Government. Slate magazine hosted the event. Leon hey everybody. [applause] leon hi everybody, thank you for being here. Can everybody hear me . Great. Here, a week and a half after the show ended. Season one ended. , or it could slate have even guessed that we would be talking about season one, and that we are now planning season two of slow burn. Thank you again to the slate plus members who are here. It is really a dream to be here in the watergate hotel. We have a great show tonight, it is our first live show. We have this fantastic lineup of guests. Introduce them without clearing my throat anymore. Elizabeth drew to my left. [applause] elizabeth covered the water gate scandal for the new yorker. Her coverage was collected in the book washington journal. Dickight is did cap it cavett. [applause] etthosted the dick cav show. He introduced interviewed a number of key figures in the watergate scandal. Here we have susan glasser. [applause] susan is the chief International Affairs columnist for the andtico, she has a podcast was previously the editor of politico magazine. On the right we have evan thomas. [applause] evan has been an editor and reporter at newsweek and time, he authored the book, being nixon, a man divided. You didnt mention the podcast. Mentionh you didnt that i didnt cover watergate. Leon thats true. We wanted a mix of people, people who covered watergate, people like me who were not alive during watergate. Know, from elizabeth and dick, how did it feel to be in the watergate after all of these years . Did you ever do any reporting in here . Elizabeth for a while i lived in the watergate. , ihout going into it encountered difficulty in the car up. I cannot go into it. Its for my next book. [laughter] it felt weird. Leon to what . Elizabeth i do not want to rain on the raid rain on the parade right away, but the watergate breakins lead out the more important breakins. The one before that, the breakin of the offices of the psychiatrist of the man who released the watergate excuse me the vietnam war papers. Really more serious. It was a violation of the right to privacy, to be securing your home with your belongings. , the problemht in is they were really stupid. The reason they were caught here , it was their fourth attempt to get into the Democratic National committee offices. They decided to host a banquet on the ground floor. Then they were going to go upstairs into the offices, and be locked in the closet somehow. Got to theme they dnc offices, they could not break the lock. Its a process. Elizabeth its an unfolding process. Fromof them were alumni the bay of pigs. From the failed invasion of cuba, so they were real angry with kennedy, the democrats, and so on. That they werem helping them fight communism. And they bought that. Martinez got the right for breaking the lock. They put the tap on the wrong phone, and they took blurry pictures. The twoaid that one of leaders, gordon liddy, went to the committee to reelect the president. Creep. They did not call themselves that right . They did not get the joke. The attorney general who was a , said toer of nixon liddy, this is junk. I do not think he said junk. I cannot prove it, but i do not think he did. In, they went back in, and that is when they were caught. Similarly, they were invading the offices of the psychiatrist. Imagine that, somebody getting into your regulars doctors office. But getting into your psychiatrist we should all see one. [laughter] elizabeth there were no files, they messed up everything they did and thats kind of why we are still here today. [laughter] leon im glad you brought that up, because one of my regrets about the show is that i never mentioned the breakin at the psychiatrists office. In many ways it was more serious. They were more scared about people finding out about. Elizabeth it was in one of the articles of impeachment, but not the same one as watergate. The term watergate stuck. Actually, there are a lot of brave people, and i will shut up, but when nixon was in florida and the breakin was caught how dumb do you have to be to put a piece of tape in the door and the cop comes along and removes it and they put it back on . When they met, three days after the breakin, thats when the coverup was hatched. What nixon said, what he was really worried about, he said these plumbers, they did that other stuff, they know about that other thing. Thats what he was afraid was going to be found out. And so that began the coverup to shut them up. Leon i had no idea who lived here. You know who else lifted her . Martha mitchell. Elizabeth i knew that. Leon i wanted to include that, but i thought it would be confusing, because how do you explain that . Dick im glad that elizabeth mentioned creep because when it came out, nixon was saying to them, what is this crp thing . The committee to reelect the creeps the president. [laughter] leon one of the things of the things i thought about when i was planning tonights event, one of those itches i didnt get to scratch on the show, a major one is that i dont still get Richard Nixon very well. He wasnt really on the show, he was sort of the dark center of it. But the show was about what it was like to live through it, but i never really asked or answered what it was like for nixon to live through it. Evan, if you could tell us a little bit about what kind of experience it was for him, starting with the first couple of weeks when the cloud was starting to gather. Evan nixon had obviously many flaws. One was that he hated confrontation. He liked to pose as being a blustering tough guy that would swear a lot, that he was actually a very shy person. One of his failings was that he, from the very beginning, did not confront his own staff. John mitchell, a guy directly running it, nixon does not talk to him, have a real conversation with him for nine months. Nixon was just unwilling to confront his own people. Had he confronted had he in june 1972 said, what is going on he did not know about the breakin. It happened on his watch, he had a lot of responsibility for it but he did not know about it. Leon is that the fact . Evan 99. 9 fact. Overwhelming that he did not know about it. Not to excuse him, he created the conditions by which it happened, but he couldve cut this off. He was ahead of mcgovern in the polls by 34 points. There was no way he was going to lose. He could have fired everybody in his cabinet and still won, and he should have. [laughter] evan that was one turning point that he blew partly out of his own shyness. Leon because he could not face it . Evan he couldnt face it and did not want to face it. Nixon was a devious guy, he also thought he could get away with it. He believed in executive privilege and he thought, and people scoff at this, but he is hardly the first president to use dirty tricks. What really happened, nixons timing was bad. Thats what it was. [laughter] dick i mean, like, the 20th century. [laughter] evan thats what i mean by that. Why did he have these incompetent people doing this . Why were those guys doing it . The reason they were doing it is because the fbi had taken themselves out of the business of doing this. J edgar hoover, that the ahead been illegally wiretapping and stealing and spying for earlier president s, including frank and roosevelt, harry truman, lbj. J edgar hoover by 1970 was a savvy politician and realized the winds are changing. And the warren court is beginning to enforce the fourth amendment, cutting down on wiretapping, and hoover knows this. He is getting the fbi out of the business of doing black bag jobs. So nixon has to go inhouse. Leon he didnt have to. [laughter] evan but if he is going to do it, he has to hire liddy to do it because the fbi will not do it for him. His minions hire these incompetents. Leon hearing you say that he was so allergic to confrontation, one thinks of the reports of how our current president never can fire someone directly to their face despite his catchphrase. [laughter] leon i think a lot of people who listen to this show had fun picking out parallels. There are subplots and personality traits i think nixon and trump seem to share. But when i read your book, and i read it later in the process of recording the show, he felt totally different to me than the way i imagine donald trump. I wonder if you could talk to me about how they are different and similar. Evan for starters, nixon read. [laughter] [applause] evan a lot. Ive been through his personal library, he was an unbelievable because he did not like talking to people. He read a lot. Most president s dont read anything, certainly trump. But most president s are busy. Nixon read a lot and deeply, and he read deeply into political philosophy, everything churchill ever wrote. He pretended to hate intellectuals but he actually was one himself. He would say, those harvard people, but then he would hire them to work for him. He was confusing that way. He postured as an antiintellectual but he actually was quite intellectual. So that is one major difference. Dick a big difference. Evan nixon was deeply strategic. Trump was in the moment, by the tweet, by impulse. Nixon thought deeply about the shape of the world, coalition of forces, china, russian. Always thinking strategically, rightly or wrongly. That is another big difference. Where they are alike is they are both arguably crazy. [laughter] evan a lot of people have opined about this, that trump has a narcissistic disorder if you believe the psychiatric community. Nixon, i dont know what you would call it, but he was paranoid. He did not like this about himself and he tried to control it but he could not control it. You can hear it on the tapes, we spent hours listening to these tapes, and he can sound quite rational, talking about world events. You can make fun of his accent but he is a deep thinker. Then he will go on these crazy tears, antisemitic, profane tears, and you wonder what the hell is he doing . Then he will swing back into being coherent and interesting again. He could not control his emotions. Dick you reminded me of a tweet very much the same. Imagine trumps library. [laughter] dick youd have to. [applause] dick you can use that. [laughter] leon susan, how can you explain, given the differences that were just enumerated, to my mind quite striking similarities in how the white houses seem to be run, the sort of chaos that determines decisionmaking. Again, the alignment of the various subplots are uncanny. How do two men so far apart create so many echoes . Susan if i knew the answer to that, i should just go home. Probably 16 other subplots have developed. I dont know if anybody is checking twitter, but please let us know if there is a white house shakeup happening while we are sitting here. Do you know who was on trumps public schedule today for a meeting . Henry kissinger. To me, that was sort of a perfect setup for this conversation tonight. Washington is something that both nixon and donald trump loved to bash. Nixon as you said, loved to set himself up in opposition to the georgetown set, he hated the elitists in washington, they just did not get him, donald trump ran against the swamp, but in many ways you are saying one year into trumps experiment on all of us [laughter] susan that washington, it is like a casino. Historically the house always finds a way to win. Henry kissinger will adapt to any power in the white house. He is still getting active meetings at the age of 93 or whatever it is. They are not the same, and we do seem to be engaged in this incredible moment of history echoing or rhyming or maybe just laughing at us. I will admit, one of the first things i did after january 20, 2017 was i picked up a copy of elizabeths book that was sitting on our shelf. Reading that in parallel to the first remember the 24 day tenure of Michael Flynn . Shortest tenure. Leon i barely remember it. Longer than the 11 day tenure of anthony scaramucci, it is often referred to as the scaramucci era. [laughter] susan this is the sort of comic opera version of it. Donald trump is the sort of comic opera version. He is not like nixon, he doesnt seem to be an extreme introvert, for example, which clearly nixon was. But to me that tells us that a certain part of it is about power and abuse of power. When you say the white houses are similar, that might be because you are looking at peoples responses to the institution and to what happens when you are in the court of the czar or the president and something is wrong in the middle of it. Elizabeth i have the greatest of respect their white houses are similar. Nixons two top assistants were known as the berlin wall. There was a strict discipline in nixons white house. It wasnt the zoo this one has been. Evan is right, nixon was deeply shy man, he grew up lying in the grass and reading. The word dork did not exist then, but he was one. He ran for and won student offices all the time. He was student body president. He didnt have any friends. He was a charmer, but he worked so hard at it. He wanted it so badly. This kept happening. He took a liking to these positions he was unfit for. I would argue he was unfit for politics. He did not like people and people do not like him. It did not work. The other thing is, yes he was shy, but if he had to fire his closest aides, he did it. Leon he cried when he did it. Elizabeth oh he cried. [laughter] elizabeth he had a habit of calling aides at 1 00 in the morning or 3 00 the morning and ask how it went after a speech. He said, how do you think my speech went . The speech in which he fired him. [laughter] leon i believe he said, i cannot do this for you anymore. I have been fired. Did you ever meet him . Elizabeth i interviewed him. We were not close. [laughter] leon were you close . Dick you were not enchanted . I met him way back when i was still persona grata at the white house, that did not last very long. I eventually made the enemies list. This was a formal event, nickel williamson was brought over because nixon had seen him in london. So you were invited to an evening of shakespeare at a room 1 6 the size of this. So i met the great indicted coconspirator. But he recognized me clearly and said, who is doing your show tonight . I said, joe namath. [impersonating Richard Nixon] yes. How are his knees . [laughter] leon wasnt there another interaction you had with him . Dick that is only one. That night we waited and saw the shakespeare, and about 10 minutes after it was over, for some reason the room filled with a smoke smell. The alarming kind, like somebody was burning the newspaper or something. There was no source of it, the smell went away. Up the aisle came kenneth timon, the Great British critic, and i said to him, ken i knew him. [laughter] dick what do you think that smell was . He said, they let spiro agnew into the library. [laughter] dick i love it. [laughter] leon that sounds like he was quite polite to you. From listening to the tapes, that was not always his attitude toward you. Dick from nixon . Leon yeah. Dick the damnedest thing happened in montauk one day, i went to a Seafood Restaurant and it was one hour early and nobody was at the tables. There was this dark figure, it looked like an old seabird peering out to sea. It was mr. Nixon and his lovely daughter julie. To amuse the waiter i was not drunk. [laughter] dick i went up behind him and said, for dessert we have the yorba linda cream pie and the Whittier College souffle. I got so he could see me then. He said, oh yes. I thought that was you. [laughter] dick he always knew who was behind him. [laughter] dick so what did dumbo do, but we suddenly had nothing to say to each other. We stood there. The gulls fell silent. [laughter] dick i said, oh, the last time i saw you was at that wonderful night of shakespeare at the white house, and you might remember that the room started filling with i should not be telling him the story. But anyway, i finished the story somehow. Julie said, i hope your nightclub act was funnier than that. [laughter] dick i remembered something i had to do at home. [laughter] elizabeth i want to go back to evans point about nixon not knowing about the watergate breakin. We dont know. But evan made the key point, he created the conditions for it. How did this stuff happen . My point is, it doesnt matter. It did not matter whether nixon knew about the breakin ahead of time. As evan said, he created the conditions. He would say things like he always wanted to get the goods on somebody. We havent said this, i think its terribly important. Nixons downfall stemmed a lot from the fact that he could not distinguish between opponents and enemies. Anyone who ran against him was an enemy. One of the first things, they tailed ted kennedy around, taking pictures of him with various women, because nixon worried that kennedy would run against him. The inability to distinguish not just in his president ial career, he would say i want to get the goods on lawrence obrien, a kennedy man. Leon the chairman of the Democratic National committee. Elizabeth why he wanted the goods on larry obrien, there are various theories about that, having to do with Howard Hughes and blah blah. Leon thats my favorite one. Elizabeth but. Where was i . [laughter] elizabeth my point was, because he couldnt make the distinction he kept getting into trouble. Why were they so obsessed with ellsberg . The pentagon papers were really about the vietnam war under johnson, but he questioned the foundation of the vietnam war. It was kissinger who was very worked up about this and ellsberg was an enemy and we have to get him. This was the atmosphere of that white house, who are we going to get . Thats what led him down this trail. One of the articles of impeachment that i think is important, i know you have a question about that. There were three articles of impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee approved. One of them held at the held the president accountable for the acts of his aides. It had to be a pattern or practice of a certain kind of activity, just as in the obstruction of justice, it wont be one thing or another, it will be 10 things if that comes up, that is what is building, and what was building under nixon. The first article was obstruction of justice. But the second was the use of Government Agencies for his own political purposes to get his self designed enemies, and the other was that he was responsible, he was accountable for that. If you fast forward to now, we dont know if there was collusion, collusion means conspiracy if it is an impeachable offense. It doesnt matter what really what trump knew at a certain point or if nixon knew ahead of time they were going into the watergate, he created the atmosphere and encourage them i by saying, i want to get the goods on larry obrien. He did this about various people. They broke into ed muskies office because he thought he was going to run against him. These are the important things to keep in mind. The president can be held accountable for the acts of the people who work for him. The other is, this playing with federal agencies now trout. Trout . Trump. I dont know where that came from. [laughte