[click, whirring]
[dramatic musical flourish]
- It all started in the early morning hours of June 17th
when, on the sixth floor of the building behind me,
five men with electronic gear were caught in the offices
of the Democratic National Committee.
The building is called The Watergate.
- Arrested at gunpoint,
the five suspects had with them bugs and microphones.
Just who wanted to listen in to the chit-chat
of the Democratic National Committee remains a mystery.
- Richard Nixon,
the man America needs now more than ever.
[cheers and applause]
all: Four more years! Four more years!
- The shadowy trail of the Watergate papers veers
closer to the White House today.
[dramatic music]
"The Washington Post" said the Watergate break in
was no isolated event,
but part of a broader effort to spy on democrats
and sabotage their presidential campaign.
- No reporter from "The Washington Post"
should ever be in the White House again.
♪
Do you understand?
- The White House denied, and continues to deny,
involvement in any wrongdoing.
- There are few signs that Watergate
is turning any concerns in the electorate.
- Does a thing like the Watergate affair
give you any second thoughts?
- No, no. It doesn't bother me at all.
- He is the most qualified mn for the job.
I'm gonna vote for Nixon.
- This is your vote,
and years from now,
I just hope you can all look back
and say it was one of your best votes.
Thank you.
all: Four more years, four more years, four more years.
- President Nixon will be reelected in a landslide.
♪
- I, Richard Nixon,
do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute
the office of President of the United States,
so help me God...
- So help me God.
- And President Nixon sits in the Oval Office
for his second term.
- Well, it's turned out to be a rather cold, blustery day
here in Washington. The wind chill factor
is pretty low coming in from the north as that wind is.
- Here comes the president's car.
The president being preceded by a fife and drum corps.
- All the bandsmen in their colonial uniforms.
If the weather were just a bit warmer,
I suppose this would be a somewhat more
festive occasion.
- Perhaps it's been the weather,
but the crowds have been very, very light,
somewhat sparse.
Not the kind of crowd that one would have hoped for
on a day like today.
- Here is a president who has just received
the greatest popular election victory
in the history of the country.
This is his great moment. His great day.
It must indicate, I suppose, what Vietnam has done to us.
♪
- Good evening.
President Nixon is about to address the nation
on the status of the peace negotiations on Vietnam.
That is the phrase the White House used
when it announced the president's
intention to speak.
Now, here is the president.
- We rolling, gentlemen? - All set.
- All right.
- Good evening.
I have asked for this radio and television time tonight
for the purpose of announcing that we, today,
have concluded an agreement to end the war
and bring peace with honor in Vietnam
and in Southeast Asia.
The ceasefire will take effet at 2400 Greenwich Mean Time,
January 27, 1973.
Within 60 days,
all American forces will be withdrawn from South Vietnam.
- It's over now. We're gonna be reunited again.
President Nixon said we got out of it with honor,
and I'm happy with that.
[cheers and applause]
- Seven men went on trial today, charged with the break-in
and burglary of Democratic National Headquarters
in the Watergate building last June.
- Far more is involved here than the guilt or innocence
of the seven defendants.
If they are guilty, why did they do it?
Then, who put them up to it?
♪
- Good evening. The jury in the Watergate case
reached a quick verdict late today.
Guilty on all counts,
of the break in and bugging
of National Democratic Committee Headquarters.
♪
- This was supposed to be the finale for the seven
Watergate defendants, the day of sentencing.
Instead, the case broke wide open again.
- James W. McCord, the one-time security directr
for the Nixon reelection campaign,
one of the men convicted in the Watergate affair,
has apparently decided to tell what he knows about Watergate.
- Is your client doing this in hopes of getting
a lighter sentence, or precisely why?
- I've advised Mr. McCord to be guided
solely by his own conscience and conviction.
He'll do just that.
- McCord says that the trial was marred
by political pressure, by perjury,
and that people not on trial were involved.
♪
[crow cawing]
♪
- Today, James McCord Jr.
headed for his appointment at the capital,
now ready to testify against his co-conspirators
and those who hired him
in the politically explosive Watergate conspiracy.
♪
- "The Los Angeles Times" reporting today McCord
implicated two Nixon aides, and White House Counsel
John Dean had prior knowledge of the break in.
- It's hard to put events of this magnitude in perspectiv.
Nevertheless, the scandal has now moved right
to the doorway of the Oval Office in the White House.
♪
- The president has asked me to announce that he is today
receiving--
Sorry.
The president today has requested
and accepted the resignation of John Dean
from his position of the White House counsel.
Okay.
♪
- Good evening.
In recent months,
members of my administration and officials of the committee
for the reelection of the President,
including some of my closest friends and most trusted aides,
have been charged with involvement
in what has come to be known as The Watergate Affair.
In any organization,
the men at the top must bear the responsibility.
That responsibility, therefore, belongs here, in this office.
I accept it, and I pledge to you tonight, from this office,
that I will do everything in my power
to ensure that the guilty are brought to justice,
and that such abuses are purged from our political processes
in the years to come,
long after I have left this office.
♪
- I don't think that he had anything to do with it.
I really don't.
- Well, I don't blame the president.
You know, I think that his associates
fooled him quite a bit.
- Many more things are bothering America
than Watergate, like the high price of meat,
you know, and the high cost of living.
- As of now, we do not know
many of the details in the Watergate story.
Perhaps the answers will come in the Senate hearings,
which start this week with witnesses
telling what they know, under oath, before the public.
♪
- Good morning.
This is the Senate Caucus rom in Washington D.C.,
as the senate opens what is likely to become
the most serious investigatin it has ever made,
an investigation of the American political system
and the presidency itself.
- The questions that have been raised in the wake
of the June 17th break in,
strike at the very undergirding of our democracy.
My colleagues on the committee
and I are determined to uncover
all the relevant facts surrounding these matters.
The nation's history itself are watching us.
We cannot fail our mission.
♪
- These, of course, are days
where there's no shortage of controversy
with the Watergate Committee on Capitol Hill,
but for a few hours tonight, attention will be shifted awy
from those problems here at the White House.
♪
- It isn't that we're trying to keep anything
from the American people
that the American people should know,
but had we not had secrecy,
you men would still be in Hanoi
rather than in Washington today.
[cheers and applause]
- Good morning.
Although this is not ABC's scheduled day
to provide live continuous coverage,
we are going on now with the hearings
because the witness will be John Dean.
You see him here with his wife at his right.
- The Committee will come to order.
- I met Mr. Dean.
- Could you please take the microphone
and put it closer to you so we could all hear it.
- Certainly.
The Watergate matter was an inevitable outgrowth
of a climate of excessive concern over leaks,
an insatiable appetite for political intelligence,
all coupled with
a do-it-yourself White House staff,
regardless of the law.
These elements culminated with the creation
of a covert intelligence operation
as part of the president's reelection committee.
I shall now turn to meetings I had with the president
in February and March of this year
on Watergate matters specifically.
I told the president about the fact that there were money
demands being made by the seven convicted defendants.
He asked me how much it would cost.
I told him that it might be as high as a million dollars
or more.
He told me that that was no problem.
I concluded by saying this is going to take continued perjury
and continued support of these individuals
to perpetuate the cover-up,
and I did not believe it was possible to so continue it.
I told him
that there was a cancer growing on the presidency,
and if the cancer was not removed,
the president himself would be killed by it,
and he said that it would be handled properly.
- Now, it is on the public record.
John Dean's damning, if largely unsubstantiated,
testimony that the president knowingly participated
in the Watergate cover-up.
Nothing less than Richard Nixon's presidency
may ride on whether the public believes John Dean or not.
[camera shutters clicking]
- Today, John Dean ended five days of testimony,
still insisting that the president
knew of the Watergate cover-up last year.
Not in this century has anyone made such accusations
under oath against a president.
- The White House is seeking protection from
the Dean testimony behind a wall of silence.
The president's spokesman would not reply
except with "No comment" to any of the charges.
- You know, there has been talk of your father being--
a great deal of talk-- being very secluded that
when he is faced with a problem like some of the Watergate
developments that there is this wall.
- Well, I think that there have been a lot of secondhand
hear--you know, hearsay
and it's been printed as if it's fact,
and he hasn't done any wrong.
- You know, I feel like almost uncomfortable
asking you these questions, and yet, one must at this time.
How is your father, Mrs. Eisenhower?
Some people have said that he's aged 10 to 15 years.
- I haven't seen a dramatic change,
but I think he, you know, he--
you know, gets more gray hair every day, that's for sure.
♪
- President Nixon is resting tonight
at the Bethesda Naval Hospital.
- My appraisal of President Nixon
is that he has a very severe illness, with pneumonia,
and has the kind of illness
that ought to be treated in the hospital.
- Asked if the recent stress of his office
may have contributed to the illness,
the doctor responded,
"Maybe yes. Maybe no."
♪
[indistinct chatter]
- Okay.
- Programs regularly scheduld for this time
will not be seen today in order that we might bring you
the following special report.
Watergate: Senate Hearings.
♪
- State your name.
- My name is Alexander Porter Butterfield.
- What were your duties at the White House, Mr. Butterfield?
- I was responsible for the management
and ultimate supervision of the office of special files.
- Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation
of any devices,
listening devices, in the Oval Office of the president?
- I was aware of listening devices;
yes, sir.
- On whose authority were they installed, Mr. Butterfield?
- On the president's authority for posterity.
- All right. Mr. Butterfield,
as far as you know from your own personal knowledge,
all of the president's conversations were recorded,
as far as you know?
- That's correct.
- Mr. Butterfield, in one word,
to reconstruct the conversations,
what would be the best way to reconstruct
those conversations?
- Well, in the obvious manner, Mr. Dash,
to obtain the tape and play it.
- Thank you very much, sir.
- A startling development,
certainly critical in regard to Dean's testimony and,
in essence, the case against the President
of the United States.
- Mr. Ron, can you tell us how the president was informed
about Mr. Butterfield's testimony
and what his reaction to it was?
- Well, he was informed by members of his staff
when we were informed about it.
I won't give you his reaction to it.
- Is the president going to release the tapes?
- Gentlemen, I understand your interest in this subject,
but this is not the time. Questions on another subject,
I'll take those. If not--
- Tell us this, whether those tapes
are considered presidential documents?
- I've already told you that I'm not prepared
to talk about this beyond this.
- Ron, can you assure us that the tapes are safe?
- Where are they physically?
- I thought I had been quite clear earlier when I said
that I had nothing further to say
on this particular matter at this point.
- At some point, are you ever going to be able
to talk about it?
- Well, we haven't determined that yet.
Thank you.
[indistinct chatter]
♪
[cheers and applause]
- Thank you very much for your very warm welcome.
I do want you to know that there is one bit of advice
that I am not going to take,
and it will be of interest to our friends in the press.
[tense music]
Some people thought that, perhaps,
the burdens of the office and the rather rough assaults
this office gets from time to time,
brings on an illness,
and that I might get so tired
that I might consider either slowing down
or, even some suggested, resigning.
Well, now, just so we set that to rest,
any suggestion
that this president's ever gonna slow down
while he's president or is ever gonna leave this office
until he finishes the job he was elected to do,
anyone who suggests that,
that's just plain poppycock.
Let others wallow in Watergate. We're gonna do our job.
[ominous music]
♪
[buzzer blaring]
- It seems a lot longer, but it was only last week
that the Senate Watergate Committee
learned of the existence of tape recordings
of President Nixon's conversations,
including conversations bearing on Watergate.
♪
- I would urge that the tapes be furnished for use
in my investigation without restriction.
The request is part of an investigation
into serious criminal misconduct,
the obstruction of justice.
Therefore, it becomes my duty promptly to seek subpoenas.
The tapes are material and important evidence
pursuant to a conspiracy and as part of a cover-up.
♪
- Good evening. The time has come for me
to speak out about the charges made
and to provide a perspective on the issue
for the American people.
I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in.
I neither took part in nor knew
about any of the subsequent cover up activities.
That was and that is the simple truth.
Many have urged that in order to help prove the truth
of what I have said,
I should turn over to the special prosecutor recordings
of conversations that I held in my office
or on my telephone.
However, these conversations are privileged,
and their disclosure cannot be compelled.
I pledge to you tonight that those who would exploit
Watergate in order to keep us from doing
what we were elected to do, will not succeed.
- This is Virginia Sherwood at a Ford Motor Company
plant near Detroit.
The factory workers here had their own reaction
to the president's Watergate speech.
- Well, I thought the president was kind of evasive
in some of the matters that he said.
- You want a real literal answer?
- Yes sir.
- I thought it was a bunch of bananas.
- Well, I think he's wrong. He should--
- What do you mean?
- Well, he should bring them tapes out
and let the public see what's going on.
[crickets chirping]
- The number for United Press International, please.
This is Jim Doyle from Archibald Cox's office.
I have a statement that I'm gonna read as fast
as you can take it.
It's from Special Prosecutor Cox.
Are you ready?
"The president is refusing to comply with the court decrees
"to turn over tapes, and other documents.
I shall bring this to the attention of the court."
[indistinct chatter]
- Ladies and gentlemen,
some things I feel very deeply about are at stake.
There has been and is evidence of serious wrongdoing
on the part of the President of the United States.
Wrongdoing involving an effort to cover up other wrongdoings.
- --Will not be seen tonight
so that we may bring you the following special report.
- Roll one. Take one.
- President Nixon has discharged
Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.
♪
[indistinct chatter]
- What, are they kicking you out?
- What can I say, guys?
- Oh, shit. - Are they seizing files?
- I can make no further comment now other than our offices
have been sealed by the FBI.
- This is nuts.
- Good evening.
The president has abolished Special Watergate
Prosecutor Cox's office and duties.
In my career as a correspondent,
I never thought I'd be announcing these things.
Because of the president's actions,
the Attorney General has resigned.
At the same time, the Deputy Attorney General
has been fired.
♪
All of this adds up
to a totally unprecedented situation,
a grave and profound crisis in which the president
has set himself against
his own Attorney General of the Department of Justice.
- Is everybody ready? - Yeah, hold on.
- Mr. Cox's comment when he was about to be fired was,
"Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws
"and not of men is now for congress,
and ultimately the American people."
♪
[traffic honking and rumbling]
- In firing the Special Prosecutor
and abolishing his entire office,
Mr. Nixon has made it abundantly clear
that he does not intend to obey the law of the land.
The people are beginning to respond.
The anger and outrage reflected in these telegrams,
all of them demanding that the congress act
and impeach the president.
all: Impeach Nixon now, impeach Nixon now,
impeach Nixon now.
- Good evening. The president has agreed to o
just what he had always said he would not do:
turn over certain tape recordings
of his conversations about Watergate.
♪
- Mr. President! Mr. President!
- Wondering if you could shae with us your thoughts
when you hear people
saying perhaps you should resign or be impeached.
- Well, I'm glad we don't take the vote
in this room, let me say.
[indistinct chatter]
- At the risk of reopening an obvious wound,
what is it about the television coverage
of you that has so aroused your anger?
- Gentlemen of the press,
one can only be angry with those he respects.
[crowd murmurs]
As a matter of fact, I have never heard such outrageous,
vicious reporting in 27 years of public life,
but regardless of what people see and hear
on television, night after night,
the tougher it gets, the cooler I get.
I have what it takes.
[indistinct chatter] - Mr. President! Mr. President!
- Most interesting.
Well, as you can see, the president has decided
to end his news conference himself.
♪
- Good evening.
The matter of the president's White House tape recordings
took an unexpected turn today.
It is now said by the president's lawyer
that two of the requested tape recordings do not exist.
- Do you think the public will believe this story?
- I don't know.
♪
- Last night I read a thing on the air
about the tapes vanishing,
and the audience thought it was a sick joke.
- Can't you hear the dialogue in the White House.
"Pat, now, you know I put those tapes in that drawer."
[laughter]
Just every day he does something that interests--
it's sort of like a rat going around,
you keep trying to kill it and he gets away.
[cheers and applause]
I have to have my Watergate fix
every single morning in the paper.
I get like this if I haven't gotten it.
- Ladies and gentlemen,
the President of the United States.
- Mr. President, when did you discover
that two of the subpoenaed White House tapes
did not exist?
- Let me just respond, if I could, sir,
before going to your question.
I turn left and then come back to the right.
I don't want to tilt either way at the moment,
as you can be sure.
[mischievous music]
- Well, today, another bomb exploded,
more trouble about those subpoenaed tapes.
♪
- The 18-minute segment of another of the subpoenaed
Watergate tapes is missing.
- You can be sure that this kind of a subject
is one that is a difficult one to explain.
- Technical experts report that the 18-minute gap
was caused by erasing and re-recording.
- Impeach him now!
all: Impeach Nixon now!
Impeach Nixon now!
- Let me just say this, I want to say
this to the television audience,
because people have got to know
whether or not their president's a crook.
Well, I'm not a crook.
all: Nixon is a crook!
Nixon is a crook!
♪
- Well, now, there's another battle for White House tapes.
- Today's subpoena is for 64 conversations
covering more than 45 hours.
♪
- The president and his lawyers pursue their hard lie
on not giving another inch on the Watergate scandal.
- It was like trench warfare,
charge after charge over the top.
- President Nixon will fight the case all the way
to the Supreme Court.
- Only a few yards gained and then lost.
♪
There wasn't going to be a miracle.
We couldn't make one happen.
- History was made today
as a unanimous Supreme Court
told the president of the United States
that he has no right to withhold White House tapes
subpoenaed for the Watergate cover-up trial.
♪
- The meeting will come to order.
Make no mistake about it,
this is a turning point,
whatever we decide.
- Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The president has engaged in a series of actions
designed to thwart the lawful investigation
by government prosecutors,
and I am not going to sit here
and be an idle spectator to the subversion,
the destruction of the Constitution.
- Ladies and gentlemen,
the law requires that we decide the case on the evidence.
Nobody doubts that. On the evidence.
♪
There's not a word of presidential knowledge,
or awareness, or involvement in obstruction of justice.
Now, ladies and gentlemen,
I do ask you to judge the proof,
which is the law of this case.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
♪
[static clicking]
♪
- With great reluctance and deep personal sorrow,
I am prepared to support those portions of article 1
of the Bill of Impeachment.
The magnificent career of Richard Nixon
must be terminated.
♪
- Well, thank you very much for calling.
[phones ringing]
- White House, may I help you?
- Yes?
- Yes, well, it's so good to you to call
so many times, sir,
to make certain that the president will not resign.
- Although resignation appears certain,
the staff assistant in charge of the phone bank said,
"We're refusing to believe it
until we hear it with our own ears."
♪
- According to United Press International,
President Nixon will go on the air
to address the nation tonight
at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
- It's been a day of incredible suspense,
but the hard fact is that no one
really knows what is going on in the president's mind.
♪
- It was a painful day.
Tears were brimming in virtually everybody's eye.
But the essence of every great leader I have known
is that he was a lonely man.
♪
What? Okay.
Only the CBS crew now is gonna be in this room.
Only the crew. That's it.
You got it? Now, all Secret Service,
are there any Secret Service in the room?
- Just one agent, Mr. President.
- Out.
- 15 seconds to air, please.
- President Richard Milhous Nixon.
- Good evening.
This is the 37th time I have spoken to you
from this office.
Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergat,
I have felt it was my duty to persevere.
I have never been a quitter.
To leave office before my tem is completed
is abhorrent to every instint in my body,
but as president, I must put the interests
of America first.
Therefore, I shall resign the presidency
effective at noon tomorrow.
I do so with this prayer:
May God's grace be with you
in all the days ahead.
[soft music]
- This is the culminating act,
the final act of his administration, of course.
- The first president in American history
to be forced to leave office before the end of his term.
Mr. Nixon resigning effective at noon tomorrow.
[whirring]
- This is the south side of the White House
where, later this morning,
President Nixon and his famiy will be leaving.
Mr. Nixon will make farewell remarks
to members of the White House staff, personal friends,
all of whom have gathered here this morning.
[applause]
- Now, the president and Mrs. Nixon
coming into the East Room.
This will be the last time that he will do it
as President of the United States.
- Thank you.
We think, sometimes,
when things happen that don't go the right way,
we think that when we lose an election,
we think that when we suffer a defeat,
that all has ended.
Not true.
It's only a beginning. Always.
And so I say to you on this occasion,
never get discouraged, never be petty,
always remember, others may hate you,
but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them,
and then you destroy yourself.
- We come to the end of the Nixon years,
years which saw America's greatest political comeback
turn into America's greatest political disgrace.
- To those who say, "Will you apologize? Are you sorry?"
There's no way that you could apologize...
Which would exceed
resigning the Presidency of the United States.
That said it all, and I don't intend to say any more.
[whirring]
- This will be viewed as a great watersheds of history.
- Sometimes these watersheds last for about a generation.
Do you think that as the lessons of, say,
Watergate are forgotten
we might have to go through something like this again?
♪