Nixon’s temperament became his undoing. His inclination to hide information instead of superintending transparency fed the long-standing narratives about his secrecy and shadiness. Pictured: Senator Sam Ervin.
As a boy, I remember the Watergate Hearings that began on May 17, 1973. I was 10 years old and completing grade five. I understood little about their historical significance, but I drew the line when the hearings stretched into summer TV viewing. When would this end? When would life return to normal? It did not matter to the senators. They kept on meeting, listening, calling witnesses and obstructing my freedom to watch TV (usually favourite reruns of long cancelled shows) during the school sabbatical. Later I would appreciate their predicament.
North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin headed the Committee overseeing the historic proceedings and remains a character sketched in the history books. Weathered, speaking with a southern drawl, and folksy, Ervin judicially allowed the story to be told. His co-chair, Republican Howard Baker of Tennessee, went on to run for president, serve as an aide to President Reagan and maintain a high degree of respect and admiration throughout a long public career. Most people think of Ervin, however, when the Hearings are mentioned.
A Democratic senator, Ervin had the pleasantries of a moderate liberal who would ensure fairness. As a strong defender of civil liberties, he also stood as a paradox having been an outspoken critic of civil rights legislation beginning with his election to the Senate in 1954. He had no interest or advantage in running an impartial or partisan investigation. Ervin and his committee rose to the occasion and the information gathered led to the only resignation of an American president in history. Many critics will assert that President Richard Nixon received a raw deal and the press and Democratic party apparatchiks made a small matter into a constitutional crisis. There may be some evidence of an anti-Nixon streak in the media, and liberals always hated the man, but he alone deserves the blame for what happened on his watch, the cover-up, and the ensuing investigation.
When the gavel dropped on that May day in 1973, Nixon’s second term was four months old. He was dealing with an energy crisis, inflation, and increasing doubt about his fitness for office, fresh after a landslide victory the previous fall. Americans did not want their president to fail but Nixon could not set aside personal slights, face up to his shortcomings and mend fences with those he mistrusted or held in contempt for past grievances. Ervin was not interested in anything but getting to the bottom of the story. Soon Ervin and the committee clashed with the White House over the release of documents and tapes. Nixon continually sought to impede the investigation using claims of executive privilege. These claims insisted that the president should not be forced to reveal activities that could endanger national security. Ervin and the committee did not accept this and soon a constitutional crisis developed. When Ervin threatened to have the sergeant-at-arms arrest Nixon’s aides who would not testify, public pressure forced Nixon to submit to Ervin’s demands. Nixon fought the release of White House documents or papers.
Nixon repeatedly declared that he had no knowledge or connection to the burglary or the subsequent cover-up. Aides who testified provided no corroboration to the story until John Dean testified to the Committee on June 25th that the president did know about the break-in and had been party to the cover-up. Recognizing that Nixon and his close associates would likely make him the scapegoat, Dean hired a lawyer in April 1973 and began to secretly cooperate with the Committee. Nixon lobbied against the Department of Justice (DOJ) offering immunity to his aides and submitted to pressure on April 30th, firing Ehrlichman and Haldeman while also terminating Dean. By May 16th the Committee granted Dean immunity for his testimony. The American public, at first nonplussed about Watergate, was now dialled into the unfolding saga.
About Dean’s appearance before the Committee and his chief questioner, Ervin, Nixon biographer John A Farrell wrote, “For five days the country was riveted as, dressed and coiffed like a straightlaced junior partner, with his blond wife sitting primly behind him, [Dean] dispassionately detailed the White House horrors and Nixon’s attempt to conceal them.” Jay D. Green in reflecting on Dean’s testimony wrote, “He detailed his own and Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate cover-up and revealed the administration’s long penchant for ‘dirty tricks’ of all kinds. As he testified about shredding documents, laundering money, and paying bribes, he detailed the infamous and growing ‘cancer on the presidency.’” At this point, the matter remained a stalemate. Dean’s word against Nixon’s. But more was to come.
Alexander Butterfield (still alive at 98 years), head of the Federal Aviation Administration knew something that would blow the lid off the case. As deputy assistant to the president in Nixon’s first term, Butterfield informed Senate investigators of the existence of a recording system in the White House. He explained to the investigators how the taping occurred and then provided live testimony to these facts before the Senate Committee.
In a selection on History, “Existence of Watergate Tapes is Revealed in Live Testimony,” the White House response is detailed. “In the following weeks, Nixon reportedly ordered the White House staff to disconnect the White House taping system, and he refused to turn over the tapes to Senate investigators. The president filed appeals to several subpoenas ordering him to turn over the tapes. He proposed to special prosecutor Archibald Cox that U.S. Sen. John Stennis summarize the tapes for investigators, but Cox refused. On October 20, 1973, Nixon ordered the firing of Cox in an infamous episode known as the Saturday Night Massacre.”
What had begun as a third-rate burglary now stained the presidency. Nixon’s temperament became his undoing. His inclination to hide information instead of superintending transparency fed the long-standing narratives about his secrecy and shadiness. Regardless of how brilliant he was, many believed he lacked personal integrity. The tapes issue would go to the courts for final arbitration. On April 29, 1974, Nixon agreed to release 46 transcripts of personal conversations, but the investigation continued. Nixon’s firing of Cox led to Leon Jaworski’s appointment as Special Prosecutor. Hoping the release of the transcripts would appease Jaworski, Nixon had his attorney, John D. St. Clair, ask Judge John Sirica to quash the subpoenas for more tapes. Sirica denied the request and both Nixon and Jaworski appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The Court’s ruling and Nixon’s resignation will be covered in part five of this series.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
