Sunday, May 30, 2004

Mr. Cox and Mr. Dash

As a devout wallower in Watergate, I was sorry to see that two of the few honest men in that whole sordid affair, Archibald Cox and Samuel Dash, have just passed away. As the whole scandal and its investigation unfolded, there were many attempts — from both Nixon's supporters and his detractors — to portray anyone on the other side as a blind, hypocritical partisan. There were some of those on both sides but there were also men and women of honor. A lot of mud was hurled at Cox and Dash but I don't think any of it stuck. Dash in particular was viewed as so fair-minded that Republicans, including Ken Starr, consulted him on matters of law and ethics and often deferred to his judgments.

The story I remember about Sam Dash is one that I heard from someone I met who'd served in his office during the Watergate inquiry. I don't recall the name of the associate but I remember the story. It occurred during the hearings, not long after John W. Dean had testified and the Nixon administration had begun attacking him as a self-serving liar who had totally misreported his conversations with the President. This was before the investigators had learned of the existence of the famed presidential tapes. In a private interview with presidential aide Alexander Butterfield, it came out that Nixon had this secret taping system. Dash called Dean in, the aide told me, because he wanted to see the look on the man's face when he was told that there might be an actual recording of his meetings with Nixon...and therefore, a solid means of proving if his sworn testimony was true. "Based on the response, Dash was satisfied that Dean had told the truth and the investigation proceeded from there," the associate explained. "But if he'd turned pale and started backpedalling from what he'd said under oath, Dash was quite prepared to see him prosecuted for perjury." History will show that the tape matched Dean's testimony almost precisely.

I've always thought of that as the moment Nixon went on the defensive, never to recover...and Sam Dash was at the heart of that moment. Another, of course, was the Saturday Night Massacre, with Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in its vortex. Fired by Nixon, largely just for doing his job, Cox went over the President's head, directly to the American people. They made enough of an outcry that Nixon was forced to allow another Special Prosecutor...and from that point on, the President was never able to get atop the situation again.

I've had long debates with a few fellow wallowers about whether or not "the system worked" in Watergate. My view tends to be that it did not; that Nixon was brought down by a series of flukes, such as the taping system, that were not part of the system. But to the extent the system did work, it worked because of men like Archibald Cox and Sam Dash. I wish we had more of them in government.

• Posted at 11:53 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Fingerprints don't lie. Unfortunately, human beings have been known to put the wrong name on them. Here's the story of a man who suffered because of this.

• Posted at 11:49 PM · LINK

Memorial Day

My brain must have been in idle when I wrote the preceding piece on Memorial Day. As Mitch Dutton and a couple of other folks have reminded me, Memorial Day is all about honoring war dead. It's not supposed to be about the wounded and maimed. As all my correspondent-correcters noted, we have Veterans Day to honor those who have served and survived.

What I was trying to say, and what I think is valid, is that when we talk about the human cost of war, we tend to overlook those who will carry the scars of combat, emotionally if not physically, for the rest of their lives. I phrased it poorly but that's what's on my mind.

• Posted at 9:49 PM · LINK

This Weekend

And I hope you're having a memorable Memorial Day weekend.

Today's Doonesbury strip lists all of our Iraq-related military casualties as of the date the strip went to press, set in very tiny type to get them all in. Garry Trudeau is being accused of making a "political statement," which I suppose is like accusing Tony Bennett of singing about San Francisco. We seem to have reached the stage in this country where to mention our war dead is to dishonor them by using them in a political statement and to not mention them is to show disrespect and to make — you guessed it — a political statement. I'm not sure I've ever heard a mention of fallen soldiers from any war that did not include some subtext...either about stopping war or about how you should be proud to go and die for your country in the next one.

As folks hurl arguments back and forth about the recent military deaths, it's easy to imagine every argument being reversed. Bush has not attended funerals and there has been an active attempt to prevent photos of flag-draped caskets from being seen. That is viewed as the Bush administration trying to suppress imagery that might turn America against their war efforts and it's called disrespectful. But if Bush were to be seen at many funerals, he'd be accused of turning them into a "photo op" and if the coffins were routinely displayed, all manner of ulterior motives would be ascribed to that. And in other hands, what Trudeau did today (or what Koppel did the other week on Nightline) would be hailed as a genuine gesture of reverence.

It also bothers me that so much of Memorial Day, as well as talk of the human cost of war, is about dead bodies. I don't mean to minimize those sickening numbers in any way but they're not the whole story. Not only are lives ended in war but lives are shattered. Men and women come back minus limbs or with physical scars that will never heal. Some suffer emotional damage, as do their families. Years ago, I worked with a guy who'd spent a year in Vietnam and was still enduring nightmares and popping tranquilizers due to (he said) that experience. But he didn't show up on any stats that tracked the dead or disabled from 'Nam. On Memorial Day, guys like him never got a mention. He also never got any worthwhile medical or financial support from his government.

A lot of people in this country — a growing number, if we believe the polls — are calling for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq, quickly if not immediately. John Kerry has not called for this. In fact, I'm not sure I can explain how his position on the war is that different from Bush's, although Kerry has long been for U.N. oversight and more international cooperation...a view to which Bush seems to be moving. Still, a lot of people are attacking Kerry as if he had called for quick withdrawal or as if his Iraq plan was utterly unlike the current course of action. (Al Gore's fiery speech the other day is also getting criticized as if he'd demanded an immediate pullout...which is not at all what he said.) I don't know what's going to happen except that next Memorial Day, I'm afraid, Garry Trudeau is going to have to use an even smaller typeface...and maybe serialize the names over a whole week.

• Posted at 12:45 PM · LINK

Sergio Cameo

My pal Sergio made a guest appearance in yesterday's installment of the La Cucaracha newspaper strip. The idea is that one of the characters in the strip, Memo, is working at the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Awards event in Kansas City, and he sees Sergio there. As it happens, the Reuben Awards get-together is taking place this weekend in Kansas City...but Sergio is not attending this year.

• Posted at 2:20 AM · LINK