice under law."

- Members of the original Watergate grand jury

are extremely upset by President Ford's decision.

Some of them feel their indictments

of other Nixon aides are totally unfair

if the same justice system is not applied to Nixon.

- When the top guy has gotten away

and is going off to live on the beach in California,

how--how zealous do we feel now about,

you know, trying to put the people

who worked for him in jail?

- I was against it, and so was about 99%

of the United States of America,

but it was the right decision.

The country had spent too much time on Watergate,

and the idea of spending another year or two

on Richard Nixon wasn't worth it.

- I'll never change my opinion about that.

I think it was wrong from the get-go,

and I think it's wrong now, and I think the idea

that we have unaccountable Presidents

has harmed the country.

The pardon set up a dual system of justice.

The pardon set up a system where

President of the United States

was not going to be held accountable

under the criminal laws.

It also turned out that the pardon was part

of a larger deal that eventually gave Nixon

control over the tapes.

- The final deal, as it turned out,

was negotiated between Nixon's lawyers

and the White House, not just the arrangements

for the pardon, but also the giving of the tapes to Nixon.

- There were very suspicious things about the pardon.

Ford was gonna give Nixon all of the White House documents.

Uh, which would have perpetuated a cover-up forever.

Uh, Congress had to undo that.

Richard Nixon wasn't done yet,

as Benton Becker, the White House official

who handled the pardon, soon found out.

- Within 48 hours after Richard Nixon's plane landed

in California, Richard Nixon picked up the telephone

and told General Haig,

"There are almost a thousand boxes

"in the Executive Office Building.

"Put those boxes in a, um...

"a--a truck, and send them to Andrews Air Force Base,

and send them out here to San Clemente."

One afternoon,

I noticed a truck packing boxes.

When I asked the, uh, Colonel

who was supervising the, uh, packing of the boxes

he told me that he had gotten his orders

from the Chief of Staff, uh, Alexander Haig.

I reported all this to the President

and the President brought in Mr. Haig.

And Mr. Haig told the President

that it was a mistake.

He didn't issue that order,

and the boxes were not sent.

Public anger over the pardon and the tapes deal

forced President Ford to meet

with the House Judiciary Committee.

Most of the Committee was deferential,

but not Elizabeth Holtzman.

- There was no deal, period,

under no circumstances.

- Well, Mr. President, I know that the people want

to understand how you can explain

having pardoned Richard Nixon without specifying any

of the crimes for which he was pardoned.

And how can you explain pardoning Richard Nixon

without obtaining any acknowledgment

of guilt from him?

How can this extraordinary haste

in which the pardon was decided on,

and the secrecy with which

it was carried out, be explained?

And how can you explain the fact that the pardon

of Richard Nixon was accompanied

by an agreement with respect to the tapes

which in essence, in the public mind,

hampered the special prosecutor's

access to these materials?

- Those tapes, according to the attorney general,

and I might add, according to past President--precedent,

belong to President Nixon.

Uh, those tapes

are in our control.

They are under an agreement

which protects them totally, fully.

But the original deal only protected the tapes

for five years, and popular outrage

forced Ford to retreat.

Congress quickly passed a bill

making the tapes government property,

and the vote was so overwhelming

that Ford had to sign it.

A few months later, when Haldeman,

Ehrlichman, and Mitchell went to trial,

they denied everything, but the special prosecutors

played the tapes for the jury, and it worked.

- Good evening. The men who were closest

to Richard Nixon in the White House

and in politics today were sentenced

to prison for their role in the Watergate cover-up.

- 2 1/2 to 8 years.

2 1/2 to 8 years.

2 1/2 to 8 years.

Just a few months later, another piece

of Richard Nixon's legacy died too.

In April, 1975, South Vietnam collapsed,

and the Communist North Vietnamese

marched into Saigon to assume power,

catching the United States totally unprepared.

- The people here were herded into groups.

50 at a time, they took off for the carriers waiting

in the South China Sea.

- The South Vietnamese helicopters came in

to the U.S. ships.

There was no room for them, so the Navy men

ordered the pilots to ditch the helicopters

in the ocean.

Time after time, the pilots hovered over the water

and jumped out, praying the helicopters wouldn't

fall on top of them.

As risky as this was, the pilots decided

it was better than flying back to Vietnam.

Another half-million South Vietnamese fled later,

becoming the refugees known as "the boat people."

We want Carter!

We want Carter!

In 1976 Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford.

On Carter's second day in office, he pardoned

over 200,000 Vietnam draft violators.

In 1978, Carter signed into law

the Ethics in Government Act,

which guaranteed the independence

of special prosecutors.

It was allowed to expire in 1999.

41 people were convicted in relation to Watergate.

A few years later, Pete McCloskey went

to visit John Ehrlichman in prison.

- John and I had been friends, our wives had been friends,

I flew to Tucson and drove over

to the Safford Penitentiary, which is out in the desert

near Fort Huachuca.

There's no fence around it, just desert.

I said, "John...

"how in the hell did this ever happen?

"You were an honorable lawyer,

a good father, good Christian scientist."

He looked out across the desert

at least thirty seconds and he said, "Pete...

"it took us three-and-a-half years

"to be corrupted by the power of the White House,

"but we came to believe that the reelection of Nixon

was essential to the national security."

And I asked him one more question,

I said, "John, tell me about Nixon."

He shook his head and said,

"I never really got to know him."

- My presence here

is one additional bit of evidence

that the American dream

need not forever be deferred.

- Hallelujah

- We were due to go see "Butch Cassidy" that night

in--in Harvard Square.

I saw the advanced copy

of the Sunday "New York Times."

I think came in around midnight

at the Harvard Square kiosk.

That was how I learned.

I was very happy. Very happy.

- This is a, uh--

original art from a-- an issue

of "The Incredible Hulk" detailing the time

when June Volper and Ben Vincent

rooted out the aliens

who were occupying the Oval Office

and returned America to peace and prosperity.

- That's the one thing

President is not off-limits.

- I was no longer an endangered species.

I was an extinct species.

Liberal Republican.

- I was at CBS News for 44 years.

I do, um, hard news investigative reporting

and documentaries.

- That was Kissinger.

Lying son of a bitch-- pardon me.

- Uh, I'm a climate change skeptic.

What, they call carbon dioxide a pollutant.

Isn't that the food of plants and trees

that Reagan referred to?

- So I have both been fired and resigned for the same job.

- Which do you prefer, sir? - Well, it depends

on what audience I'm talking to.

- Woodward would sometimes

go straight to it and say, uh,

"Why was your finger in the cookie jar, there?"

And I would never do that.

I would say, "You--

You like coconut macaroons?"

- I mean, come on...

- It's just...

- Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs

worked closely with the Justice Department in my days.

- You had a role in increasing

the criminalization of marijuana possession.

- Uh, not really.

Uh...

Well, that's another-- a whole other area to get into.

- It is.

- All right, cut. - All right.

- Get out of here, you rascals.