Clinton with Lewinsky in February 1997
MOST people who follow the ongoing American sex scandal, the tragic-comedy known as the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, have at the back of their minds the famous Watergate scandal which led to the impeachment of President Nixon in August, 1974. Analysts seem to find it convenient to draw a parallel between Watergate and ‘Monicagate’ even though the former was a clear case of obstruction of justice by the President while the latter appears more of a moral issue. Last week’s release on the Internet of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s 445-page report of his investigation into President Clinton’s relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, as well as this week’s televised recording of Clinton ‘s salacious grand jury testimony, hardly altered this view. And America, stewing in a chronic nostalgia of the Nixon case, seems undecided on whether to punish or forgive its 42nd president of a “sin” he should have simply sorted out between himself and his wife.
The correlation between Watergate and the Lewinsky affair seems to be Clinton’s possible perjury offence when he denied having had an affair with Lewinsky, now 25, during his January 17 deposition in the earlier Paula Jones lawsuit, and his repeated denial when he testified to a federal jury last month. The Washington Post, the newspaper that won acclaim with its exclusive coverage of Watergate, is again in the thick of the current case. It reported last week Friday that there are 11 possible grounds for impeachment included in the Starr report, citing perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of office — the same charges levied against Nixon which led to his downfall. Is the 52-year old Clinton, despite his good works, really going the way of Nixon?
It is good for us all to refresh our minds with Nixon’s fate in order to attempt a proper appreciation of the current matter, and perhaps make a more informed contradistinction.
Richard Milhous Nixon ruled the U.S. as its 37th president between 1969 and 1974. Unlike Clinton, he was a Republican, but like Clinton he studied law and practised it, serving briefly in the Office of Price Administration in 1942. Unlike Clinton, however, he served in the navy in the South Pacific. Although Clinton didn’t work in the House of Representatives (he was governor of Arkansas between 1978-1980, the youngest governor in the country), Nixon was a member of the House in 1946 and 1948. He became a senator in 1950 and became vice-president under Eisenhower. Nixon was defeated in the 1960 presidential race by the charismatic but ill-fated Democrat John F. Kennedy. Back in California, Nixon was defeated in his race for governor in 1962. However, in 1969 he defeated Hubert H. Humphrey in the presidential election.
Nixon’s troubles, like Clinton’s, began during his second term when a series of scandals began with the Republican-instigated burglary of Democratic Party national headquarters in the Watergate office complex on June 17, 1972. On July 16, a White House aide, under questioning by a Senate committee, inadvertently revealed that most of Nixon’s office conversations and phone calls had been recorded. Nixon claimed executive privilege to keep the tapes secret.
From then on, the president, using the apparatus of his powerful office, began a massive cover-up of his covert, dirty campaign against the opposition party. On April 30, 1973, top Nixon aides H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and John W. Dean, and Attorney-General Richard Kleindienst resigned amidst charges of White House efforts to obstruct justice in the Watergate case. The courts and Congress sought the secret 64 tapes in Nixon’s possession for criminal proceedings against the former aides and for a House inquiry into possible impeachment. Nixon refused to budge.
John Dean, who was Nixon’s former counsel, told Senate hearing on June 25, 1973 that Nixon, his staff and his campaign aides, as well as the Justice Department, all had conspired to cover up Watergate facts. Nixon again refused on July 23 to release the controversial tapes of relevant White House conversations. However, some of the tapes were turned over to the court on November 26. The president’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation led to the resignation of the Attorney-General, Elliot Richardson. His deputy, William D. Ruckelshaus, and the Watergate Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox (the Ken Starr of those days), were fired by the president on October 20 when Cox threatened to secure a judicial ruling that Nixon was violating a court order to turn the tapes over to John Sirica, the judge handling the Watergate case. A conservative Texas Democrat, Leon Jaworski, was named on November 1 by Nixon to be special prosecutor to succeed Archibald Cox. All this did not douse the feeling that the administration was covering up something. The heat heightened.
On May 9, 1974 impeachment hearings were opened against Nixon by the House Judiciary Committee. On July 12, John D. Ehlirchman and three White House “plumbers” were found guilty of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Dr. Lewis Fielding, formerly psychiatrist to Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, by breaking into his Beverly Hills, California, office.
On July 25, the Supreme Court ruled, 8-0, that Nixon’s claim of executive privilege must fall before the special prosecutor’s subpoenas of the tapes and that Nixon had to turn over the tapes sought by Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski. That same day, the House Judiciary Committee opened debate on impeachment. Five days later, the committee recommended House adoption of three articles of impeachment against Nixon. The first, voted 27-11, charged Nixon with taking part in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Watergate cover-up. The second, voted 28-10, charged he “repeatedly” failed to carry out his constitutional oath in a series of alleged abuses of power. The third, voted 21-17, accused him of unconstitutional defiance of committee subpoenas. Nixon’s days now became numbered.
On August 5, Nixon released transcripts of conversations held six days after the Watergate break-in showing that he had known of, approved, and directed Watergate cover-up activities. His public support began to irretrievably erode. The House of Representatives voted without debate on August 20, by 412-3, to accept the committee report, which included the recommended impeachment articles.
President Nixon finally resigned on August 9. Vice-President Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the 38th U.S. president on the same day. On September 8, an unconditional pardon to Nixon for all federal crimes that he “committed or may have committed” while president was issued by President Ford. Up till his death in 1994 at the age of 81, Nixon refused to admit that he had committed anything wrong. He is remembered as the only American president to resign without completing an elected term. For the obvious sake of hounding another president out of office, should the more forthcoming, more contrite and more likeable Bill (William Jefferson) Clinton, be the next?
* Published in my column, Melting Pot, in the New Nigerian Weekly, today
