MTP Transcript for Dec. 31

MR. BROKAW: Well, it was a startling acknowledgment on his part. I remember the other two panel members were David Broder and George Will, and immediately afterwards, they said he just landed on the front page with that story, because the White House was deep in its bunker at the time, and Jerry Ford was not long into the vice presidency.

I think in that exchange, Tim, and in the earlier one that Bob Woodward talked about, you saw both Richard Nixon and Jerry Ford in their essence. I always believed that Richard Nixon played Jerry Ford’s friendship very cynically to his own advantage. And Jerry Ford, even his closest friends would acknowledge, would sometimes be too much the team player. He could be, if you will, too willing to accept the party line. I think his conditioning changed once he got into the White House, but we were in transition there at that moment, because a lot of his friends were beginning to say to him, “Don’t get too close to defending the Richard Nixon line on Watergate.” But he did continue to go around the country and defend the president, even after that, as other people were tugging on his sleeve and saying, “Be careful, Jerry, don’t go too far here.”

MR. RUSSERT: Seven months later, and things were moving very, very quickly. Bob Woodward, this is how you portray the scene: “At 3:30 p.m. on Aug. 1, 1974, Nixon’s chief of staff, Alexander Haig, entered the vice president’s suite. He looked troubled and on edge. ‘Are you ready, Mr. Vice President, to assume the presidency in a short period of time?’ Haig asked. New Watergate tapes, he said, would show Nixon had ordered the coverup of the burglary. Ford was stunned. Haig presented Ford with six scenarios: Nixon could step aside temporarily under the 25^th Amendment, he could just wait and delay the ongoing impeachment process, or he could try to settle for a formal censure.

In addition, there were three pardon options. Nixon could pardon himself and resign. Or he could pardon the aides involved and then resign. Or Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that the new President Ford would pardon him. Haig handed Ford two pieces of paper. The first sheet contained a handwritten summary of a president’s legal authority to pardon. The second sheet was a draft pardon form that needed only Ford’s signature and Nixon’s name to make it legal. ‘It’s my understanding from a White House lawyer,’ Haig said, ‘that the president does have authority to pardon even before criminal action has been taken against an individual.’”

After that meeting, Gerald Ford met with this staff. What happened?

MR. WOODWARD: Well, of all kinds—this is one of the most dramatic moments in Watergate, to say the least. And of course I’ve interviewed Ford extensively about that moment. And he acknowledges that he believes that Haig was offering him a deal. I mean, to, to hand a draft pardon, and say, “Oh, by the way.” Ford got it, but he—when he told his staff, they said, you, you know, “You have—you’ve entered into dangerous legal territory. You have to call Haig and say there’s no deal.” Ford also acknowledges that he was naive about all of this, and at the same time—and again, there’s, there’s a complexity in this that doesn’t yield a sound bite. Ford had his reasons for granting the pardon, to get over Watergate and Nixon. At the same time, this, this loyalty and friendship with Nixon was intense, and he gave the pardon. I, I think it turns out to be very, very wise. But he—it, it was, on one level, the last, last act of loyalty.

Now, what, what is most significant to history in all of this, part of the arrangement with the pardon was that Ford insisted that the government keep Nixon’s tapes. And we now know this rather complete history of Watergate because of Ford’s decision. And there was a wise lawyer in the White House who told Ford, “Don’t give Nixon those tapes, he’ll burn them. It will be considered the last act of the coverup.” So having the tapes, most important to understanding the Nixon presidency.

MR. RUSSERT: Now, Mr. Haig denies there was ever a deal offered.

MR. WOODWARD: That’s right, he said absolutely not. I mean, look, look at, you come in. I mean, it—Brokaw is even laughing. And you say these are the things to do. And by the way, in case you—your pencil doesn’t work, here is a draft of a pardon.

MR. RUSSERT: Tom Brokaw, you were at the White House the day that Richard Nixon resigned. And then he and his wife, escorted by Gerald Ford and Betty Ford, walking to the helicopter. Describe that day.

MR. BROKAW: Well, it’s hard to describe, because there were really two realities. One played out on television, and one played out there in the East Room, where the president made his farewell speech to his staff—which at that point was so emotionally drained that people could hardly sit upright. And you remember that famous speech in which he talked about his mother, the saint. Then they went down the diplomatic entrance to the White House and made that dramatic walk out onto the helicopter. I was surrounded by Nixon aides, including Ron Ziegler, who took that moment, curiously enough, to make fun of Tom Jarrell’s haircut. Tom Jarrell was the ABC correspondent at the time. It was this kind of surreal quality in there. Here was the first president ever to resign, it was the most tragic moment in the life of the man that all these staffers had dedicated their lives to, and then there was that very somber moment as he walked out to the helicopter and gave that last defiant Richard Nixon gesture. I remember one of the aides turning to me and saying, “I’m just going to go fishing.” There was this sense—palpable sense of relief.

When I got back to the office, to the bureau, David Brinkley took me aside and said, “Did you think that he was going to do something drastic to himself?” And I said, “What are you talking about?” And he took me down and showed me, on television, the very close-up isolated on video of Richard Nixon, and all of the faces. And I must say, the difference between being in the room and then seeing it on television was very dramatic indeed. Much more dramatic on television than it was in the room itself.

And I went back down to the White House press room, and one of the Nixon aides had come down and burst into tears and said, “I was just told to get something for the president and I don’t know which president they were talking about.”

MR. RUSSERT: Mm. Gerald Ford assumed the presidency that day. He talked about our long national nightmare being over. We saw the president in his robe and eating his English muffins in a suburban house.

MR. WOODWARD: Not only eating it, but toasting it himself.

MR. RUSSERT: Toasting it—laying some, laying some butter on there, I think, as well.

MR. WOODWARD: That was the important symbol. Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: And then a month later, on a Sunday morning, Gerald Ford startled the nation with this announcement from the Oval Office.

(Videotape, September 8, 1974):

PRES. FORD: I, Gerald R. Ford, president of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents, do grant a full, free and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Such a firestorm, Bob Woodward.

MR. WOODWARD: Yes, there was. And Ford, who was popular, there was this sense Watergate is over, all of a sudden it looked like the secret dealings were continuing. It was a giant deal, defined the Ford presidency, probably lost the election in ‘76 because of this. But, I—you know, it, it, it was wise. I mean, think about it. Nixon investigated, on trial, maybe going to jail, a year, two years more of Watergate. We needed to get beyond that, and, and, and Ford, to his credit, had an intuitive recognition of that. A lot of people were telling him, “Don’t do it.” It was very close-knit circle in the White House saying, you know, “Consult Congress, get the public involved,” and so forth. Ford, Ford said, in his way—one of his aides said, “Well, you know, just tell them you haven’t decided,” and he said, “But I have.”

MR. RUSSERT: In 2000, I went to the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, interviewed President Ford and President Carter, and asked President Ford about the pardon. Let’s watch.

(Videotape, April 13, 2000):

MR. RUSSERT: Do you have any second thoughts about your pardon of President Nixon?

Pres. FORD: I was—I should’ve been—devoted 100 percent of my time to the problems of 260 million Americans. But the truth is, in the first month that I was president, I was spending 25 percent of my time listening to the lawyers from the Department of Justice, the lawyers from the White House staff, telling me what I should or shouldn’t do with Mr. Nixon’s papers and tapes. I finally decided it made more sense for the country for me to clear my desk of Mr. Nixon’s problems, and the way to do it was to issue a pardon once and for all, clear the deck, and spend all of my time on the problems of the country as a whole. I think it was right, and I feel even more so today.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think you paid a political price?

PRES. FORD: There were people in the country who hated Mr. Nixon so much under no circumstances would they forgive me.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: It’s interesting, 25 years later the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award was given to Gerald Ford for that pardon. Ted Kennedy at the time of the pardon said it was a continuation of the Watergate coverup, Tom Brokaw, said, “You know what? I was wrong, Gerald Ford was right and history has proven that to be the case.”

MR. BROKAW: Well, I think there was a couple of elements. I think that the president made a mistake at the time of the pardon in not preparing the country more. There was a strong undercurrent that this was a possibility, but as Bob will remember, the president characterizes it correctly when he says, “We were consumed with what was going to happen with Richard Nixon, what was going to happen with those papers.” He was the unindicted co-conspirator, the first president to resign. He had not acknowledged guilt in any way. Unfortunately, the president didn’t make that part of the deal.

The other part of this, of course, which reflects on Jerry Ford as well, in terms of his trust, is that he had been dealing with Al Haig and then he later learned Al Haig had gone to President Nixon and said, “I think he’s going to give you a pardon.” And later, President Ford said, “I couldn’t believe it. Al Haig worked for me at that point.” Well, that was just part of the intrigue that was so brilliantly documented by Bob Woodward in his book about that time. But I always believed that if he’d brought down a few of his friends on both sides of the aisle from Capitol Hill to a couple of meetings at the White House and said, “Help me out here, what is your thinking on all this?” the country could’ve been a little more prepared for it, but it was a 12-kiloton explosion when it happened on that Sunday morning. The place was stunned. And it was so closely held, no one knew that he was going to go out and make that announcement. His political currency was so great, his approval rating was so high during the peak of the honeymoon, I honestly think he intuitively believed that he could take a hit that wouldn’t be as big as it was going to be.

MR. RUSSERT: Bob Woodward, you have reported that leading up to the pardon, President Ford sent a young lawyer named Becker out to meet with President Clinton and...

MR. WOODWARD: Nixon, yes.

MR. RUSSERT: Nixon, and showed him a Supreme Court case, U.S. vs Burdick, which says if you accept the pardon, you were acknowledging admitting guilt.

MR. WOODWARD: That’s right. And in interviewing Ford a number of years ago about this and the whole question, which Tom Brokaw rightly raises, did, did Nixon acknowledge guilt? Because the statement he released in accepting the pardon didn’t really do it very directly. And Ford literally carried in his wallet a section of the Burdick decision from the Supreme Court that said the acceptance of a pardon is an admission of guilt. And he felt that was legally sufficient.

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