reputations of those ‘who have tried to do us in’. 17 However, exacerbating Rudalevige’s theory of the ‘Imperial Presidency’ would be the actions and words of President Nixon himself. Nixon admits to turning a blind eye to morals and manipulating the power of his executive position, writing the following passage in his memoir, regarding the leaking of the Pentagon Papers: ‘I could not accept that we had lost so much control over the workings of a government we had been elected to run – I saw absolutely no reason for that report to be at Brookings, and I said I wanted it back right now – even if it meant having to get it surreptitiously ’. 18 This quote from the President’s own hand acts as evidence to support Rudalevige’s view that the Nixon presidency was defined by a willingness to undermine the laws and values of the nation in order to gain a foothold over its perceived threats or to gain an advantage. The negative fallout out resulting from Watergate was, according to White House Counsel John Dean: ‘an inevitable outgrowth of a climate of excessive concern over the political impact of demonstrators, excessive concern over leaks, an insatiable appetite for political intelligence…’. 19 Therefore, where the past dealings of presidents such as LBJ were conducted largely in secret, it was during the Nixon administration that the American people suddenly saw their government for what it was. Nixon operated with the belief that any action was permissible in pursuit of his own political safety, and was not able to hide it from his people, who quickly turned on him and his administration. When the full revelations of Watergate had been made public, and with the news that President Nixon was to resign the office, an ensuing calm began to settle after an era of mistrust and suspicion. The reasons for this tempering of emotion is down to what Patterson argues as ‘relief that the nation’s political institutions had managed to survive a constitutional crisis as grave as Watergate’. 20 For many Americans, the tumultuous period of political scandal seemed to be nearing an end, and the ‘national nightmare’, as President Ford put it, was coming to a close. Furthermore, not only had the political institutions held fast, but as Hoff notes: ‘Watergate offered an unusual opportunity for the country to re-evaluate its political system and reinforce its democratic principles’, 21 thereby generating further support in the eyes of the public for the checks and balances of the government. An emotional catharsis amongst Americans began to take hold, with Rudalevige writing that the sordid archetype of the ‘Imperial Presidency’ had begun to appear like ‘an outdated period piece’. 22 Vice President Ford, upon hearing the news from Nixon himself that he would resign, ‘felt a 17 Rudalevige, p. 64. 18 Richard Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), p. 512. 19 Presidential Campaign Activities of 1972 (Senate Resolution 60), p. 2419. Google ebook. 20 Patterson, p. 2. 21 Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered (Basic Books, 1994), p. 329. 22 Rudalevige, p. 7.
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