The Perfect Storm that Sank the Nixon Presidency
On August 9, 1974, the 37th president of the United States, Richard Nixon, resigned from office. Citing a lack of political support in the Congress, which was moving toward the first impeachment of a president in more than 100 years, Nixon decided that the interests of the nation would be best served by his resignation.
For 50 years, conventional wisdom has held that the break-in of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee by men working for the Committee to Re-Elect the President, and subsequent efforts to cover-up the involvement of some staff members of the Committee, and of the White House itself, alone led to the self-destruction of the Nixon presidency.
Yet, in recent years, the conventional wisdom is being reconsidered. Political events over the past decade are prompting a reassessment of whether Richard Nixon would have been able to complete his term of office had the political environment of 1973-4 more closely resembled the current political environment.
It is time to explore the environment in which Richard Nixon sought to save his presidency and to recognize that he never really had a chance to survive the perfect storm that sank his presidency.
The Media Juggernaut’s Relentless Pursuit of the President
Today, the American people have access to countless options for getting the news. In addition to legacy media – network news and major national newspapers – cable news networks, podcasts, websites, social media, and talk radio provide a wide variety of opinions and news about current events in the nation and the world. In November 2023, the Pew Research Center reported that 86% of American adults use electronic devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, to get their news. Network newscasts, local and national newspapers, and news magazines are no longer the dominant purveyors of news.
Compared to today, the media landscape in 1973-74 resembled an information desert. The vast majority of American got their national news from just three television networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC; two national newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post; and two news magazines, Time and Newsweek. Except for the Post, all of these outlets were clustered together within a few blocks of each other in Midtown Manhattan. These outlets not only shared a national audience, but they also shared a distinct worldview – a clear liberal bias.
The anchor of the CBS Evening News in the early 1970s, Walter Cronkite, was widely known as “the most trusted man in America.” Most people thought that he took an even-handed approach to reporting the news. Cronkite, however, would cross the line which had traditionally separated reporting and commentary. On February 27,1968, he hosted an hour-long show on American involvement in Vietnam. He concluded the show by offering his opinion that the United States could not prevail in Vietnam. President Lyndon B. Johnson reacted in despair, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”
The media bias in the early 1970s reflected the simple fact that most in the media were, themselves, liberals. Cronkite was once asked if there was a liberal bias among television news reporters, he said, “Well, certainly liberal and possibly left of center as well. I would have to accept that.”
Reporters associated professionally with colleagues who shared their views. In 1972, for example, President Nixon was re-elected in an historic landslide, winning 49 states and nearly 62 percent of the popular vote. Yet a poll of Washington-based reporters showed that 82 percent voted for Nixon’s opponent, Senator George McGovern.
The influential New York based film critic, Pauline Kael, perhaps summed up best how disconnected the mainstream media was from the average American. After President Nixon’s 49-state landslide re-election in 1972, she said, “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon.”
The anti-Nixon bias in the media came into full bloom during Watergate. In October 1972, all that was known about “Watergate” was that five men associated with the Committee to Re-elect the President, the CIA, and perhaps the White House, had been arrested breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office building.
Yet over two nights in the days before the 1972 election, Walter Cronkite presented a two-part, 22-minute overview of Watergate on his evening newscast. The editor of the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, would later reflect, “The fact that Cronkite did Watergate at all gave the story a kind of blessing, which is exactly what we needed.” The Post would win a 1973 Pulitzer Prize for its relentless reporting on Watergate.
Once the media jumped on the Watergate bandwagon, there was no turning back. Bruce Herschensohn, White House Special Assistant to President Nixon, wrote in 1976, “During the 1973-74 period, the prime placement of so-called Watergate stories [as the first story on the broadcast], even when such news was minimal, became a common and ongoing technique to increase audience interest in the charges against the administration.”
Perhaps no story provoked the media to greater hysteria than the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre.” On October 20, 1973, President Nixon fired Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox – an action well within his authority as the head of the Executive Branch. The Attorney General and his deputy both resigned in protest. But Cox had openly defied a presidential directive, which led to his discharge.
On NBC, regular programming was interrupted for a “Special Report.” Unlike today, when special reports are rarely that special, in the pre-internet period the announcement of a “Special Report” usually had people holding their breath expecting terrible news.
The familiar face of John Chancellor, the anchor of NBC Nightly News, appeared on the screen. He breathlessly declared, “The country tonight is in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional crisis in its history. [The firing of Cox] is a stunning development, and nothing even remotely like it has happened in all of our history.” Chancellor apparently forgot about some of the other crisis in our history, including the Civil War, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and four presidential assassinations.
The following morning, the New York Times and the Washington Post splashed across their front pages headlines of the size usually reserved for declarations of war, major natural disasters, and attacks on the homeland. And as the months went on, the media’s coverage of Watergate continued relentlessly.
In his1989 book, In the Arena, President Nixon reflected on the media environment in 1973-74.
During Watergate, our small staff of lawyers and press officers was outflanked and outnumbered by innumerable, highly partisan congressional staff members who leaked – “gushed” would be a better word – to innumerable, highly ambitious reporters, all of them eager to earn points with their editors by presenting some new revelation about the Nixon White House. That dozens of these stories proved to be untrue did not mitigate the damage they did when they were published.
Today, however, a wide variety of sources and viewpoints are available to the public. It is worth asking, therefore, whether President Nixon would have survived Watergate if it had occurred in today’s vastly different media environment. If recent events are any guide, it is entirely possible, if not likely, that he would have.
The mainstream media still speaks with one voice from the left. There are, however, countless news sources that do not march with it in lockstep. Social media supplies an endless stream of programming covering a wide spectrum of opinion. Cable news and talk radio also provide a wide range of options for news. Clearly, Americans have far greater access to a wide variety of viewpoints today than they did 50 years ago. Had the media environment in the Nixon years resembled today’s, that might have made all the difference for the Nixon presidency 50 years ago.