October 24, 1973

Impeachment Talk Hypocritical

The only unusual thing about President Nixon's firing of Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox is that the face-off took so long coming.

It was obvious from the start last May that the Nixon-Cox relationship was a shotgun marriage doomed to failure.

Cox is a Harvard Democrat who was solicitor general for presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.  Putting him in charge of the Watergate investigation was like giving the fox a key to the chicken coop.

Nixon accepted the Cox appointment only under duress, it being the blackmail of a Democrat Congress for confirmation of Elliot Richardson as attorney general.  Caught in the middle between his promises to Congress and his duty to the president, Richardson and his assistant resigned.

It is all politics in the old knock-down drag-out American style.  Back stabbing is great fun for the pros, but terribly upsetting for Mr. Average Voter who still labors under the illusion that politicians ascend to some higher level of statesmanship on election night.

A certain amount of partisan politics is acceptable insofar as it helps keep our government accountable.  However, there is a point - which we have long since passed - where political in-fighting becomes national suicide.

The talk of impeachment of the President is utterly ridiculous and irresponsible.

Nixon's critics talk breathlessly of "the gravest crisis in our history," "Gestapo tactics," and "contempt of court."

Hog wash!

Watergate was political espionage and dirty tricks.  A shoddy business, indeed.  The perpetrators should be punished severely if such example will establish a new standard of morality applicable to both parties.

Yet, what was the "horror" of Watergate?  Nothing was stolen.  No property was damaged.  No one was injured.

It was the same kind of political spying for which Daniel Ellsberg became a liberal hero and the New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize.  It ranks with the leaking of Spiro Agnew evidence from Justice Department records and theft of FBI files on Jane Fonda for use by Columnist Jack Anderson.

Many of those now crying for impeachment are hypocrites.

Labor Boss George Meany receives a standing ovation when he proposes legal proceedings against Nixon, even though his pay-offs with union dues for political favors is the prime reason for the decline in political morality.

The biggest hypocrite of all has to be Former Supreme Court Justice Tom C.  Clark.

During a visit to Akron last week, the New Deal Democrat criticized President Nixon for holding on to taped conversations containing some references to activities of the Committee To Reelect The President.

Clark emphasized the importance of ethics and decried "the deplorable conditions reflected in Washington."

This is the same man who is reported in the book "Washington Pay Off" by Lobbyist Robert Winter-Berger as President Franklin Roosevelt's "bag man." According to Winter-Berger's account - not challenged by the jurist - Attorney General Clark personally picked up a suit case of $250,000 cash for quashing a conspiracy indictment against A. Davis & Sons, a manufacturer of military uniforms.

Bobby Baker, probably the greediest .and most blatant political influence peddler in U.S. history, was Congressional clerk under Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson.  Baker accumulated two million dollars over an eight-year period before he was caught and jailed.

Winter-Berger reported - again, unchallenged - that Johnson, president by that time, authorized House Speaker John McCormack to offer Baker "up to a million dollars" to keep his mouth shut "else I'm gonna land in jail."

Baker took his rap alone, and not one newspaper or TV network delved beyond the public accounts.

How many of today's moralists raised their voices in 1960 when Mayor Daley's Cook County (Chicago) henchmen stuffed the ballot box and tipped a split-hair election to John Kennedy?  Several election workers were jailed for the fraud - six months after Kennedy took office.  In politics, "too late" is "too bad."

When all the rhetoric is sifted, there is not one shred of evidence, or even hearsay, that Nixon knew before hand of the Watergate spying operation.  Only one man, John Dean, the third man in authority on the White House staff, says the president condoned subsequent efforts to cover up the affair.

Even if this were true, I can't understand why Nixon's desire to bury the Watergate incident would be so much worse than President Dwight Eisenhower's denial of the U-2 spy plane, or President Kennedy's cover-up of fault for the Bay of Pigs disaster, or Senator Teddy Kennedy's blocking a full investigation of the Chappaquiddick tragedy.

But, let us assume that politicians and voters repent past tolerances of wrong doing and - starting with Nixon - are going to insist hereafter on an even-handed standard.

In this light, how shall we assess President Nixon's refusal to hand over his tapes in their entirety?

The tapes apparently are of extremely frank conversations with unsuspecting callers - a questionable practice in my opinion not warranted by the fact that Kennedy and Johnson did it too.

Most of the tapes concern matters unrelated to Watergate.  Cox and many other Democrats see in this mass of confidential information a happy hunting ground for further embarrassment to the top Republican.

However, if presidential records can be obtained at will by the other branches of our government, if the 200-year-old principle of executive privilege is to be abandoned, then our traditional system of checks-and-balances is destroyed.  Every future president saddled with a Congress controlled by the opposite party will be in deep trouble.  Paralysis of government will be as common place here as in Europe.

Nixon attempted to avoid a constitutional confrontation over this fundamental issue with a compromise - AS SUGGESTED BY THE DISTRICT COURT.  He would obey the court order for Watergate information, but withhold all other confidential conversations.

To accomplish this, Nixon proposed that his staff transcribe all matters from his tapes concerning Watergate and then let Democrat Senator John Stennis listen to all the tapes to verify the completeness and accuracy of the verbatim record.

Senator Sam Ervin, Democrat chairman of the Special Watergate Committee, said this was fine, as did the Republican Assistant Chairman Howard Baker.

But this was not good enough for Cox the fox.  With his sights on destruction of Nixon - and let truth take the hindmost - Cox threw a tantrum.

The Democrats and liberals - led by the usual press propagandists - are trying to create an artificial crisis that would force Nixon out of office or, at least, nullify his achievements in stopping two nasty wars.

But it won't wash.

The dirt is thicker on the hands of the accusers.

It is time that political leaders with cooler heads step in to stop this blood-lust.

We must regain our perspective.

Let's rid the ship of state of rats, but let's be careful not to sink the ship in the process.

Author: Lindsey Williams