Nixon's Still the One!

richardnixon04

I've been watching a number of Watergate history specials and having a wonderful time wallowing. That was a fascinating time in this country and there was much to be learned about human nature, politics, the essence of America and many other topics. Amazingly, information is still coming out about it all and we're learning more about it…and not in the way that, for example, new "information" miraculously emerges about the Kennedy Assassination to bolster new conspiracy theories. John W. Dean has a new book in which he painstakingly transcribed passages of the fabled Nixon Tapes to tell more of the story. Dean and Bob Woodward have an interview running on CSpan2 this weekend that my TiVo is awaiting.

In this interview, Dean goes over some points in his book, one of which is that for all his expertise at politics, Richard Nixon was not very bright when it came to managing scandals. Others have suggested it flowed from an insane paranoia at ever having any failings pointed out, which in turn was why he hated the press so. Nixon doesn't seem to have hated just the portions of the press that had ever been openly hostile to him. He hated the whole idea of anyone writing about him who was out of his control. The whole idea of taping his private conversations seems to have come from that; so if Henry Kissinger somehow got credit for a sound Nixon decision, Nixon could haul out the tapes, edit them judiciously and say, "Here, listen to this!" Ultimately, of course, it was not the existence of those tapes but the fact that he couldn't selectively edit and release them that ruined his reputation and presidency.

The new tapes that are now being played and transcribed make Nixon look petty, childish and at times, very antisemitic. There's a terrific special running on HBO these days that plays excerpts of many of them in understandable context. It's called Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words. I'm saving that one. Also looking forward to Dick Cavett's Watergate, which debuts tonight on most PBS stations. Will Harris, who often sends in items for this blog, says it's great and he interviewed Cavett about it.

All these shows continue to largely overlook my favorite Watergate figure. Some time here, I wrote…

Nixon's most prominent supporter, at least during the Watergate mess, was a rabbi named Baruch Korff, a man of sterling reputation and sincerity, though he was largely clueless about Washington and the president he backed. Given Nixon's power and '72 landslide, you would have thought his chief public defender would have been some G.O.P. biggie — a senator or governor but no. All those guys dove under their desks when evidence of Nixonian lawlessness began to leak, especially when it was revealed that endless hours of private Nixon conversations might become public. Rabbi Korff rode in and filled the position nobody else wanted. Some nights, when newsmen had to report the latest bad news for Nixon and they looked around for a spokesperson who could defend the then-president, Korff was often the only human being willing to go on camera in that role. That was a big part of what doomed Nixon: Few Republicans wanted to tether their futures to his…and Rabbi Korff, who wound up making the public case for R.M.N. was a thoroughly inept advocate.

korffnixon

Korff had an impossible job. It was bad enough that he had to explain "Nixon's side" of so many revelations without knowing what it was…or would be. (Nixon's strategy seemed to be to let all the bad stuff come out, then try to weave an innocent, self-exonerating explanation.) What made the Rabbi's chore even harder was that as Oval Office conversations leaked or were officially released, so was all that presidential anti-semitism. Korff discounted it, explaining it couldn't be so — never mind what Nixon actually said — because of the president's strong support of Israel. That was a weak defense — the "some of my best friends" gambit. And now we have these new tapes showing how Nixon admired Israeli Jews and distrusted their American counterparts. Exactly what you would have expected of the man. It's amazing how "readable" he was in these regards, just as it's amazing how Rabbi Korff turned out to be wrong about darn near everything.

No one will ever make it but I thought there was a great movie there. Rabbi Korff had some self-promotional reasons for doing what he did but at times, I saw no one else on the TV Watergate coverage who didn't seem primarily concerned with saving his own butt. He genuinely seemed baffled at how Washington and the press corps operated, and distressed that so few of those who'd supported Nixon when it was personally advantageous were willing to stick their necks out for him when he was under attack. The newly-scrutinized tapes make a good case that hiding under one's desk, as so many one-time Nixon allies did, was a sound strategy.