The Great Shark Hunt Part 22

Let me be there in your mornin', let me be there in your night. . . Let me be there when you need me. . . and make it right.

Ah, this haunting, honky music. . . I am running a serious out-of-control fever for that long-remembered dream of a tin-roof, hard-rain, belly-to-belly day with a big iron bolt on the door and locked away in a deep warm bed from every connection to the outside world except a $14.95 tin radio wailing tunes like "I Smell a Rat" and "The Wild Side of Life."

This is not your ideal flying weather. Both National and Dulles airports are "closed for the rest of the morning," they say. . . But despite all that I find myself on the phone demanding plane reservations back to Colorado. f.u.c.k the weather. . .

Whoever answered the phone at United Airlines said the weather was "expected to be clear" by early afternoon and there were plenty of seats open for the 4:40 flight to Denver.

"Wonderful," I said, "but I want a first-cla.s.s seat in the smokers' smokers' section." section."

"I'll check," she said, and moments later she was back with bad news: "The smoking seats are all taken, sir, but if it makes no difference to you --"

"It does," I said. "I must must smoke. I insist on it." smoke. I insist on it."

She checked again and this time the news was better: "I think we can open a smoking seat for you, sir. Could I have your name?"

"Nader," I said. "R. Nader."

"How do you spell that?"

I spelled it for her, then set my alarm for two and fell asleep on the couch, still wearing my wet swimming trunks. After two months on the Nixon Impeachment Trail, my nerves were worn raw from the constant haggling and frustrated hostility of all those useless, early morning White House press briefings and long, sweaty afternoons pacing aimlessly around the corridors of the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill, waiting for crumbs of wisdom from any two or three of those 38 luckless congressmen on the House Judiciary Committee hearing evidence on the possible impeachment of Richard Nixon.

It was an eerie spectacle: The whole Nixonian empire -- seemingly invincible less than two years ago-- was falling apart of its own foul weight right in front of our eyes. There was no denying the vast and historic proportions of the story, but covering it on a day-to-day basis was such a dull and degrading experience that it was hard to keep a focus on what was really happening. It was essentially a lawyer's story, not a journalist's.

I never made that plane. Sometime around noon I was jolted awake by a pounding on my door and a voice shouting, "Wake up, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, the whole town's gone crazy -- the sonofab.i.t.c.h has caved in -- he's quitting."

"No!" I thought. "Not now! I'm too weak to handle it." These G.o.dd.a.m.n rumors had kept me racing frantically around Was.h.i.+ngton day and night for almost a week -- and when the s.h.i.+train finally began, I was helpless. My eyes were swollen shut with chlorine poisoning and when I tried to get out of bed to open the door, I almost snapped both ankles. I had fallen asleep wearing rubber-soled basketball shoes, which had wedged themselves between the sheets at the foot of the bed so firmly that my first thought was that somebody had strapped me down on the bed.

The howling voice at my door was Craig Vetter, another R ROLLING S STONE writer who had been in town for two weeks trying to make some kind of connection with Nixon's priest. . . but the priest was finished now and the town was going wild. A writer who had been in town for two weeks trying to make some kind of connection with Nixon's priest. . . but the priest was finished now and the town was going wild. A Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post reporter said he had never seen the newsroom so frantic -- not even when John Kennedy was murdered or during the Cuban missile crisis. The prevailing rumors on Capitol Hill had Nixon either addressing a joint session of Congress at 4:30 that afternoon or preparing a final statement for delivery at 7:00 on all three networks. . . but a call to the White House pressroom spiked both these rumors, although the place was filling up with reporters who'd picked up an entirely different rumor: That either Ziegler or Nixon himself would soon appear in the pressroom to make a statement of some kind. reporter said he had never seen the newsroom so frantic -- not even when John Kennedy was murdered or during the Cuban missile crisis. The prevailing rumors on Capitol Hill had Nixon either addressing a joint session of Congress at 4:30 that afternoon or preparing a final statement for delivery at 7:00 on all three networks. . . but a call to the White House pressroom spiked both these rumors, although the place was filling up with reporters who'd picked up an entirely different rumor: That either Ziegler or Nixon himself would soon appear in the pressroom to make a statement of some kind.

Six more calls from the National Affairs Suite churned up at least six more impossible rumors. Every switchboard in town that had any connection with either journalism or politics was jammed and useless. Later that night, even the main White House switchboard jammed up for the first time most reporters could remember, and for the next two days almost everybody who worked in the White House -- even private secretaries -- kept their home phones off the hook because of the chaos.

It was about 1:30 on Wednesday afternoon when I got through to Marty Nolan in the White House pressroom. We compared rumors and killed both lists very quickly. "This is all crazy bulls.h.i.+t," said Nolan. "We're just being jerked around. He's not going to do anything serious today, but just on the chance that he might, I don't dare leave this G.o.dd.a.m.n dungeon."

I had been on the verge of going down there, but after arranging with Nolan and about six other people in strategic positions in different parts of town to call me instantly if anything started to happen, I decided that the best thing to do was to take both the TV set and the FM radio down to a table by the pool and have all my calls transferred down to the lifeguard's telephone. . . Which turned out to be the best of all possible solutions: Vetter and I set up a totally efficient communications post beside the pool, and for the next 48 hours we were able to monitor the whole craziness from our table beside the pool.

The Suck-Tide Reaches San Clemente. . . Ziegler Brings the News to the Boss. . . General Haig and the Bag of Dimes. . . The Sybaritic Priest and the Mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded Rabbi. . . More Talk of the 'Suicide Option'

Well. . . the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing is over now; it ended on Thursday afternoon with all the grace and meaning of a c.o.ke bottle thrown off a third-floor fire escape on the Bowery -- exploding on the sidewalk and scaring the s.h.i.+t out of everybody in range, from the ones who got righteously ripped full of gla.s.s splinters to the swarm of "innocent bystanders" who still don't know what happened. . .

. . . And probably never will; there is a weird, unsettled, painfully incomplete quality about the whole thing. All over Was.h.i.+ngton tonight is the stench of a ma.s.sive psychic battle that n.o.body n.o.body really won. Richard Nixon has been broken, whipped and castrated all at once, but even for me there is no real crank or elation in having been a front-row spectator at the final scenes, the Deathwatch, the first time in American history that a president has been chased out of the White House and cast down in the ditch with all the other geeks and common criminals. . . really won. Richard Nixon has been broken, whipped and castrated all at once, but even for me there is no real crank or elation in having been a front-row spectator at the final scenes, the Deathwatch, the first time in American history that a president has been chased out of the White House and cast down in the ditch with all the other geeks and common criminals. . .

Looking back on the final few months of his presidency, it is easy to see that Nixon was doomed all along -- or at least from that moment when Archibald c.o.x first decided to force a showdown on the "executive privilege" question by sending a U.S. marshal over to the White House with a subpoena for some of the Oval Office tapes.

Nixon naturally defied that subpoena, but not even the crazed firing of c.o.x, Richardson and Ruckelshaus could make it go away. And when Jaworski challenged Nixon's right to defy that subpoena in the U.S. Supreme Court, the wheels of doom began rolling. And from that point on, it was clear to all the princ.i.p.als except Nixon himself that the Unthinkable was suddenly inevitable; it was only a matter of time. . . And it was just about then that Richard Nixon began losing his grip on reality.

Within hours after Jaworski and Nixon's "Watergate lawyer" James St. Clair had argued the case in a special session of the Court, I talked to Pat Buchanan and was surprised to hear that Nixon and his wizards in the White House were confident that the verdict would be 5-3 in their favor. Even Buchanan, who thinks rationally about 79% of the time, apparently believed -- less than two weeks before the Court ruled unanimously against against Nixon -- that five of the eight justices who would have to rule on that question would see no legal objection to ratifying Nixon's demented idea that anything discussed in the president's official office -- even a patently criminal conspiracy -- was the president's personal property, if he chose to have it recorded on his personal tape-recording machinery. Nixon -- that five of the eight justices who would have to rule on that question would see no legal objection to ratifying Nixon's demented idea that anything discussed in the president's official office -- even a patently criminal conspiracy -- was the president's personal property, if he chose to have it recorded on his personal tape-recording machinery.

The possibility that even some of the justices The Boss himself had appointed to the Court might not cheerfully endorse a concept of presidential immunity that mocked both the U.S. Const.i.tution and the Magna Carta had apparently been considered for a moment and then written off as too farfetched and crazy even to worry about by all of Nixon's personal strategists.

It is still a little difficult to believe, in fact, that some of the closest advisers to the president of a const.i.tutional democracy in the year nineteen hundred and seventy-four might actually expect the highest court in any any const.i.tutional democracy to crank up what is probably the most discredited precedent in the history of Anglo-American jurisprudence -- the "divine right of kings" -- in order to legalize the notion that a president of the United States or any other would-be democracy is above and beyond "the law." const.i.tutional democracy to crank up what is probably the most discredited precedent in the history of Anglo-American jurisprudence -- the "divine right of kings" -- in order to legalize the notion that a president of the United States or any other would-be democracy is above and beyond "the law."

That Nixon and his personal Gestapo actually believed this could happen is a measure of the insanity quotient of the people Nixon took down in the bunker with him when he knew the time had come to get serious.

But even as they raved, you could hear a hollow kind of paranoid uncertainty in their voices, as if they could already feel the ebb tide sucking around their ankles -- just as Nixon must have felt it when he walked alone on the beach at San Clemente a few weeks earlier, trudging slowly along in the surf with his pantlegs rolled up while he waited in angry solitude for the results of the Supreme Court vote on his claim of "executive privilege." That rush of sucking water around his ankles must have almost pulled him out to sea when Ziegler called down from the big dune in front of La Casa Pacifica: "Mister President! Mister President! We just got the news! The vote was unanimous -- eight to zero."

Nixon whoops with delight: He stops in his waterfilled tracks and hurls out both arms in the twin-victory sign. "Wonderful!" he shouts. "I knew knew we'd win it, Ron! Even without that clown Renchburg. It wasn't for nothing that I appointed those other dumb farts to the Court!" we'd win it, Ron! Even without that clown Renchburg. It wasn't for nothing that I appointed those other dumb farts to the Court!"

Ziegler stares down at him, at this doomed scarecrow of a president down there on the edge of the surf. Why is he grinning? Why does he seem so happy at this terrible news?

"No!" Ziegler shouts. "That is not what I meant. That is not what I meant at all!" He hesitates, choking back a sob. "The vote was eight to zero, Mister President -- against against you." you."

"What?" The scarecrow on the beach goes limp. His arms collapse, his hands flap crazily around the pockets of his wet pants. "Those dirty b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" he screams. "We'll break their b.a.l.l.s!"

"Yes sir!" sir!" Ziegler shouts. "They'll wish they'd never been born!" He jerks a notebook out of his inside coat pocket and jots: "Break their b.a.l.l.s." Ziegler shouts. "They'll wish they'd never been born!" He jerks a notebook out of his inside coat pocket and jots: "Break their b.a.l.l.s."

By this time the wet president is climbing the dune in front of him. "What happened?" Nixon snarls. "Did somebody get to Burger?"

Ziegler nods. "What else? Probably it was Edward Bennet Williams."

"Of course," says Nixon. "We should never have left that dumb sonofab.i.t.c.h back there in Was.h.i.+ngton by himself. We know he'll do business: That's why we put him there." He kicks savagely at a lone ice plant in the sand. "G.o.dd.a.m.nit! Where was Colson? Burger was his his a.s.signment, right?" a.s.signment, right?"

Ziegler winces. "Colson's in jail, sir. Don't you remember?"

Nixon stares blankly, then recovers. "Colson? In jail? What did he do?" He picks up a kelp head and lashes it against his s.h.i.+n. "Never mind, I can remember now -- but what about Ehrlichman? He can jerk Burger and those other clowns around like a G.o.dd.a.m.n Punch and Judy show!"

Ziegler stares out to sea for a moment, his eyes cloud over. "Well, sir. . . John's not much good to us anymore. He's going to prison."

Nixon stiffens, dropping the kelp head in the sand. "Holy s.h.i.+t, Ron! Why should John go to prison? He's one of the finest public servants I've ever had the privilege of knowing!"

Ziegler is weeping openly now, his emaciated body is wracked by deep sobs. "I don't know, don't know, sir. I can't explain it." He stares out to sea again, fighting to gain control of himself. "These are terrible times, Mister President. Our enemies are closing in. While you were out there on the beach, the Avis agency in Laguna called and canceled our credit. sir. I can't explain it." He stares out to sea again, fighting to gain control of himself. "These are terrible times, Mister President. Our enemies are closing in. While you were out there on the beach, the Avis agency in Laguna called and canceled our credit. They took my car, They took my car, Mister President! My gold Cadillac convertible! I was on the phone with Buzhardt -- about the Supreme Court business, you know -- when I looked out the window and saw this little n.i.g.g.e.r in an Avis uniform driving my car out the gate. The guards said he had a writ of seizure, signed by the local sheriff." Mister President! My gold Cadillac convertible! I was on the phone with Buzhardt -- about the Supreme Court business, you know -- when I looked out the window and saw this little n.i.g.g.e.r in an Avis uniform driving my car out the gate. The guards said he had a writ of seizure, signed by the local sheriff."

"My G.o.d!" Nixon exclaims. "We'll break his b.a.l.l.s! Where's a telephone? I'll call Haldeman."

"It's no use, sir," Ziegler replies. "We can't make any outgoing calls until we pay the phone company $33,000. They sent a man down to fix the lines so we can only take incoming calls -- for the next 86 hours, and then we'll be cut off entirely. If you want to call Was.h.i.+ngton, we'll have to walk to the San Clemente Inn and use a pay phone. I think General Haig has a bag of dimes in his room."

Nixon stiffens again; his brain is mired in deep thought. Then his eyes light up and he grabs Ziegler by the arm, dragging him toward the house. "Come on, Ron," he snaps, "I have an idea."

Ziegler stumbles along behind the president: He feels the energy flowing into him -- The Boss is on the move.

Nixon is talking as he runs: "I think I've isolated our problem, Ron. We need credit, right? OK, Where's that Jew?"

"Jew?"

"You know who I mean, G.o.dd.a.m.nit -- that rabbi. They can always get credit, can't they? A rabbi? We'll send some of the Secret Service boys up there to Laguna to round him up. He's probably in the bar up there on top of the Surf and Sand; that's where he hangs out." Nixon laughs wildly now. "s.h.i.+t, n.o.body n.o.body questions a rabbi's credit! You tell the SS boys to pick him up and throw a real scare into him, then bring him down here and I'll questions a rabbi's credit! You tell the SS boys to pick him up and throw a real scare into him, then bring him down here and I'll stroke stroke him." him."

Now Ziegler is laughing. His eyes are bright and he is writing fast in his notebook. "It's a wonderful idea, sir, just wonderful! First we stonewall the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, then we outflank them with a Jew!"

Nixon nods happily. "They'll never know what hit 'em, Ron. You know what I've always said: 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going.' "

"That's right, sir. I remember when Coach Lombardi --"

Nixon cuts him off with a sudden clap of his wet hands; the sound causes two Secret Service agents in the nearby shrubbery to go for their guns. "Hold on, Ron! Just hold it right there! You know who taught Coach Lombardi everything he knew?" He smiles deeply. "Me! The President!"

Ziegler wrings his hands, his eyeb.a.l.l.s bulge, his face is twisted with reverence. "I remember remember that, sir -- I remember!" that, sir -- I remember!"

"Good, Ron, good! Only losers forget. . . And you know what Coach Lombardi said about Ron, good! Only losers forget. . . And you know what Coach Lombardi said about that." that." Nixon seizes his press secretary by both elbows and comes up close to his face: His breath is foul, his eyeb.a.l.l.s are bloodshot, his pupils are dangerously dilated, his words come in short, high-pitched barks like a rabid hyena: "You show me a good loser, Ron -- and I'll show you a Nixon seizes his press secretary by both elbows and comes up close to his face: His breath is foul, his eyeb.a.l.l.s are bloodshot, his pupils are dangerously dilated, his words come in short, high-pitched barks like a rabid hyena: "You show me a good loser, Ron -- and I'll show you a loser!" loser!"

Ziegler is overwhelmed: His eyes are so wide that he can't even blink; his body is rigid but his soul is on fire. His face is a mask of pure zeal: Ron Ziegler -- left-hand man to a doomed and criminal president, the political flip side of every burned-out acid freak who voted for Goldwater and then switched to Tim Leary until the pain got too bad and the divine light of either Jesus or Maharaj Ji lured him off in the wake of another Perfect Master.

Ah, poor Ron. I knew him well enough. It was Ziegler, in fact, who tipped me off many months ago that Nixon was finished. This was back in July, in that lull before the storm when the wizards in Was.h.i.+ngton were beginning to nod glumly at each other whenever somebody suggested that the impeachment drive seemed to be faltering and that maybe Nixon was bottoming out, that in fact he had already bounced off the bottom and was preparing to take the offensive once again.

These were the salad days of early summer, before the fateful Supreme Court decision, when Nixon's Goebbels -- ex-White House "communications director" Ken Clawson -- was creating a false dawn over the White House by momentarily halting Nixon's year-long slide in the public opinion polls with a daily drumbeat of heavy-headline-grabbing attacks on "professional Nixon-haters" in the press, and "unprincipled, knee-jerk liberals in Congress." At that point in time, most of Nixon's traditional allies were beginning to hear the death shrieks of the banshee floating over the White House lawns at night, and even Billy Graham had deserted him. So Clawson, in a stroke of cheap genius, put a sybaritic Jesuit priest and a mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded rabbi on the payroll and sent them forth to do battle with the forces of Evil.

Father John McLaughlin, the Jesuit, wallowed joyfully in his role as "Nixon's priest" for a month or so, but his star faded fast when it was learned he was pulling down more than $25,000 a year for his efforts and living in a luxury apartment at the Watergate. His superiors in the church were horrified, but McLaughlin gave them the back of his hand and, instead, merely cranked up his speechmaking act. In the end, however, not even Clawson could live with the insistent rumor that the Good Jesuit Father was planning to marry his girlfriend. This was too much, they say, for the rigid sensibilities of General Haig, the White House chief of staff, whose brother was a legitimate priest in Baltimore. McLaughlin disappeared very suddenly, after six giddy weeks on the national stage, and nothing has been heard of him since.

But Clawson was ready for that. No sooner had the priest been deep-sixed than he unveiled another, holy man -- the Rabbi Baruch Korff, a genuine dingbat with barely enough sense to tie his own shoes, but who eagerly lent his name and his flaky presence to anything Clawson aimed him at. Under the banner of something called the "National Citizens' Committee for Fairness to the President," he "organized" rallies, dinner parties and press conferences all over the country. One of his main financial backers was Hamilton Fish Sr., a notorious fascist and the father of New York Congressman Hamilton Fish Jr., one of the Republican swing votes on the House Judiciary Committee who quietly voted for impeachment.

Only a month ago, the storms of destiny seemed to be subsiding for President Nixon. Among the Knowledgeable in Was.h.i.+ngton, the conviction was growing that the impeachment campaign against him had spent its moment. . . [But] it is now clear that the Knowledgeable were wrong, that they mistook a break in the clouds for lasting suns.h.i.+ne. . .

-- R. W. Apple Jr., The New York Times, The New York Times, July 28th, 1974 July 28th, 1974 In fact, however, Nixon was already doomed by the time the Rodino committee got around to voting. The unanimous Supreme Court vote on the question of "executive privilege" with regard to the 64 disputed tapes was the beginning of the end. Nixon had known all along that the release of those tapes would finish him -- but he had consistently lied about their contents: not only to the press and the public, but also to his wife and his daughters and all the hardcore loyalists on his staff. He lied about the tapes to Barry Goldwater and Gerry Ford, to Hugh Scott and John Rhodes, to Al Haig and Pat Buchanan and even to his own attorney, James St. Clair -- who was stupid enough, like the others, to have believed him when he swore that the tapes he refused to let anybody listen to would finally prove his innocence.

Both of his lawyers, in fact, had done everything in their power to avoid avoid hearing the G.o.dd.a.m.n things. It finally required a direct order from Judge Sirica, on two separate occasions, to compel Buzhardt and St. Clair to listen to the tapes. Buzhardt was first, and within hours after hearing the fatal conversation with Haldeman of June 23rd, 1972, he was rushed to the intensive care ward of a private hospital in Virginia with a serious "heart attack" that rendered him incommunicado for almost two months. hearing the G.o.dd.a.m.n things. It finally required a direct order from Judge Sirica, on two separate occasions, to compel Buzhardt and St. Clair to listen to the tapes. Buzhardt was first, and within hours after hearing the fatal conversation with Haldeman of June 23rd, 1972, he was rushed to the intensive care ward of a private hospital in Virginia with a serious "heart attack" that rendered him incommunicado for almost two months.

I was sitting in a bar called the Cla.s.s Reunion, about two blocks from the White House, when I heard the tragic news. . . And I recall saying to Boston Globe Boston Globe correspondent Marty Nolan: "We'll never see Buzhardt again. They can't afford to let him live. If he survives whatever Ziegler put in his coffee when he was listening to those tapes, Haldeman will go out there and stick a hatpin up his nose while he's wasted on Demerol, jam it straight into his brain when the nurse gets out of the room. Take my word for it, Marty. I know how these people operate. Buzhardt will never leave that hospital alive." correspondent Marty Nolan: "We'll never see Buzhardt again. They can't afford to let him live. If he survives whatever Ziegler put in his coffee when he was listening to those tapes, Haldeman will go out there and stick a hatpin up his nose while he's wasted on Demerol, jam it straight into his brain when the nurse gets out of the room. Take my word for it, Marty. I know how these people operate. Buzhardt will never leave that hospital alive."

Nolan nodded, oblivious to Buzhardt's grim fate. At that point, almost every journalist in Was.h.i.+ngton a.s.signed to the Nixon Deathwatch had been averaging about two hours sleep a night since the beginning of summer. Many were weak and confused, succ.u.mbing to drink or drugs whenever possible. Others seemed to hover from day to day on the brink of terminal fatigue. Radio and TV reporters in the White House pressroom were reduced to tearing articles out of the nearest newspaper and reading them verbatim straight over the air -- while the newspaper and magazine people would tape the live broadcasts and then transcribe them word for word under their own bylines. By the end of July, the prospect of having to cover an impeachment debate in the House and then a trial in the Senate for three or four months without relief was almost unbearable. As August began and Nixon still showed no signs of giving up, there was more and more talk of "the suicide option."

Last Breakfast at the White House. . . The Sc.u.mbag I Pa.s.sed to a New Generation. . . Cold Turkey Swoops Down & Panic for Watergate Junkies Sometime around dawn on the Friday morning of Richard Milhous Nixon's last breakfast in the White House I put on my swimming trunks and a red rain parka, laced my head with some gray Argentine snuff, and took an elevator down to the big pool below my window in the National Affairs Suite at the Was.h.i.+ngton Hilton. It was still raining, so I carried my portable TV set, a notebook and four bottles of Ba.s.s Ale in a waterproof canvas bag.

The lower lobby was empty, except for the night watchman -- a meaty black gentleman whose main duty was to keep people like me out of the pool at night, but we had long since come to a friendly understanding on the subject. It was against the rules to swim when the pool was closed but there was no rule to prevent a Doctor of Divinity from going out there to meditate on the end of the diving board.

"Mornin', Doc," said the watchman. "Up a little early, ain't you? Especially on a nasty day like this."

"Nasty?" I replied. "What are you -- some kind of G.o.dd.a.m.n Uncle Tom Republican? Don't you know who's leaving town today?"

He looked puzzled for a moment, then his face cracked into a grin. "You're right, by G.o.d! I almost forgot. We finally got rid of that man, didn't we, Doc?" He nodded happily. "Yes, sir, we finally got rid of him."

I reached into my bag and opened two Ba.s.s Ales. "This is a time for celebration," I said, handing him one of the bottles. I held mine out in front of me. "To Richard Nixon," I said, "may he choke on the money he stole."

The watchman glanced furtively over his shoulder before lifting his ale for the toast. The clink of the two bottles coming together echoed briefly in the vast, deserted lobby.

"See you later," I said. "I have to meditate for a while, then hustle down to the White House to make sure he really leaves. I won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes."

The flat surface of the pool was pocked with millions of tiny raindrops beating steadily down on the water. There was a chain lock on the gate, so I climbed over the fence and walked down to the deep end, where I located a dry spot under a tree near the diving board. The CBS Morning News The CBS Morning News would be on in about 20 minutes; I turned on the TV set, adjusted the aerial and turned the screen so I could see it from the pool about 20 feet away. It was a system I'd worked out last summer at the Senate Watergate hearings: After every two laps, I could look over the edge of the pool and check the screen to see if Hughes Rudd's face had appeared yet. When it did, I would climb out of the water and lie down on the gra.s.s in front of the set -- turn up the sound, light a cigarette, open a fresh Ba.s.s Ale and take notes while I watched the tiny screen for a general outline of whatever action Sam Ervin's Roman circus might be expected to generate that day. would be on in about 20 minutes; I turned on the TV set, adjusted the aerial and turned the screen so I could see it from the pool about 20 feet away. It was a system I'd worked out last summer at the Senate Watergate hearings: After every two laps, I could look over the edge of the pool and check the screen to see if Hughes Rudd's face had appeared yet. When it did, I would climb out of the water and lie down on the gra.s.s in front of the set -- turn up the sound, light a cigarette, open a fresh Ba.s.s Ale and take notes while I watched the tiny screen for a general outline of whatever action Sam Ervin's Roman circus might be expected to generate that day.

I stayed out there by the pool for almost two hours, sliding in and out of the water to run a few laps and then back out to stretch out on the gra.s.s to make a note now and then on the news. Not much was happening, except for a few kinky interviews down by the White House gate with people who claimed to have been on the Deathwatch for three days and nights without sleeping. . . But very few of them could even begin to explain why they were doing it. At least half the crowd around the White House during those last few days looked like people who spend every weekend prowling the Demolition Derby circuit.

The only other action on the news that Friday morning was an occasional rerun of Nixon's official resignation speech from the night before. I had watched it with Vetter in the Watergate bar. It seemed like a good place to be on that night, because I had also been there on the night of June 17th, 1972 -- while the Watergate burglary was happening five floors above my head.

But after I'd watched Nixon's speech for the third time, a strange feeling of nervousness began working on me and I decided to get out of town as soon as possible. The movie was over -- or at least it would be over in two or three hours. Nixon was leaving at 10:00, and Ford would be sworn in at noon. I wanted to be there on the White House lawn when Nixon was lifted off. That would be the end of my my movie. movie.

It was still raining when I left and the pool was still empty. I put the TV set back in the canvas bag and climbed over the gate by the lifeguard shack. Then I stopped and looked back for a moment, knowing I would never come back to this place, and if I did it would not be the same. The pool would be the same, and it would be easy enough to pick up a case of Ba.s.s Ale or a battery TV set. . . And I could even come down here on rainy summer mornings and watch the morning news. . .

But there would not be this kind of morning anymore, because the main ingredient for that mix was no longer available in Was.h.i.+ngton; and if you asked any of the people who were known to have a real taste for it, the hard-core Nixon aficionados, they all understood that it would not be available again for a h.e.l.l of a long time and probably never.

n.o.body even talks about subst.i.tutes or something almost exactly the same. The mold disappeared about three minutes after they made that evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d. . . and although there was never any doubt about who stole it, n.o.body had any proof.

No. . . even with the pool and the ale and gra.s.s and the portable TV set, the morning news will not be the same without the foul specter of Richard Nixon glaring out of the tube. But the war is over now and he lost. . . Gone but not forgotten, missed but not mourned; we will not see another one like him for quite a while. He was dishonest to a fault, the truth was not in him, and if it can be said that he resembled any other living animal in this world, it could only have been the hyena.

I took a cab down to the White House and pushed through the sullen mob on the sidewalk to the guardhouse window. The cop inside glanced at my card, then looked up -- fixing me with a heavy-lidded Quaalude stare for just an instant, then nodded and pushed his buzzer to open the gate. The pressroom in the West Wing was empty, so I walked outside to the Rose Garden, where a big olive-drab helicopter was perched on the lawn, about 100 feet out from the stairs. The rain had stopped and a long, red carpet was laid out on the wet gra.s.s from the White House door to the helicopter. I eased through the crowd of photographers and walked out, looking back at the White House, where Nixon was giving his final address to a shocked crowd of White House staffers. I examined the aircraft very closely, and I was just about to climb into it when I heard a loud rumbling behind me; I turned around just in time to see Richard and Pat coming toward me, trailing their daughters and followed Closely by Gerald Ford and Betty. Their faces were grim and they were walking very slowly; Nixon had a glazed smile on his face, not looking at anybody around him, and walked like a wooden Indian full of Thorazine.

His face was a greasy death mask. I stepped back out of his way and nodded h.e.l.lo but he didn't seem to recognize me. I lit a cigarette and watched him climb the steps to the door of the helicopter. . . Then he spun around very suddenly and threw his arms straight up in the famous twin-victory signal; his eyes were still glazed, but he seemed to be looking over the heads of the crowd at the White House.

n.o.body was talking. A swarm of photographers rushed the plane as Nixon raised his arms-- but his body had spun around too fast for his feet, and as his arms wents up I saw him losing his balance. The grimace on his face went slack, then he bounced off the door and stumbled into the c.o.c.kpit. Pat and Ziegler were already inside; Ed c.o.x and Tricia went in quickly without looking back, and a Marine in dress blues shut the door and jumped away as the big rotor blades began turning and the engine cranked up to a dull, whining roar.

I was so close that the noise hurt my ears. The rotor blades were invisible now, but the wind was getting heavier; I could feel it pressing my eyeb.a.l.l.s back into their sockets. For an instant I thought I could see Richard Nixon's face pressed up to the window. Was he smiling? Was it Nixon? I couldn't be sure. And now it made no difference.

The wind blast from the rotors was blowing people off-balance now; photographers were clutching their equipment against their bodies and Gerald Ford was leading his wife back toward the White House with a stony scowl on his face.

I was still very close to the helicopter, watching the tires. As the beast began rising, the tires became suddenly fat; there was no more weight on them. . . The helicopter went straight up and hovered for a moment, then swooped down toward the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument and then angled up into the fog. Richard Nixon was gone.

The end came so suddenly and with so little warning that it was almost as if a m.u.f.fled explosion in the White House had sent up a mushroom cloud to announce that the sc.u.mbag had been pa.s.sed to what will have to pose for now as another generation. The main reaction to Richard Nixon's pa.s.sing -- especially among journalists who had been on the Death-watch for two years -- was a wild and wordless o.r.g.a.s.m of long-awaited relief that tailed off almost instantly to a dull, post-coital sort of depression that still endures.

Within hours after Nixon's departure, every bar in downtown Was.h.i.+ngton normally frequented by reporters was a sinkhole of gloom. Several hours after Gerald Ford was sworn in, I found ex-Kennedy speechwriter d.i.c.k Goodwin in a bar not far from the R ROLLING S STONE office across the street from the White House. He was slumped in a booth by himself, staring blankly into his drink like a man who had just had his teeth ripped out by a savage bill collector. office across the street from the White House. He was slumped in a booth by himself, staring blankly into his drink like a man who had just had his teeth ripped out by a savage bill collector.

"I feel totally drained," he said. "It's like the circus just left town. This is the end of the longest running continuous entertainment this city ever had." He waved his arm at the waitress for another drink. "It's the end of an era. Now I know how all those rock freaks felt when they heard the Beatles were breaking up."

I felt the same way. All I wanted to do was get the h.e.l.l out of town as soon as possible. I had just come from the White House pressroom, where a smoglike sense of funk -- or "smunk" as somebody over there might describe it -- had settled on the room within minutes after Ford took the oath. The Deathwatch was finally over; the evil demon had been purged and the Good Guys had won -- or at least the Bad Guys had lost, but that was not quite the same thing. Within hours after Richard Nixon left Was.h.i.+ngton, it was painfully clear that Frank Mankiewicz had spoken too soon when he'd predicted, just a few weeks before The Fall, that Was.h.i.+ngton would be "the Hollywood of the Seventies." Without Nixon to stir up its thin juices, the Was.h.i.+ngton of the Seventies could look forward to the same grim fate as Cinderella's gilded coach at the stroke of midnight. It would turn back into a pumpkin, and any mysterious shoes left lying around on the deserted ballroom floors of the Watergate era would not interest a genial pragmatist like Gerald Ford. He would not have much time, for a while, to concern himself with anything but the slide into national bankruptcy that Nixon had left him to cope with. . . And, despite all its menacing implications, the desperate plight of the national economy was not a story that called up the same kind of journalistic adrenaline that Was.h.i.+ngton and most of the country had been living on for so long that the prospect of giving it up caused a serious panic in the ranks of all the Watergate junkies who never even knew they were hooked until the cold turkey swooped into their closets.

We all knew it was coming -- the press, the Congress, the "public," all the backstage handlers in Was.h.i.+ngton and even Nixon's own henchmen -- but we all had our own different timetables, and when his balloon suddenly burst on that fateful Monday in August, it happened so fast that none of us were ready to deal with it. The Nixon presidency never really had time to crumble, crumble, except in hazy retrospect. . . In reality, it except in hazy retrospect. . . In reality, it disintegrated, disintegrated, with all the speed and violence of some flimsy and long-abandoned gazebo suddenly blasted to splinters by chain lightning. with all the speed and violence of some flimsy and long-abandoned gazebo suddenly blasted to splinters by chain lightning.

The bolts came so fast that it was hard to keep count. On the Wednesday morning after the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend his impeachment, Richard Nixon was a beleaguered Republican president with powerful Republican (and Southern Democratic) allies in both the House and the Senate: His impeachment seemed almost certain, but the few people in Was.h.i.+ngton cra.s.s enough to bet money on a thing like this were still calling his chances of conviction in the Senate "just about even." This prognosis held for about 72 hours, which was time enough for almost everybody in Was.h.i.+ngton to start gearing down for an endless summer -- a humid nightmare of booze, sweat and tension, of debate in the House, delay in the courts and finally a trial in the Senate that might drag on until Christmas.

It was an ugly prospect, even for those of us who openly welcomed the prospect of seeing Richard Nixon in the dock. On the last afternoon of the Judiciary hearings, I found myself leaning against a tree on the gra.s.s of the U.S. Capitol lawn, hopelessly stoned, staring up at the huge golden dome (while loud knots of tourists wearing Bermuda shorts and Instamatic cameras climbed the marble steps a hundred yards in front of me) and wondering, "What in the f.u.c.k am I doing here? What kind of sick and twisted life have I fallen into that would cause me to spend some of the best hours of my life in a cryptlike room full of cameras, hot lights and fearful politicians debating the guilt or innocence of Richard Milhous Nixon?"

The Politician and the p.a.w.nbroker. . . The New York Times. .h.i.ts the Trenches, The Was.h.i.+ngton Post Opens a Multi-p.r.o.nged Panzer Offensive. . . Lessons of a Crime Spree in Lexington. . . A Compound Tangent Mushrooms Dangerously Innocence? It is difficult even to type that word on the same page with Nixon's name. The man was It is difficult even to type that word on the same page with Nixon's name. The man was born born guilty -- not in the traditional Vatican sense of "original sin," but in a darker and highly personalized sense that Nixon himself seems to have recognized from the very beginning. guilty -- not in the traditional Vatican sense of "original sin," but in a darker and highly personalized sense that Nixon himself seems to have recognized from the very beginning.

Nixon's entire political career -- and in fact his whole life -- is a gloomy monument to the notion that not even pure schizophrenia or malignant psychosis can prevent a determined loser from rising to the top of the heap in this strange society we have built for ourselves in the name of "democracy" and "free enterprise." For most of his life, the mainspring of Richard Nixon's energy and ambition seems to have been a deep and unrecognized need to overcome, at all costs, that sense of having been born guilty born guilty -- not for crimes or transgressions -- not for crimes or transgressions already already committed, but for those he somehow sensed he was fated to commit as he grappled his way to the summit. If Nixon had been born Jewish, instead of Black Irish, he would probably have been a p.a.w.nbroker instead of a politician, not only because the suburbs of Los Angeles would never have elected a Jewish congressman in 1946, but because running a big-league p.a.w.nshop would have fueled him with the same kind of guilt-driven energy that most of our politicians -- from the county a.s.sessor level all the way up to the White House -- seem to thrive on. committed, but for those he somehow sensed he was fated to commit as he grappled his way to the summit. If Nixon had been born Jewish, instead of Black Irish, he would probably have been a p.a.w.nbroker instead of a politician, not only because the suburbs of Los Angeles would never have elected a Jewish congressman in 1946, but because running a big-league p.a.w.nshop would have fueled him with the same kind of guilt-driven energy that most of our politicians -- from the county a.s.sessor level all the way up to the White House -- seem to thrive on.

On any given morning, both the politician and the p.a.w.nbroker can be sure that by sundown the inescapable realities of their calling will have forced them to do something they would rather not have to explain, not even to themselves. The details might vary, but the base line never changes: "I will feel more guilty tomorrow than I felt yesterday. . . But of course I have no choice: They They have made me what I am and by G.o.d, have made me what I am and by G.o.d, they'll they'll pay for it." pay for it."

So the cycle runs on. Both the politician and the p.a.w.nbroker are doomed to live like junkies, hooked on the mutant energy of their own unexplainable addictions.

In this baleful sense, Richard Nixon is definitely "one of us" -- as New York Times New York Times columnist Tom Wicker wrote, in a very different context, back in the early Sixties. The phrase was Conrad's, from columnist Tom Wicker wrote, in a very different context, back in the early Sixties. The phrase was Conrad's, from Lord Jim: Lord Jim: "He was one of us. . ." -- and when I read Wicker's piece more than a decade ago I remember feeling angry that "He was one of us. . ." -- and when I read Wicker's piece more than a decade ago I remember feeling angry that The New York Times The New York Times had the power to hire another one of these G.o.dd.a.m.n gothic Southern sots and turn him loose to stumble around Was.h.i.+ngton and spew out this kind of bulls.h.i.+t. had the power to hire another one of these G.o.dd.a.m.n gothic Southern sots and turn him loose to stumble around Was.h.i.+ngton and spew out this kind of bulls.h.i.+t.

Anybody stupid enough to identify with Richard Nixon the same way Conrad's Marlow identified with Lord Jim was beyond either help or any hope of credibility, I felt, and for the next seven or eight years I dismissed everything Wicker wrote as the mumblings of a hired fool. . . And when Wicker's point of view began swinging very noticeably in the direction of my own, in the late 1960s, I was almost as disturbed -- for entirely different reasons -- as the Times Times editors in New York who also noticed the drift and swiftly deposed him from his heir-apparent role to James Reston as the new chief of the paper's Was.h.i.+ngton Bureau. editors in New York who also noticed the drift and swiftly deposed him from his heir-apparent role to James Reston as the new chief of the paper's Was.h.i.+ngton Bureau.

The masthead of The New York Time's The New York Time's Was.h.i.+ngton Bureau is a reliable weathervane for professional observers of the changing political climate. Control of the bureau is usually in the hands of somebody the magnates in New York believe is more or less on the same wavelength as the men in control of the government. Arthur Krock, for instance, got along fine with Eisenhower, but he couldn't handle the Kennedys and was replaced by Reston, a JFK partisan in 1960 and a "Roosevelt coalition" neopopulist who also got along well with Lyndon Johnson. But when Johnson quit in 1968 and the future looked very uncertain, Reston was promoted to a management job in New York and was succeeded by Wicker at about the same time Robert Kennedy was deciding to make his move for the presidency; but when Bobby was killed and McCarthy collapsed, the Was.h.i.+ngton Bureau is a reliable weathervane for professional observers of the changing political climate. Control of the bureau is usually in the hands of somebody the magnates in New York believe is more or less on the same wavelength as the men in control of the government. Arthur Krock, for instance, got along fine with Eisenhower, but he couldn't handle the Kennedys and was replaced by Reston, a JFK partisan in 1960 and a "Roosevelt coalition" neopopulist who also got along well with Lyndon Johnson. But when Johnson quit in 1968 and the future looked very uncertain, Reston was promoted to a management job in New York and was succeeded by Wicker at about the same time Robert Kennedy was deciding to make his move for the presidency; but when Bobby was killed and McCarthy collapsed, the Times Times hedged its bet on Humphrey by deposing Wicker and replacing him with Max Frankel, a smooth and effective diplomat/journalist who could presumably get along with either Hubert hedged its bet on Humphrey by deposing Wicker and replacing him with Max Frankel, a smooth and effective diplomat/journalist who could presumably get along with either Hubert or or Nixon. . . But not even Frankel could handle Four More Years, apparently, and the Nixon/Agnew landslide in 1972 forced the admittedly anti-Nixon Nixon. . . But not even Frankel could handle Four More Years, apparently, and the Nixon/Agnew landslide in 1972 forced the admittedly anti-Nixon Times Times into a stance of agonizing reappraisal. Frankel moved up to New York, and since the most obvious candidates for his job were relatively liberal young turks like Bob Semple, Anthony Lewis or Johnny Apple, who were clearly out of step with the mandate of vengeance that Nixon claimed by virtue of his shattering victory over McGovern, the into a stance of agonizing reappraisal. Frankel moved up to New York, and since the most obvious candidates for his job were relatively liberal young turks like Bob Semple, Anthony Lewis or Johnny Apple, who were clearly out of step with the mandate of vengeance that Nixon claimed by virtue of his shattering victory over McGovern, the Times Times management in New York made a fateful policy decision that would soon come back to haunt them: management in New York made a fateful policy decision that would soon come back to haunt them: On the theory that the best offense, at that point, was a good defense, they pulled in their editorial horns for the duration and sent an elderly, conservative mediocrity named Clifton Daniel down from the executive backwaters of New York to keep the aggressive Was.h.i.+ngton Bureau under control. At almost the same time, they hired one of Nixon's top speechwriters, Bill Safire, and gave him a prominent ranking columnist's spot on the Times Times editorial pages. Both of these moves were thinly veiled concessions to the prospect of a revenge-hungry Nixon/Agnew juggernaut that had already telegraphed its intention to devote as much of its second (and final) term energies to their "enemies" in the "national media" as they had already successfully devoted in the first term to scuttling the U.S. Supreme Court. editorial pages. Both of these moves were thinly veiled concessions to the prospect of a revenge-hungry Nixon/Agnew juggernaut that had already telegraphed its intention to devote as much of its second (and final) term energies to their "enemies" in the "national media" as they had already successfully devoted in the first term to scuttling the U.S. Supreme Court.