statesman”, with the aim of positively characterising president Nixon as a man
who was “sober after victory and farsighted” (White 1977, p.258). White
disclosed the chilling knowledge that at the same time as he was conducting
interviews with President Nixon with the intention showcasing his positive
attributes “this same man was engaged in what the tapes disclose to have been
petty, vulgar, mean and downright criminal activity.” (White 1977, p.258).
Likewise, as White was interviewing Nixon most Americans held “High regard for
the moral character” of Nixon, this is further evidenced by data from a 1972
Election survey where 35.5% percent of American voters when asked “which of
14 political personalities best reflected high moral standards, Richard Nixon was
the model choice"(Zimmer 1979, p.743). In the same survey a vast 74.5 percent
of American voters “believed that Nixon could be trusted as president” (Zimmer
1979, p.743). This is indicative of Nixon's fall from grace and how his actions
caused particularised distrust in his presidency. To American voters, if a president
as highly regarded and widely trusted as Nixon actively made attempts to
deceive American citizens, then the government that Nixon represented must
correspond with this as well. This can be seen in a separate Gallup poll which
found that “Already in August of 1973, 67 percent of the Gallup respondents said
Watergate had reduced their confidence in the federal government "a great
deal” (McLeod 1977, p.181). Particularised distrust of the President following
Watergate can be seen to be further exacerbated by the following US president,
President Ford. One of President Ford's first decisions in office was to issue Nixon
a pre-trial pardon when he assumed office after the 1974 Elections. As a result
of this Kalt states that “Possibly no single presidential act in recent years caused
as much uproar as former President Gerald Ford's decision to pardon Nixon for
Watergate”, a move that “probably cost Ford the election in 1976” (Kalt
1996,p.800), and lead to a “sixteen point decline (from 66 to 50 percent) in the
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