Nixon: Once More, with Feeling

Richard Nixon's public ordeal on Watergate may finally be over. Certainly the nation has had enough. As he faced a televised grilling last week on the scandal that destroyed his presidency, the disgraced ex-President forced viewers to suffer through most of the same old distortions and deceptions (along with some new ones) on the now tedious details of the criminal cover-up in his White House. But then, for some 25 emotional minutes at the end of the broadcast, the nation got its first--and, it could hope, last--glimpse into the anguish and genuine regrets of a once proud man admitting he had "let the American people down."

Lost Buildup. If those final moments of the first of four David Frost interviews with Nixon were moving, it is a measure of the widespread cynicism Nixon has so long evoked that they seem destined to do little to restore his lost respect. As TIME correspondents probed public reaction to the show, they found an overwhelming majority of viewers still as turned off by Nixon as ever. Many even wondered whether Nixon's limited apologia was heartfelt or merely Checkers-style hokum.

Unfortunately, part of the drama of the closest thing to a confession that Nixon is ever likely to make was lost in the editing of the show. The 90-minute broadcast was distilled from almost five hours of grilling by Frost on Watergate. Nearly an hour of the taping that landed on the cutting-room floor covered unsuccessful efforts by the gentlemanly British interviewer to elicit some admission of responsibility and guilt. The final Nixon monologue that was shown was in fact the culmination of a long period of mounting tension on the homey seaside set in California, but this was not apparent to viewers. The buildup was lost and so, too, was the incongruous end of the session. When Nixon had finished his peroration, technicians rushed to shake his hand, congratulating him for getting such a burden off his chest. Frost solicitously walked the ex-President to his Lincoln. Then, as Nixon rode away, Frost clapped with joy. He knew he had taped a gripping show.

Certainly Nixon's words went beyond what most people could have expected of him. "I let down my friends. I let down the country. I let down our system of government and the dreams of all those young people that ought to get into government... Yep, I let the American people down, and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life."

Twisting It. But did he really feel that the fault was his? Nixon mixed his mea culpa with oblique intimations that he had been done in by foes operating with dark motives. While sanctimoniously asserting that "I brought myself down," he also alluded to a gallery of fuzzily defined foes, including the intelligence agencies and "some circles" in both political parties. "I don't go with the idea that what brought me down was a coup, a conspiracy, etc.," he said. But of course, others had told him "there was a conspiracy to get you." And, said Nixon, "there may have been. I don't know what the CIA had to do. Some of their shenanigans have yet to be told." Still invoking his legions of tormentors, he added, "I gave 'em a sword, and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I'd been in their position, I'd have done the same thing."

Nixon's extension of the modified, limited hang-out to the TV interview did much to undermine the credibility of his apology. So, too, did the false premise on which he based most of his emotional self-defense. This was the notion that he had fallen mainly because he had protected his close aides too long. Nixon cited British Prime Minister William Gladstone's maxim that "the first requirement for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher." Added Nixon: "I screwed up terribly in what was a little thing and became a big thing. But I still have to admit I wasn't a good butcher."

Later: "I made so many bad judgments--the worst ones mistakes of the heart, rather than the head."

The latter prompted a wry--even cruel--headline in the Washington Post: HE RETURNS TO CONFESS HE IS GUILTY OF HAVING A KIND HEART. Nixon may well have been reduced to tears when he finally let his top lieutenants, Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, go ("I cut off one arm and then cut off the other arm"). But there were tears of self-pity in that act. He had failed to fire them earlier not because "they've got to have their day in court," as he insisted, but because he knew their crimes were his crimes. As the tapes and testimony showed, he had coached them all through the coverup. He cut them loose only when the heat got too hot--and even then he feared what they could do to him if they turned too bitter.

One participant has already deemed Nixon's account wrong. Ehrlichman, writing for New York and New West magazines from a federal prison camp in Arizona, where he is serving a 2 1/2 to 8 year sentence, says that Nixon's explanation was "a swarmy, maudlin rationalization that will be tested and found false." He added that just before Nixon fired him, he "offered me a huge sum of money. I declined it."

There were other absurdities in Nixon's prime-time show. One was his idea that "simply by giving clemency to everybody [right after his re-election], the whole thing would have gone away ... [but] clemency was wrong." If Nixon had freed White House Plumbers E. Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy, as well as the five arrested burglars, both the congressional howls for impeachment and the public curiosity about what Nixon was trying to conceal would have mounted much earlier.

The Frost interview did not answer some of the lingering questions about Watergate. What precisely was the Watergate wiretapping meant to find out? Did Nixon know in advance that his re-election committee was planning the breakin? Why did he not destroy all of his tapes before their existence became known--or even after? Who erased the 18 1/2 minutes of missing Oval Office conversation from the June 20 tape?

False Premise. Amid all the misstatements and warped points of view, even on such irrelevant matters as his role in Eisenhower's dumping of Aide Sherman Adams (see box), Nixon clung to the false legal premise that a crime is not really a crime if the motive is pure. He insisted he had committed no crime or impeachable act. Yet unconsciously, he actually admitted the latter. "As the one with the chief responsibility for seeing that the laws of the United States are enforced, I did not meet that responsibility," he conceded. That very failure was one of the grounds cited by the House Judiciary Committee for impeachment.

Much of the reaction to Nixon's self-defense was scathing--even from some erstwhile Nixon stalwarts. Said Charles Sandman, the New Jersey Republican who was Nixon's staunches! supporter on the House Judiciary Committee and later lost his congressional seat for his troubles: "He was humble, but does that change his guilt? I say no."

That seemed to go for lots of people. Declared Mrs. Judith Sciarrillo, a Mashpee, Mass., housewife: "His calculated bid for sympathy made me glad to have Nixon to kick around once more." Said Cynthia Sherman, a telephone company employee in San Jose, Calif.: "I tried to look at it objectively, but he was trying to appeal to my emotions. He was saying, 'Here I am a broken man, and I didn't realize I was doing this.' I didn't believe that." Added L.B. Day, an Oregon Teamster official: "I don't feel he has any remorse for what he did."

But even as they disbelieved much of what he said, many viewers felt a new sympathy for Nixon. Oregon's former Governor Tom McCall, one of the first to call for Nixon's resignation, said he now feels that Nixon is "a warm human being. If he'd just come out like this early, it probably wouldn't have been half as bad." Agreed the Norfolk Ledger-Star in an editorial: "It was good that he said it, but it would have sounded better if he had said it sooner. And for free."

Broad Dismay. Howard ("Bo") Callaway, President Ford's former campaign manager, said Nixon had "shown a contriteness that I had not expected." To Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Rick Shelby, Nixon was "candid and forthright about the mistakes he obviously made. We saw a side of Nixon we'd never seen before." Norfolk Tavern Owner Foster Strickland summed up the mixed feelings: "If he had a flat tire, I'd stop and help him fix it, but I don't think I would ever vote for him."

In an ABC News/Harris poll, 58% of all viewers surveyed said the show had not made them feel "more sympathetic" toward Nixon, although 45% felt some what "sorry for him." An overwhelming 74% said they felt, despite his denials, that Nixon knew he had obstructed justice. Nearly 60% believed he had lied on the program in claiming he did not know about cash payments to the Watergate burglars until John Dean laid out the problem in detail on March 21, 1973. A decisive 71% said Nixon should not return to public life.

There was broad dismay that the TV spectacle was motivated mainly by money. Millions wished that Watergate and Nixon would simply go away. "I hope we can keep this man caged up in San Clemente," said former Colorado Lieutenant Governor Mark Hogan. "He's a scary one."

But Nixon is going to remain very much in the public eye for a while. On Thursday he will perform at his best, describing for Frost his role in the big power politics of dealing with China, Russia, SALT and the Middle East. Following that, in successive weeks, will be the interviews on the war in Southeast Asia, as well as the dissent at home, and his final days in office. It is also possible that Frost will cobble together an extra program from the unused portions of the 29 hours of tape. Nixon has approved the sale of a fifth show, although no plans for its airing have been completed. Then of course, there will be the memoirs; one of Nixon's aims in undergoing his ordeal with Frost was to stir interest in his forthcoming book, which is due for publication next year.

But as the same old Nixon ran through his same self-serving litany, waking echoes of two decades of similar public performances, he once again hurt himself just at the time he sought to help himself the most. In that sense, the personal tragedy of Richard Nixon goes on and on.

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