The Richard Nixon Experience
It has been 50 years since the Administration of Richard Nixon. In that time, the left has waged a war on history to define Richard Nixon as a failure as President. For much of the half century Richard Nixon's name was synonymous with corruption and Government overreach. Podcasts, Documentaries, Cable Network specials have all controlled a narrative that cast Richard Nixon as the 20th centuries great American Villain.
But all of that has changed. First in 2013, Geoff Shepard, Richard Nixon's youngest Watergate Defense team member, petitioned the National Archives for access to sealed Watergate materials. What he found was a treasure of exculpatory material that has sent shock waves throughout the world of serious historians and legal scholars. Was there more to the story of Watergate? The documentation he exposed certainly seems to say so and that is not the only area where scholars are finding that there was way more to Richard Nixon's tenure than had ever been appreciated.
Richard Nixon worked to protect civil rights, advance women in government, protect the environment, set new higher standards for workforce safety, share revenues with local government, restructure the inner workings of the Federal Government, with plans to make it work more efficiently and more effectively and he even worked to provide a better healthcare and welfare system some 40 years ahead of his time. He opened up women's sports, lowered the voting age, ushered in an era of Judicial restraint, desegregated the Southern School system, poured millions into entrepreneurial programs for minorities, passed tough laws on organized crime, ended the draft and passed billions of dollars into cancer research that has led to most of the advances against the wide variety of deadly diseases we see today.
And that list does not even get into the Foreign Policy achievements we associate with his incredible five and a half years as President.
We thought it was time to tell that story and over the next year and half we will tell that story on this podcast. The story of the experience of a nation, at war in Vietnam, and often under siege, and at war with itself, here at home. An experience that created a great gash in the body politic that we are still healing from today. It is the story of the man who saved our Union from the growing disaster an upheaval experienced in this era.
The story of the experience of a nation as it wrestled with titanic changes in culture, the experience of a nation ripped from its foundations, and the experience of the historic leader that set that nation back on course to its rightful place as the beacon of light for freedom and prosperity to a troubled world . The experience of the late 1960's and early 1970's, the experience of the most divisive era in American history, other than the Civil War, the experience of the United States of America and the leader who fixed it all.
Welcome to "The Richard Nixon Experience" Podcast
(FAIR USE NOTICE : This presentation contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The use of this footage is for educational and historical commentary. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material.)
The Richard Nixon Experience
RICHARD NIXON and WATERGATE, 1974 THE FALL ( Part 3 ) Figuring Out Impeachment
In this episode we listen as the House Judiciary Committee sets up shop to start their look into the impeachment of Richard Nixon. You will hear from Bernard Nussbaum as he talks about the decision by John Doar not to aggressively investigate the facts of the case instead deciding they would collate the evidence already gathered by the Senate Watergate Committee and the Special Prosecutor's office. A decision that Nussbaum violently opposed at the time but in these interviews tries to put the best face on for the oral history he is providing. He even goes so far as to say it was most likely the biggest factor in getting to the result that eventually happened.
You will hear Hillary Rodham Clinton discuss the system for organizing material they came up with based on how Doar ran his law practice. The three areas that they all worked on included just trying to figure out how an impeachment would work, what were the grounds for determining a high crime and misdemeanor, and just what exactly were the facts as they knew them. It is a fascinating look at how the committee was run and you will hear how the congressmen were babysat through the process, with little black books, kept under lock and key, that staffers would go through the evidence with the congressmen, given to them by the WSPF, let them ask questions and go through books only under the direct supervision of staff with all the materials going safely back into custody after they were done researching it all for the current session.
It was all a very controlled environment, for secrecy's sake, or at least that is what we have been led to believe.
Then we go through the scenario that led to the request by the Special Prosecutor's office for 64 more taped conversations. The President refused to hand them over, deciding instead to give edited transcripts, to be released simultaneously, to the Prosecutors, the House Committee and the public, all at the same time. That decision would eventually lead to the legal fight in the Supreme Court known as the United States vs Richard Nixon.
Then the President addressed the nation.
If ever a case of being caught telling the truth has existed then this speech by President Nixon is it. We just did not have any way of knowing it then, but we do now. If you go back to our first four tape series episodes and listen to the "Cancer on the Presidency" conversation with
John Dean, the White House Counsel, ( episode 137 - Tape series part 1) or the conversations with Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen ( episode 139 - Tape series part 3) every single assertion in his defense made by President Nixon in this April 1974 speech turned out to be true.
Go listen to it all for yourself.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
BOB DOLE : The Life that Brought Him There
Randal Wallace