James Cannon - Gerald R. Ford: An Honorable Life

The day: Thursday, August 8, 1974. The hour: 11:10 a.m. With one fateful question dominating his thoughts, Gerald Ford waited in the sunny and deceptively calm reception room next to the Office of the President of the United States. The question: would Richard Nixon resign, or would he fight on and put himself, and all three branches of the Federal government, and the American people through the agony of a President's impeachment, trial, conviction, and dismissal from that high and once-honored office?

Vice President Ford was there to hear the answer. Minutes earlier, Chief of Staff Alexander Haig had telephoned: The President wants to see you now. In that instant, Ford knew the months of crisis and anticipation had reached a turning point. Deep in his soul, Ford knew that this encounter, whatever the outcome, would live in history. Responding to the call, he left the Vice President's suite in the Old Executive Office Building and walked quickly across West Executive Avenue, wondering along the way, Will he go, or will he continue to fight?

Up the stairs of the West Wing, Ford paused at Haig's imposing corner office for last-minute guidance. Haig, haggard and grave, walked with Ford to the door of the reception room. The President wants to see you alone, Mr. Vice President.

Poised, intent, Ford sat by himself on a small couch, waiting to hear, waiting to get the word, he said later. I knew the odds, that Nixon would resign and I would take over. But I had been cautioned, repeatedly, by Haig that Nixon kept changing his mind, and I should believe no decision had been made until I heard it from Nixon himself. So it all depended on what Nixon would finally decide to do. I expected, Istrongly expected that he would leave, yet I couldn't be positive. I was certain of one thing: If it happened, I was confident that I could handle the job. So I just sat there and waited.

As Ford waited, so also did all America await a resolution of this crisis of the regime. For more than two years, the infamy of Watergate had paralyzed President Nixon, occupied both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, dominated the national press, and implanted in the public mind doubt and distrust of Richard Nixon, and everything he and his White House had done and stood for.

Watergate: code word for the most improbable White House scandal in history. It was not a case of Presidential appointees taking bribes, as with Grant and Harding; it was instead an intentional criminal act by a President in the Oval Office. By deliberately breaking laws he had taken an oath to uphold, Nixon provoked the most serious Constitutional crisis since the Civil War.

The scandal began in the summer of 1972 when managers for Nixon's reelection campaign concocted, inexplicably, a plan to burglarize Democratic headquarters in the Watergate office building in downtown Washington. Five CIA-trained operatives hired by the Nixon campaign broke into the Democratic Chairman's office, and were rifling his files when police caught them in the act. All five were jailed and indicted.

President Nixon, also inexplicably, did not distance himself from the break-in by campaign hirelings. He could have dismissed his political managers responsible for the crime and that might have ended the incident. Instead, Nixon tried to cover up the crime by telling his Chief of Staff, Bob Haldeman, and White House Counsel, John Dean, to bribe the burglars to keep silent; but, the men caught in the break-in talked. Bit by bit they gave evidence marking a trail that led to Nixon's campaign staff, then to hush money in a White House safe, on to Nixon's most trusted aides, and, in time, to Nixon himself.

A fool's errand, followed by Nixon's monstrous misjudgment, turned into catastrophe. The President's close friend and most able mentor, former Attorney General John Mitchell, and four senior White House aides were indicted, forced to resign, and faced trial for perjuryor worse. For his part in the attempt to cover up the Watergate crime, President Nixon faced impeachment in the House, conviction in the Senate, and prosecution in the courts.

As Ford sat in suspense, waiting to see the President that Augustmorning, there was no question in his mind about what Nixon should do. White House tape recordings, made public by court order just four days earlier, revealed astonishing evidence: President Nixon, in his own voice, conspiring to obstruct justice. Consequently, it was certain that Nixon would be impeached, convicted, and removed from office. No Presidentindeed, no manhad ever faced such a formidable array of legal power: the Senate Watergate Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, a Special Prosecutor, a tenacious Federal Judge, and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Grim though his legal predicament was, Nixon's standing with the American people was even worse. He had lied to themnot once, but repeatedly; not inadvertently, but intentionally. He had defiled the Presidency. He was a crook. Angry crowds gathered in historic Lafayette Park across from the White House shouting: Jail to the Chief! Jail to the Chief!

By any measure, Richard Nixon had lost the legitimacy of authority essential to any President. As a consequence, he could no longer govern. Ford knew that, as did Congress, the Federal bureaucracy, the press, and all the other diverse powers in Washington. But Ford did not know whether Nixon was yet ready to accept the reality that as President, he was finished.

Such a sad time, Ford thought as he sat waitingsuch a tragedy for his good friend and political ally for a quarter century. Now that friend was ruinedruined in his time, and in the verdict of history. Nixon's accomplishments as President would be diminished, perhaps forgotten.

At that moment, Ford's reflections were interrupted. The door into the Oval Office was opening. Mr. President, a Nixon aide announced with terse formality, the Vice President is here to see you.