And it was not that big a deal. It was a big deal and lead to further big deals because in the aftermath of watergate, it had the rockefeller and Church Committee investigations that rattled theeeply u. S. Government was with this abuse of power. Watergate was much more than one burglary. That was the third burglary they pulled off. As repercussions, you had the president resigning. You had the Vice President resigning two attorney generals resigning. 12 corporations and individuals pled guilty and maybe two dozen men went to jail. How significant was the w thatation of spiro agne led to the appointment of gerald ford . I think it was significant in itself. I think there is a good chance nixon would not have been impeached if he had agnew as insurance. It was no great payoff for the democrats to get rid of nixon just to get agnew. Nixon might have been better for them in the 1974 elections than agnew. Agnews troubles which had nothing to do with watergate were a major part of what happened to nixon. He always joked agnew was his impeachment insurance. The phones are open on American History tv. We are also getting your comments on our Facebook Page. This is one from Gregory Thayer who says takeaway watergate, and president nixon would have been considered one of americas best residents and probably its most skillful Foreign Policy leader. If you takeaway watergate and he managed to get three second term without falling apart over vietnam, which was still a big question mark, the war was not settled. They would have had to go back for more bombing in 1975 to save south vietnam. Put that issue aside and say nothing that happened in the second term, he would not have been on rushmore. But i think he would have been there with teddy wilson teddy roosevelt, woodrow wilson, in , because he took on this unbelievably difficult task of ending this war while trying to maintain american prestige and credit ability at a time when the country was as divided as the civil war. It is no president that Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixons impeachments came because of these divisive wars. He still managed to put together a structure for the multipolar world we live in today. Opening china, allowing japan and germany to rebuild, as with the other cold war president s. I still think that and given todays polarized politics, you have to look at his mystic record as well and say he cooperated with the Democratic Congress. In part, because he had to. In part, because he did not care and wanted to focus on Foreign Policy. Significantle did work with the Democratic Congress on the environment, civil rights, on a number of other issues. Teddy kennedy once said if he had taken Richard NixonsHealth Care Plan which was similar to obamacare, it would have been the best deal he ever made. He held out for too much at the time and should have taken it. The tape, the Supreme Court battle, the unanimous decision, and the House Judiciary Committee hearings we have been showing. There is this comment on our Facebook Page which is a looming question of this era. Why did he not destroy the tapes . Ed that question is chews on. Part of it was he was sick with pneumonia in the hospital when the tapes were announced. Attorneys went out to visit him at walter reed. The hardnosed political types said to burn them. They had a way to get rid of them. And did noteraser have to have a bonfire on the white house lawn. Other advisors said the law is plain. As soon as you know it is possible evidence in a criminal case, even though it has not been subpoenaed or asked for, you have an obligation to preserve them. You can be impeached if you destroy them. Nixons reasoning went back and forth. Part of the reason in the end wanted to save them. They were incredibly valuable. They bolstered what we were talking about, his record on Foreign Policy, his record as a leader. He could go back to them and use them for his memoirs to refute historical arguments in the future. As you point out in your only the politico, not resignation of Richard Nixon but the resignation of spiro agnew, two attorney generals were found guilty. They all spent time in jail. The president s personal lawyer and fundraiser found guilty, the director of the cia found guilty, the director of the fbi caught destroying evidence and resigned. The list goes on. And a special prosecutor fired. Another when taking over. An attorney general resigning over the firing. Saturday night massacre of 1973. Tell us about your book. What is your approach . It will be a one volume biography you can pick up if you dont know a lot about this man. It is going to be based on this wealth of information that has come out since Stephen Ambrose did the standard work, a three volume set in the 1990s. The final white house tape only came out last august. There will be revisions on that. As nixons testimony before the grand jury that cannot be your before that. There is lots of new factor new stuff to factor into the story of Richard Nixon. That is what i will try to do. The biography is about a man. I think most written from the perspective of the polarization of the vietnam era, nixon as a sman, andn and stateme very little focus on this extraordinary man. It will focus on his early years as well as we look at Richard Nixon 40 years after his step down from the presidency. We welcome our listeners on cspan radio. Catherine is joining us from gardnerville, new york. Go ahead. I was 10 years old when i watched president nixon resigned. , do you believe, having written a biography on this man, that his abilities im getting insecurities we watching his speech and all of the coverage and things written about him. Affected howthat people now look at the presidency and even his presidency 40 years later overall . His insecurities as a man . Thank you for the call. Nixon had a light side and a dark side. The dark side was very vicious. It was the antisemitic. It was prejudiced in some ways. It was always at war with his better instincts. Itis somewhat reflected somewhat reflected what we found out about the u. S. Government as a whole because nixons resignation led to this great crisis of confidence. It led to the disclosures there had been assassination crews going after foreign leaders and the fbi had tapped Martin Luther king and other civil rights leaders, all way before Richard Nixon took office. These things built upon themselves. By the end of the 1970s, we were in a dismal state in america making about things. Jimmy carter tried the kinder, gentler approach. I will never lie to you, i will tell you the truth. Reagan came in and sat it is said it is time to forget that and well on the good things. We bounced back. You can remember the late 1970s as an awful time thinking about it. The economy was in dismal shape. There were gas lines. We are hearing were hearing all this horrible stuff about jfks affairs. It was a dismal time. With the exception of bruce springsteen, very little good came out of the 1970s. Is go back to this particular day. You had the resignation speech the night before, august 8. The president said goodbye to the staff room of the speech he delivered in the east room at 9 35 rated at 10 00 eastern time, he boarded army one, now marine one. At noon, what was air force one became an air force plane and gerald ford became the president of the United States, and Richard Nixon the former president. Take us back to that day and those moments. I think the highlight of that morning was what we watched. That speech of nixon saying goodbye to the staff was remarkable in so many ways. It was supposed to be a lowkey event. Pat did not want it televised. Nixon insisted it be televised. I think he wanted to make one more argument. Why he people ask debated kennedy when he had nothing to win and everything to lose by giving stature to this senator in 1960. Had this fuddyduddy Good Government side to him as well that saw obligations that had to be met. He had been Dwight EisenhowersVice President. He had watched one of americas great heroes up close for eight years. He thought in 1960 that the American People deserve a debate. He thought he could win it. He never would have gone in if you knew what would happen. There was this part of him that was a nice kid from Whittier College who wanted to do the right thing. Thatnk a little of that morning showed through. I am the president. This is what the president is required to do, as painful as it is. I need to talk to the people and staff and thank them. I need to do this gracefully. We need to have this event on the south lawn. Part of it was personal. If you go to the president ial museum at yorba linda, the helicopter is there. If you stand and watch the tourists and tour the inside of the helicopter, you have to go up those stairs. Three out of four people when they get to the top turn around and do this because that moment is burned into our memory. We will go to gym in medford, massachusetts, with john farrell on cspan3 on American History tv. Go ahead. Very nice to talk to you. I was wondering, if nixon had won in 1960, i know this is a hypothetical question, but do you think because he would not have had eight years to build up more resentment or paranoia, whatever you want to call it, would this have happened . Watergate, the extent it was, would have happened. What do you think . It was a different time. The Republican Party was inerate, Eisenhower Party 1960. The Democratic Party was much more conservative. You did not have the two sides against each other. There were demons that came out in the 1950s in nixons behavior and the 1960 campaign. He famously tried to run it himself. If he had trusted more to his he wasbout the tactics going to use, you probably could have done better. Theres probably something to what you say. He thought he won the 1960 election. A lot of people thought he won the 1960 election and it was stolen by the democrats in illinois and texas and other states maybe. So that, people have told me who knew him, that question over the edge because the greatest prize he won fair and square had been taken from him. At that point, all bets were off. The kennedys have done it to him. As he said famously on the tapes, they use any means and we are going to use any means. Why did he run for governor in 1962 . He ran because he was under pressure from the Republican Party to save california. He was thought to be the only one that could save the california governorship. Openn to keep his options for 1964 were, although i dont think he relished the idea of a rematch. Won, hed run and one probably would have been the nominee again. Probably he was thinking about 1968 after kennedy left. I want to go through some of the key players. Give us your impression. Judge johnson rica. He was a tough republican. Republicans love him because he was known to throw the book at street crime defendants and other organized crime types. Used those when he same tactics against the whitecollar guys in the white house that they discovered maybe the American Civil Liberties union had it right. John oldman and bob holman . There was a very poignant one was his chief of staff and one was his chief counsel, in 1973 they resign because of their involvement in watergate. He had to take them to camp david and asked them to. Very poignant moment that night where he called haldeman. He is torn up. He starts talking about them as brothers, you are my brothers. You can feel the pain in his voice. All i can think of when i hear that tape is this is a guy who lost his dearly beloved younger and is to a disease admired golden boy of the brother, the older brother, trent longmore and tuberculosis to a longmore and tuberculosis long war and tuberculosis. His longtime campaign manager, John Mitchell . He was a mystery man. Never happened, never approved it. The general said, yes, you did. People like to say we still dont know who ordered the watergate burglary. It is because one of them is lying. My personal feeling is mitchell gave some sort of wink and ma gruder went ahead. I dont think he would have done it by himself. Rosemary wood . The window pops into my mind if we are playing Word Association is loyal. Loyal all the way. This picture is so iconic from 1973. Took the fall there, probably. That was the famous 18. 5 minute gap when they finally lost the legal battle about the tapes. They began to listen to them, the lawyers. They found there was this long gap in the beginning of one of the tapes nixon talking with haldeman. Rosemary wood explained it as the fact she had been answering the phone while trying to transcribe and reached with her foot to the pedal, that is where you see the great reach as she tried to recreate what might have happened. The Technical Expertise was the tape had been deliberately erased four or five times, as al haig testified in court, it is much more likely was a Sinister Force rather than rosemary woods reaching for the telephone. Our guest is john farrell as we look at on the resignation of Richard Nixon. Go ahead on the phone. Resignation the speech in 1974. Ferrell, doto mr. You think Richard Nixon would have been in favor of the Free Trade Agreement with china that clinton and the republicans signed in 1998 . My personal opinion is he would not have been in favor of so much free trade with china that would take our manufacturing away. That is a good question. The tapes are our best evidence for much of what we are going to talk about. The tapes show nixon did have worries about the rise of japan and europe and their competitive decision with u. S. Manufacturing then when he was in office. He may have had some worries about that with china. However, in all of these cases where it was Foreign Policy versus domestic trade, his solution was to open trade to these Different Countries but use the power of the government to boost whatever sector was going to be impacted. One of the reasons he pushed so was for the Shuttle Program he saw europe and japan were starting to compete an airplane manufacturing and wanted to boostinglance it by the United States lead in other areas, military and space. We are looking at scenes from Richard Nixon when he traveled to china in 1972. How significant of a foreignpolicy decision was it for this president . I think it was huge. I dont think he could have a claim to greatness if he did not play this game. Out which isw book a spectacular election of transcripts of the white house tapes. You can look through that and see nixon had this vision of the multipolar world in which china would balance russia and the United States would play the two off each other. The chinese were thinking the same thing, we can play the russians against the americans. And it is a safer world. Kissinger had the vision of going back to the balance of power that kept europe safe from a big war. While he is doing that, as you read through these transcripts, you see all this other stuff is going on. He has these big initiatives, secret negotiations on vietnam, people making secret trips to china. The russians are angry. Nixon is bombing North Vietnam before the russian summit not knowing whether or not the russians are going to cancel the summit. All these things are going on at the same time all the planning for watergate was going on. Nixoneasy to say, absolve of not keeping a tighter rein on the boys at the committee to bigect because so much else stuff was going on when this little thing came in. He made the fatally flawed decision not to send them to the grand jury but to try to cover it up. Leon is next, philadelphia. Go ahead. I have a question for the author. Given the partisan warfare in washington, i trace it back to watergate. Republicans were matted democrats and wanted to get even with the democrats for bringing down nixon. The hatred led to them trying to impeach bill clinton. I see a lot of that towards president obama. Only to a slight extent. Watergate was the final act of vietnam. All the polarization goes back past watergate to vietnam. That was the thing that tour us apart. That i think is still the thing that created this huge Cultural Divide that the two sides have chewed on for 40 years. There are times when i look at my kids and say, this is not going to end in this country until the vietnam generation goes to our rest homes and we are not here anymore poisoning the water. I would trace it past watergate. Richard nixon was the last casualty. We are getting a lot of tweets. This is from brad. 49 always amazed nixon won out of 50 states in 1972 and months later forced to resign. A fellow writes social history about the 1960s and 1970s. He begins his book called nixon in 1964, 10ing years before he resigned, you had Lyndon Johnson with this huge landslide. Later, you hadrs nixon with an identical landslide from the other side. It was a volatile time going back and forth in american politics. From sarasota, florida, harry hone.