Reed Irvine - Editor
The Final Day's by Woodward and Bernstein ("Woodstein") commanded the attention of the media with its portrayal of Richard Nixon as a man out of control and its gossip about Mrs. Nixon and intimate family matters. But is it accurate? Victor Lasky, author of J.F.K., The Man and the Myth and the forthcoming book, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, says NO. A friend of many of those who figured in the "Woodstein" book, including the Nixons, Lasky tells why in this devastating critique. We bring it to you with permission of the North American Newspaper Alliance. Extra copies: $1 for one, 50c ea. for 10 or more.
By Victor Lasky
We double-checked everything. If we could not get two sources on something, we left it out. And we gave everybody the opportunity to comment. No rumor or gossip was used. Nobody has disputed any fact. -Bob Woodward, as quoted in U.S. News & World Report, April 12, 1976
The fact is that the principals described in this book, the sources of information for this book, and those who are making comments about this book all know the accuracy of this account. We stand behind every word of it. -Carl Bernstein, as quoted in Newsweek, April 12, 1976
The book, of course, is The Final Days, an account purporting to describe m detail what went on in the White House during the fifteen months prior to Richard Nixon's resignation as President of the United States.
According to co-author Woodward, the book "is an accurate account and will stand the test of time."
But, according to John Osborne, "it is on the whole the worst job of nationally noted reporting that I've observed during forty-nine years in the business."
Osborne, who has been "watching" the White House for The New Republic for many years, also took issue with the methodology used in obtaining material for the Woodstein tome.
"In this book," wrote Osborne, "they profess to report only what they've been told by 'at least two people.' That is crap...Some of the best stories I've ever gotten were known to one person only, the person who told me. Woodstein must know its trap. The fact that they persist in the fiction in this book is a sign of insecurity..."
Also "crap" is Woodstein's repeated contention that, except for pro forma denials, no one has ever seriously disputed anything reported in The Final Days. This just isn't true. For, as we shall see, numerous individuals have questioned the accuracy of events described by the authors who keep claiming that they checked everything out with at least two sources. And a number of these individuals have said they were never even interviewed by the "dogged duo," as Woodward and Bernstein have been described in The New York Times.
A case in point is the page-long description (pp. 255-256) of Robert Finch's visit to San Clemente at the height of the impeachment proceedings. Finch, of course, is an old friend of the President and a former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. As Woodstein described the meeting:
Finch thought that Nixon looked very tired. The President seemed fatalistic about his prospects; there was no hint of what he might do to avoid impeachment. The country had become so consumed by Watergate, Nixon said, that foreign affairs and the economy were being neglected. He could not just abdicate his position of leadership-resign in the face of the unstable world situation.
Finch was struck by the force of the President's words, the conviction behind them. He had arrived thinking that perhaps Nixon wanted to ask him to come back to Washington to help with the defense. But that was not the purpose of the invitation, though Finch was not sure what the purpose was, even after they had spent forty-five minutes together.
The President rambled...He reviewed the global picture...Watergate was making it difficult for the United States to compete internationally, he said.
Abruptly, the President changed subjects and expressed his regret that Finch had not run for the Senate or for the governorship of California. It was an awkward moment. Finch had abandoned his campaign plans when it became obvious that his long association with Nixon made it impossible to win at the polls. The economy, Finch lied to the President now, had made it too difficult for him to run this year.
But Nixon seemed to know better. He spoke of the loyalty of his old friends and how tough it was for him to see them suffer because of Watergate.
On his way out, Finch encountered Ollie Atkins, the official White House photographer, and said he was puzzled about the purpose of the meeting. Atkins told him that the President had wanted someone there to whom he could reach out and touch. Nothing more.
Finch was absolutely nonplussed when I read the foregoing passage to him on the phone. In the first place, he said, he had never talked to the "dogged duo." in the second place, he added, Woodstein had their facts "wrong."
"Why they didn't call me to check out the material is surprising," Finch went on. After all, he pointed out, he wasn't exactly incommunicado. "The truth is I met with the President as I have on numerous other occasions - namely, to fill him in on my thinking on a number of subjects. Yes, we did discuss foreign affairs-but briefly. But I never 'lied' to the President at any time-not then or ever. And how they know what I was thinking at the time also puzzles me. The fact is that even now I can't recall what I was thinking during the meeting."
Nor does Finch have any memory of encountering Ollie Atkins at the conclusion of the meeting. "It's possible," he went on, "but I'm sure I did not say much more than hello."
Atkins, too, has no memory of running into Finch. And if he had, he's most certain he never told Finch "anything idiotic" like the President wanting "someone there to whom he could reach out and touch."
Atkins said that Woodstein never asked him about the episode. He did get a call from Woodward asking to interview him. But when he heard that Atkins lived all the way out in Virginia, necessitating a lengthy drive, Woodward apparently decided not to follow up. At least, that's what Atkins believes.
On page 440, there appears the following:
Price had planned to go to dinner at the Sans Souci restaurant with Garment, Buzhardt and William Satire for one last get-together, but he had to stand by for any last minute changes the President might want to make in his resignation address.
Over dinner, the others talked politics. Whom would Ford select as his Vice President? Garment guessed George Bush. Buzhardt was sure Ford would select someone from the Hill and definitely not a governor or former governor...
"But that's not what we talked about at that dinner," Safire told me, "And I ought to know because I kept contemporaneous notes. Woodward and Bernstein were totally wrong. They will probably argue that they had two sources-Buzhardt and Garment. If so, this is one case, at least, where their sources are wrong."
Woodstein, however, had at least one story involving Satire, which was accurate. On page 301:
This morning, Ron Ziegler was closeted in his office with...William Satire, a former Nixon speechwriter...Satire discerned in Ziegler a mood of "edgy confidence and frustration," as he described it later.
They were interrupted by a phone call. After a few seconds, Ziegler, listening, closed his eyes. John B. Connally...had just been indicted...
Ziegler hung up the phone. Turning back to Satire, he asked helplessly, "Do people know what's going on in this country?"
Since neither Saltre nor Ziegler had cooperated with the authors, I asked the New York Times columnist where they could have gotten what appeared to be an inside account.
"Oh," said Safire, "they lifted it out of a piece I did for the Times following the resignation."
Now, there's nothing wrong with using such material. But the customary thing would have been to credit Safire's article as the source. Woodstein can hardly argue that they couldn't have done so because of any supposed confidentiality.
Woodstein's selective use of sources to prove their preconceptions is demonstrated by the story they tell (pp. 103-104) about a small dinner party President Nixon hosted for his family and close friends on December 21, 1973. Attending were Bryce Harlow and his wife; Barry Goldwater and Mary Brooks, the director of the Mint; Pat Buchanan and his wife; Ray Price and Rose Mary Woods. In part, this is how Woodstein described the scene:
The group left the table for after-dinner drinks and more conversation. Nixon seemed to be trying to reach out to each person-as if to convince himself that this was his team, Harlow thought. But the President was having trouble getting his words out. "Bryce, explain what I'm saying to Barry," he said several times, after having given up himself.
Harlow would start to explain, but then the President would interrupt him. Watergate was mentioned. The President, observing that he was beset from all sides, offered a rapid-fire catalogue of the ways he might recoup his fortunes... He was a victim of circumstance, of uncontrollable forces... The Democrats and the press were now working together to get him. He had inherited a much-abused office, flagrantly misused by Kennedy and Johnson. But the liberals and the press hated him, and so the rules were being changed and he was going to be made to pay.
The President was, in some way, only trying to thank his family and the others for their support, Price was thinking. But he certainly wasn't handling it well.
Buchanan thought, The Old Man is tired and can't hold his liquor well, especially when he's exhausted.
The next day Goldwater called Harlow. "Is the President off his rocker?"
"No. He was drunk."
Goldwater was half convinced.
The President had felt trusting enough about those at the table to let down his guard, Harlow told him. "Barry, it's the highest compliment that can be conveyed by the President of the United States." It was very healthy that Nixon had been able to do it, he added.
The major source for the foregoing was Goldwater. The Senator told me that's the way he recalled his conversation with Harlow, then a presidential counselor.
But Harlow places a different light on the conversation. "I never told Barry that the President was drunk," he told me. "What I did say was that the President was relaxing among friends and having a few drinks. He was feeling pretty good; but he was far from being drunk."
Two other guests at that dinner, Ray Price and Pat Buchanan, confirm Harlow's impression. Price, then the President's chief speechwriter, has absolutely no memory of Watergate being brought up. And he certainly never told Bernstein, who interviewed him on two occasions, what he had been "thinking" about during the dinner-namely, that "the President was, in some way, only trying to thank his family and the others for their support" but that "he certainly wasn't handling it well."
Likewise, Buchanan never "thought" during the dinner that, "the Old Man is tired and can't hold his liquor well, especially when he's exhausted."
"I never 'thought' it," says Buchanan, "simply because the President wasn't drunk. Nor was he exhausted. If anything, despite the crisis that had beset his Administration, the President was relaxed and appeared to be having a good time. And that's what I told Bernstein when he interviewed me."
But the important thing about all this, and something that casts discredit on the Woodstein technique, is that three sources of unimpeachable integrity had insisted that the authors were wrong in going with the Goldwater story. Harlow, Buchanan and Price, all of whom are used to lend credence to other parts of The Final Days, had each told Woodstein on separate occasions that the Nixon "drunk" story was poppycock.
Yet the authors went ahead with the Goldwater version, completely ignoring facts to the contrary. In so doing, they apparently violated their own self-imposed rule of publishing nothing unless they had two or more credible sources to back them up. In this case, they preferred one source to three. So much for Woodstein's repeated bragging about sources."
Goldwater was also the source for a story implying that the President's men may well have arranged for a loud and raucous demonstration against Nixon at a Phoenix rally (p. 149):
Then, as the President started to speak, 150 demonstrators began chanting, "Out now. Out now." The White House communications crew turned up the volume on the speakers nearest the demonstrators and drowned them out. The President asked the dissidents to observe the tradition of free speech. Barry Goldwater half suspected that Nixon's advance team had arranged the demonstration. Once, he had heard, the President suggested to Senator James L. Buckley of New York that he stage a demonstration against himself in which he would be physically threatened.
"We received a number of calls about that story," Senator Buckley's administrative assistant. Len Saffir, told me. "And our response was that the Senator flatly denies that Mr. Nixon ever made any such suggestion to him. The whole thing is preposterous, in Jim Buckley's view. The interesting thing is that, as tar as we can determine, the Senator's denial was never published.
"But more important, I think, is the fact that neither Mr. Woodward nor Mr. Bernstein ever sought to check with us on this particular piece of gossip."
Goldwater admits it was gossip. "I don't know where I heard it," he told me. "Maybe I was wrong about bringing in Senator Buckley's name."
According to a number of persons interviewed. Woodstein obviously began the research for this book, which they now describe as "compassionate," with preconceived conclusions that were anything but compassionate.
In fact, at the first of their two meetings, Ray Price asked Bernstein about the story making the rounds that he and his collaborator had been boasting around Georgetown how they intended to make a "Captain Queeg" out of the President. According to Price, Bernstein claimed to be aghast at the suggestion. Far from it, he said. All he and Woodward wanted to do was provide a thoroughly objective picture of the events leading to the President's resignation.
But that's not the way it came out, according to Price.
Price, the President's top speechwriter and a former chief editorial writer for the New York Herald-Tribune, says he is appalled at the "distorted" picture of the President produced by Woodstein. "It was not the picture I saw," says Price, who had worked closely with Nixon in the final moments on the resignation speech.
"I tried to convince Bernstein to drop all his preconceptions." Price added. "The President was not bonkers. Nor was he 'out of control,' as the book claims. The fact was the President was remarkably calm. The one thing that stood out so often in the final weeks was his great composure under enormous strain and stress."
Pat Buchanan had also heard rumors that Woodstein intended to develop the thesis that "the Old Man was 'bonkers' towards the end."
"When I asked Bernstein about the rumor, he insisted that it was false," says Buchanan. "He told me that he intended to run down the source. Reading the book, I discovered the source. It was none other than Woodward and Bernstein."
Leonard Garment, who also spoke freely with the authors, told me that he sought to steer them away from their "preconceived notion" that, Mr. Nixon had been "out of control" during the final days. "I told them that the President had held up extraordinarily well, despite the kind of pressures that would have disabled lesser men.
"And I also urged them to forget the rumors about the excessive drinking. They just weren't true."
Which was pretty, much what Bryce Harlow tried to do. "Apparently they had their minds made up about these matters," says the former White House counselor, "and they were seeking any kind of material to bolster their premise."
This is exactly what Nixon's personal aide Steve Bull believes. Bull had given the authors a great deal of his time because, as he told me, he felt that the true story of the final days needed to be told.
"But that's not the way it came out," he added. "For example, I went out of my way to try to convince them that the President was not 'increasingly irrational and unpredictable,' as they seemed to think. In fact, I emphasized what still seems amazing to me-namely, the fact that the President seemed to be in greater control in those final days and that, once he made his decision to resign, he accepted his fate with a remarkable serenity.
"Of course, these facts did not fit in with their preconceived notions. And, as a consequence, they have produced a book which in years to come few historians are likely to accept as authoritative."
Which is what Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon also believes. Simon is particularly chagrined over this passage, which appears on page 104:
...Simon, who met frequently with Nixon in December, often found the President dazed. Simon was reminded of a wind-up doll, mechanically making gestures with no thought as to their meaning.
"This is an absolute distortion of what I have said," Simon told me. "What I did say was that in those trying times. I found the President to be preoccupied, and who could have blamed him in view of all the problems he faced? But I never once found him, to be 'dazed.' That's their description, not mine. And never, anywhere, did I refer to the President as a 'wind-up doll.' That's sheer fiction."
Also fictional is the account of a meeting Pat Buchanan had with Rose Mary Woods (p. 351):
On the way back to his office, Buchanan stopped in to see Rose Woods... Woods was anguished; her eyes were puffy and red, her voice was tremulous. "How's the Old Man holding up?" Buchanan asked. She was having too much trouble holding herself together to deal with the question... There had even been fleeting moments when Woods had thought the President would be better off if he resigned. More than anyone else, she could see what it was doing to him...
The authors had only one source for the foregoing - Pat Buchanan. "And all I told them was that when I saw Rose she seemed upset - as we all were. From that they dramatically recreated a scene based on their imagination. I never told them, for example, that Rose's eyes were puffy and red or that her voice was tremulous. I'm wondering who their second source was."
It most certainly wasn't Rose Woods, who refused to see them. She considers the quotation "preposterous." As she points out, she never at any time felt, fleetingly or otherwise, that the President would be better off if he resigned.
Buchanan agrees. "She never on any occasion told me-and, as far as I know, anyone else-she ever felt the President should resign. She fought against resignation to the end."
More fiction can be found on page 41:
"Goddam the Washington Post!" Ziegler shouted when the newspaper's Sunday edition of June 3 was dropped on his desk.
The lead story was headlined "Dean Alleges Nixon Knew of Cover-up Plan."...All this was attributed, as usual, to "reliable sources." Ziegler was sure that meant Dean and his lawyers.
Dean's testimony, the article stated, would claim that the President had advance knowledge of the executive clemency offers and of payments of "hush money" to the Watergate conspirators.
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!" Ziegler shouted at Judy Johnson and Diane Sawyer, two of his principal assistants. "All right, go back and see why the President was meeting with Dean."
It was a tedious assignment. An enormous number of lists of meetings and phone calls had to be retrieved from the White House Archives office. No detailed records of the subjects of conversations between the President and his aides had been kept, so the meetings had to be approximately reconstructed through newspaper clipping, from copies of the White House news summaries that Buchanan's office prepared daily, and from hand-written notes that the President sometimes passed on to Haldeman or Ziegler. The record, pitifully incomplete, was assembled in a three-ring binder for Ziegler. It was Dean versus the President.
Only two people were present in Ziegler's office that morning-Ziegler and Diane Sawyer. Judy Johnson was not there. She had taken the day off. And, according to both Ziegler and Sawyer, nothing described by the authors occurred that Sunday.
Ziegler had not shouted "Goddam the Washington Post!" For he had already read the Post at home. Nor did he assign his assistants to find out why the President was meeting with Dean.
"I was the only person present in the office with Ziegler," says Diane Sawyer. "Neither he nor I ever spoke to Woodward or Bernstein. Yet they manage to describe a scene, which never took place. I'm curious about their sources on this one."
Sawyer said she did get the assignment to put together a "binder" on John Dean-"but that was many weeks later," not that particular Sunday.
On the following page there appears an account of how, at Camp David, the President "read the newspapers that Sunday and found much to distress him." Then there are quotes from dispatches in both the Washington Post and The New York Times referring to what John Dean had told investigators about his meeting with the President.
"The fact is that the President never read newspapers at Camp David," his military aide Jack Brennan says. "He would read the daily news summaries which were transmitted from the EOB early each morning."
The authors' selective use of material is demonstrated by their failure to use a first-hand account supplied them by Bruce Herschensohn, who had worked closely with the President to ward off impeachment. Herschensohn says that Woodward had called him repeatedly for an interview. "I finally consented to see him, even though I was well aware that he intended to do a knife job."
They met at the Hawk and Dove Restaurant. "I told him of the forty-five minute meeting I had with the President on Wednesday, August 7. It was then that the President spoke of the possibility of resignation. And he gave his reasons, all of them, as I told Woodward, amounting to 'for the good of the country.' I disagreed and strenuously argued against his resignation."
Herschensohn emphasized to Woodward that he had found the President to be "very incisive, alert and in complete control."
On Kup's Show in Chicago, Herschensohn asked Woodward why he hadn't used any of this material in The Final Days. Woodward's response was that he couldn't find a second source to back up Herschensohn's story. Which, to use John Osborne's word, is "crop."
Despite the authors' claim to have "double-checked everything," the book abounds in errors. And this is surprising considering Woodstein's reputation as top-notch investigative reporters as well as the fact that they had considerable assistance. Their researchers included Scott Armstrong, formerly a Senate Watergate Committee investigator, and Al Kamen, a freelance writer. And some critics, most notably John Osborne, would like to know more about the contribution of "Alice Mayhew, our editor," who is thanked "for the hundreds of hours she spent with us and with this manuscript." In addition, the authors had full access to the library and other resources of the Washington Post.
Some of the errors, though tiny, are extraordinary. Gerald R. Ford pops up as Gerald L. Ford on page 461. Then, on page 100 there is a reference to "Ned Sullivan, whose wife and Mrs. Nixon were cousins..." It's Ned Sullivan and Mrs. Nixon who are cousins. On page 158, Clay T. Whitehead is described as a "Harvard Ph.D." Untrue. He's an M.I.T. Ph.D. On page 204, Roy Ash and Ken Cole are described as Nixon "senior political counselors." They had nothing to do with politics. Ash was budget adviser; Cole, domestic adviser. And (page 452) Frank Carlucci was not a former HEW Secretary; he was an Undersecretary.
On page 225, there is a description of Brezhnev and Nixon driving to the Soviet leader's "cliffside dacha in Orleans." There is no such place. The dacha is located in Orlando. The error is repeated in a lengthy footnote on the same page. (Ed. Note: 143 similar factual errors have been pointed out in a study by the U.S. Citizens Congress. Since one purpose in including small details is to demonstrate the depth of the authors' knowledge and build credibility, it is not nitpicking to point out how often the details are wrong.)
In their description of Nixon's 1974 trip to Egypt (pp. 217218), the authors report:
The official party traveled by motorcade to the Pals El Tin Palace, where the President hosted a banquet for Sadat... As he toasted Sadat, the President again remarked on the crowds. "There is an old saying that you can turn people out but you can't turn them on," he said. "They have touched our hearts, and I'm sure the hearts of millions of Americans who saw that welcoming on television."
Kissinger turned to Eagleburger and Scowcroft. "It's too bad that such crowds can't be turned out in the United States," he said. The three men laughed.
"That story is made up," General Brent Scowcroft, Kissinger's successor as the President's national security adviser, told me at the White House. "It never happened."
In the first place, he said, Lawrence Eagleburger was not even in Alexandria at the time. He had remained behind in Cairo. "As for me," Scowcroft continued, "I was sitting a hundred yards away from Kissinger, who was on the dais. The Secretary could hardly have turned to me and whispered anything."
Another example of Woodstein's slipshod reporting can be found on page 97. The episode involves the resignation of H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman as top presidential aides.
...The day after their departure, Nixon arrived at a Cabinet meeting trembling with anger: passing the offices of his former aides, he had found FBI agents stationed outside-to secure their papers and fries. It was an outrage, an insult to the integrity of two great and good men, Nixon said. Who had ordered the FBI agents posted?, he demanded. Who was it? He wanted them out of the government immediately, fired. He would see that somebody paid the price. (In fact, Garment was responsible; he had raised the matter with Richardson and Ruckelshaus, and they had agreed that agents should be posted immediately. All three kept quiet on the matter during the Cabinet meeting.)...
The reason Garment and Ruckelshaus "kept quiet" was that they did not attend the Cabinet meeting. And the President could hardly have passed Ehrlichman's office on the way to the meeting. Ehrlichman's office happened to be located on an upper floor of the White House.
When the Garment-Ruckelshaus error was called to their attention on Meet the Press, Woodward and Bernstein took umbrage at the aspersions cast on their accuracy. They insisted they had "quadruple" sources to prove that Ruckeishaus and Garment had indeed attended that particular Cabinet meeting. Only when they did further checking did they concede they were wrong. After which they announced they would correct the error in future editions of The Final Days.
They're going to have a lot more corrections to make. For example, on page 192, they report that prior to the U.S. invasion of Cambodia in the spring of 1970, many of the "liberal academics" on Kissinger's staff-among them Morton H. Halperin-voiced strong opposition. But Al Haig told them not to worry. "The Old Man will never go through with this." As it turned out, Nixon did.
But the fact was that Halperin did not attend that meeting. "They obviously made a mistake," Halperin told me. He had long before quit Kissinger's staff, though remaining on as a consultant, he said. After Cambodia, Halperin resigned as a consultant.
There was one touching scene in the East Room when the President said farewell to his staff, just prior to flying off to San Clemente (p. 454). It involved Nixon's valet, Manolo Sanchez. Woodstein described Sanchez as "weeping" as he listened to the President's words.
The problem with that simply is that Sanchez was not in the East Room at the time. He was waiting for the President in the helicopter on the White House lawn.
Bruce Herschensohn, however, was in the East Room and the authors did get that right. But they embroidered that simple fact as follows (p. 455):
Bruce Herschensohn, one of the last who opposed resignation, turned and said to no one in particular, "That's probably the real Nixon. It's a shame he couldn't have been like that more often."
"Where they got that quotation I don't know," says Herschensohn. "But I never said it, then or ever. In fact, I've never used the phrase 'the real Nixon' at any time. What I did say on later occasions was that I considered that speech to be the best President Nixon ever made. It's a small thing, perhaps, but it demonstrates the Woodstein flair for phoney dramatics."
After the President finished his speech, he and Mrs. Nixon moved downstairs (p. 456):
Ford and his wife were waiting. "Good luck, Mr. President," Nixon said to Ford, staring him down...
Since neither of the principals ever spoke to the authors about what happened on that very final day, one is left to wonder how the "dogged duo" had ascertained that Nixon had stared Ford down.
Again a small matter, perhaps, but one that makes the serious reader wonder about where fiction takes over from fact.
Frequently the authors picked up something said in jest and reported it seriously. As when, in discussing Rose Mary Woods and the eighteen-and-a-half minute tape gap (p. 351-352), they provided this footnote:
Privately Buchanan had told others, "Rose knows she erased a good part of it. She was protecting him. I've never asked her and she's never told me what happened.
It's not hard to figure. After Rose had erased the first part the Old Man would say, 'Oh, my goodness, Rose, somebody left the tape on.' "And at this point in telling the story Buchanan would imitate Nixon closing his eyes and pushing the button that erased the rest of the eighteen and a half minutes... When he got to the part about the President closing his eyes, Buchanan would laugh uproariously.
"I have no idea of where they could have gotten that quote," says Buchanan. "This was a matter that had been investigated in great depth at the time and, needless to say, I had no knowledge of what actually happened. I probably did joke about the tape gap with friends. And that's how they might have gotten it. But they promised to call me if they quoted me directly. They never did. Which demonstrates what kind of people they are."
What the book's dust jacket itself describes as, "novelistic detail", was never better illustrated than by Woodstein's description of how Ron Ziegler received the news of the Supreme Court's decision on the White House tapes (pp. 263-264):
Ziegler watched the televised announcement of the Supreme Court decision from his suite at the Surf and Sand overlooking the Pacific. As the morning breakers crashed a hundred yards below his window, he scratched some notes on a yellow legal pad. He knew he would be spending the morning with the President, fashioning some response...
He rode a borrowed Honda to the Nixon compound, arriving just after 9 a.m....
Gerrard gave him the morning newspapers, already marked in yellow to spot important material, and waited to be sure he hadn't lost the motorcycle key again. Ziegler didn't even glance at the papers. He shouted for his coffee, made a couple of notes on a legal pad and charged out the door, heading for Building A.
Haig's secretary, Muriel Hartley, was in no mood to see Ziegler, now or ever... She knew, though, that Haig often didn't want Ziegler in there.
Perhaps today might be different. The general had gone to the residence forty-five minutes earlier to brief the President and had just come back, his mouth set in a tight line. He was in his office with St. Clair and Joulwan, and they all looked very grim. The door between Haig's office and the President's was closed as Ziegler joined them...
Ziegler, who did not talk to Woodward and Bernstein, says they have the facts "all fouled up." The former White House press secretary said he did not learn of the Supreme Court decision from television. His assistant, Diane Sawyer, had brought in the wire copy on the story, which he quickly read. And Sawyer says she brought it to him in his office, not his suite.
"Now, usually I would borrow a Honda to drive over to the presidential compound," says Ziegler. "And that was well publicized. But on this day I rode over in a car."
And Ziegler usually proceeded to his own office to check messages while having coffee. But this day he went directly to Al Haig's office. By this time, according to Ziegler, Haig was aware of the decision of the High Court. But he had not been over to the residence to brief the President, as Woodstein reported. At about 9:00 a.m., Nixon called. It was then, according to Ziegler, that Haig told the President the news. The President asked Haig to come over.
Another example of "novelistic detail" was the account of Kissinger's doings the night Nixon decided to resign (pp. 423-424). This included the now famous scene of a sobbing President asking Kissinger to pray with him.
Nixon got down on his knees. Kissinger felt he had no alternative but to kneel down, too. The President prayed out loud, asking for help, rest, peace and love...
Finally the President struggled to his feet. He sat back down in his chair. The storm had passed. He had another drink...
At last Kissinger got up to leave. Nixon had never really asked as much of him as he had that night... Weak in the knees, his clothes damp from perspiration, Kissinger escaped...
As he walked through the West Wing corridor to his office, Kissinger thought he had never felt as close to or as far from Richard Nixon...
Eagleburger and Scowcroft were waiting. It was almost eleven. Kissinger looked somber and drained . . . He was clearly upset. To get control over his own tensions, Kissinger began talking about the encounter. The President was definitely resigning, he said.
"It was the most wrenching thing I have ever gone through in my life-hand holding," Kissinger added...
Scowcroft mentioned that he thought it significant that the President had turned to Kissinger for sustenance in his most awful moment. Not to Haig, not to any of the others.
"Henry," Eagleburger said, "at times I've thought you're not human. But I was wrong. I've never seen you so moved."
The phone rang. It was the President. Eagleburger picked up an extension to listen. That was the custom -Kissinger rarely took a call alone. Eagleburger was shocked. The President was slurring his words. He was drunk. He was out of control. "It was good of you to come up and talk, Henry," the President said. "I've made the decision, but you must stay. You must stay on for the good of the country."
Eagleburger could barely make out what the President was saying. He was almost incoherent. It was pathetic. Eagleburger felt ill and hung up.
The President had one last request: "Henry, please don't ever tell anyone that I cried and that I was not strong."
This is one of the sensational stories, which helped propel The Final Days into instant best sellerdom. It is a story that also helped create the image of a sobbing, drunken President who was "out of control." But how accurate is the Woodstein account?
Not very, according to Brent Scowcroft, who talked to me in the very White House office to which Kissinger repaired after his meeting with Nixon.
According to Scowcroft, Kissinger did not begin "talking about the encounter" when he returned from his session with Nixon. "It was obvious that Henry was deeply moved," says the General. "But he didn't say a word about what had taken place." And to this day Scowcroft has no idea of what had occurred.
As for Kissinger's telling them that the President was "definitely resigning," Scowcroft observed that both he and Eagleburger had known that fact some hours.
"And I have absolutely no recollection of commenting on the significance of the President turning to Kissinger, not Haig," Scowcroft went on.
Moreover, says Scowcroft, when the phone rang, Eagleburger picked it up and told Kissinger it was the President. But Eagleburger did not listen in on an extension, says Scowcroft. "Where Woodward and Bernstein got that, I don't know," he added. "It just isn't true." And there was nothing in Kissinger's remarks to the President which indicated that Nixon was "drunk" or "out of control," according to Scowcroft.
All this, according to the authors, occurred shortly after 11:00 p.m. Yet, they also report "at midnight, the President was still working on his resignation speech." Within the hour, therefore, the President must have quickly sobered up. For the authors also report (obviously from the official logs) that Nixon phoned Ziegler twice before 2:00 a.m. and again at 3:58 a.m. And between 4:15 and 5:07 a.m. the President talked to Ray Price four times to offer suggestions and additions to the speech. His last call to Ziegler was at 5:14 in the morning.
Both Ziegler and Price say they had no hint that the President had been drinking, as Woodstein claim. "He was in full control, well aware of what he wanted to say in his resignation speech." according to Price. "He was hardly a man out of control.'"
"The President was up by eight-thirty, after three hours of sleep." Woodstein reported (p. 427). Then, on page 439, this passage:
Manolo Sanchez was despondent. He too had been drinking. As he wandered over to the EOB, he met Wayne Valis in the corridor. "The President can't sleep at night so he sleeps in the afternoon." Sanchez told him.
Valis says this is a misrepresentation of what he had told Woodstein. "I quoted Manolo as saying that the President had been up all night working on his speech and was at that moment taking a short nap," Valis told me. "In other words, this was just one episode Manolo was talking about. Yet, from this, they generalized to make it appear that the President's sleeplessness was a congenital condition. I consider this type of reporting to be reprehensible."
There is further evidence of an inability of the authors to get a quote straight. On page 382, a conversation between Ben Stein, a speechwriter, and Julie Eisenhower is reported. The subject was whether the President should resign.
Her voice was sad, but she did not cry. She said that her father had wanted to resign, but it was her impression that the family had succeeded in talking him out of it. It was important that he stay and fight, to make his enemies aware of what they had done. "So in future years they'll see they were wrong, and that will make them not do it again."
But it was not Julie who had said that it was important for the President to stay on and fight, etc. It was Stein.
Stein, who was interviewed by Bernstein, a former neighbor in Silver Spring, Maryland, attributes the mix up to "sloppiness." As when the authors have another speechwriter, David Gergen, approaching him on some matter (p. 144). Actually, it was the other way around, as Stein had explained to Bernstein.
But of more concern to Stein was the license, which the authors took in describing several of his comments at White House meetings. Thus, on page 139, his "tone" in talking to Ken Clawson is depicted as "contemptuous."
"I never was contemptuous to Clawson or anyone else," says Stein.
And on the following page, Stein is described as asking a question of lawyer James St. Clair, "his voice dripping sarcasm."
"As I told Bernstein, I asked a question of St. Clair, but I did not say my voice dripped with sarcasm," says Stein, his voice not dripping sarcasm.
Ray Price had a similar complaint. On page 137, there is an account of a speechwriting session he had with the President at Camp David:
Price struggled for words that did not come easily. "Mr. President, I've never admired you more than for the way you've held up under the pressure this past year."
The President seemed embarrassed and uncomfortable. He acknowledged that there had been pressure...
Price did tell Woodstein of the episode, but he never said anything about his struggling for words that did not come easily. "They just made that up." says Price. As for the President's seeming embarrassed and uncomfortable, that, too was a product of Woodstein's "collective imagination."
As was their account of how Nixon selected Gerald Ford as his Vice President, following the Agnew resignation (p.28):
Haig and Buzhardt...had pushed hard for Ford's nomination over Nixon's first choice, ex-Governor John B. Connally of Texas...
They had been persuasive, and Nixon had sent Ford's name to the Hill. The President could not resist one final jab, however. He had sent Buzhardt one of the two pens he had used to sign the Ford nomination. It arrived with the message, "Here's the damn pen I signed Jerry Ford's nomination with."
It was Nixon who came up with Ford's name, after canvassing his staff as to Vice Presidential possibilities. Other names proposed had been Rockefeller, Reagan and Connally. But Nixon decided on Ford largely because he would not have any major problem getting the then minority leader's nomination confirmed by Congress.
As for the pens used to sign the Ford nomination, they went to the archives. That's the memory of Steve Bull, who handled such ceremonies for the President. And, adds Bull, there was no message to Buzhardt concerning Ford. If there had been, Bull would have known about it.
The "fictionalizing" of events troubles Steve Bull, who had been Nixon's former personal aide. As an example, he cites the account appearing on page 303:
A little before six, the direct phone from the White House in Bull's home rang. Bull had arrived home only a few moments before and was tired. Who the...is this, he wondered as he picked up the receiver. He waited for the operator to identify the caller, but the voice on the line was the President's. Nixon wanted Bull to come back in at about eight and set up one or two more tapes for him.
As Bull had told Woodstein researcher Scott Armstrong, he did get a call on the White House line in his home, as described in the book. But he most definitely did not wonder, "who the...", it was on the other end. "I was well aware it was the President," he told me.
Bull had cooperated fully with Woodstein because they had informed him, among other things, that they wanted to write an "objective" book, one that would steer clear of gossip.
But gossip, unsubstantiated as well as irrelevant, is what The Final Days abounds in. Perhaps the most sensational (and what Senator Goldwater described to me as "tasteless") "revelations" had to do with Mrs. Nixon (pp. 165-166):
She and her husband had not really been close since the early 1960s, the First Lady confided to one of her White House physicians. She had wanted to divorce him after his 1962 defeat in the California gubernatorial campaign. She tried, and failed, to win his promise not to seek office again. Her rejection of his advances since then had seemed to shut something off inside Nixon. But they had stuck it out...
The White House physicians were worried about the First Lady. She had returned from a South American trip in April 1973 distraught and even more underweight than usual. She was becoming more and more reclusive, and drinking heavily. On several occasions members of the household staff came upon her in the pantry of the second-floor kitchen, where the liquor was kept, in the early afternoon. Awkwardly, she had tried to hide her tumbler of bourbon on the rocks.
There were two doctors at the White House-Walter Tkach and William Lukash, neither of whom talked to Woodstein. And both are horrified at the impression given by the book that either may have violated the sanctity of the consulting room by discussing patient problems with outsiders.
"I am infuriated by the innuendoes in this book," says Dr. Tkach. "And I can assure you that what they have published about Mrs. Nixon is absolute nonsense. But what can one do about irresponsible young journalists who have absolutely no regard for the troth-except spank them?"
Dr. Tkach said that Scott Armstrong, who was then doing research for the book, did try to see him. The White House physician suggested that he put his questions in writing. "But I never heard from him," Tkach said.
Dr. Tkach has no memory of being "worried" about Mrs. Nixon following her return from an official visit to Latin America. "All I can say is that the First Lady, though tired after a grueling trip, was in generally good shape," says Dr.
Tkach. "If she was 'distraught,' as reported in the book, she did not show it to me."
Where the authors obtained the story about Mrs. Nixon wanting to divorce her husband is another mystery. According to her closest friend, Helene Drown, the story "makes no sense." And the evidence so indicates. Shortly after the 1962 defeat, the Nixons along with the Drowns began planning a long-deferred trip abroad. They brought in a travel consultant from American Express who made all the arrangements. That spring, the Nixons and Drowns took off for a grand tour of the continent, a trip lasting nearly three months. They were accompanied by the Nixon girls, Tricia and Julie, as well as the Drowns' daughter, Mareen.
In the interim, the Nixons were also planning their move to New York. They had put their Trousdale Estates house up for sale.
"I was in almost daily contact with Pat," says Mrs. Drown. "We saw each other frequently. So I know that the divorce story is absolutely absurd."
Curiously, Woodstein never made any effort to talk to the Drowns, whose close friendship with the Nixons has been well publicized. There is only one reference to Helene in the book. The authors place her at a dinner at the home of Julie and David Eisenhower (p. 309). Mrs. Nixon was there too, and the authors describe Mrs. Nixon as not wanting to talk about the impeachment proceedings. "Well," says Mrs. Drown, "none of the others wanted to talk about them either."
What makes the Drowns important, as a source for anyone seeking to write about "the final days", is that they were frequent guests at the White House all through that troubled period. In fact, Helene Drown was there for ten days just prior to the resignation-an important fact not mentioned by Woodstein. And Mrs. Drown spent most of that time with Mrs. Nixon.
"Which is why I resent the dreadful gossip about Pat being reclusive and drinking heavily. It just isn't true. And I dare say I would know more about it than those two young men. Of course, it was not the best of times. But Pat conducted herself superbly."
Also annoyed by Woodstein's references to Pat Nixon is Barry Goldwater. "That kind of stuff is garbage," says the Senator. "I've known Mrs. Nixon for an awful long time: and I've never seen her drunk. She is a lovely and gracious lady; and that crap could well have been left out of the book."
The other persons who had very close contact with Mrs. Nixon during "the final days" were her social secretary. Lucy Winchester, and White House Curator, Clem Conger. And both told columnist Betty Beale that there was no way Mrs. Nixon could have been "drinking heavily" without their being able to sense it. Says Mrs. Winchester:
'I saw her the firm thing in the morning and the last thing in the afternoon and I talked to her on the phone during the day. I would see her in the morning without her make-up on when there's no way to hide the signs of heavy drinking such as puffiness around the eyes. She would have an event nearly every afternoon. She never missed one and she was always right on the target-always on time. She would have done all her homework for each event. She knew exactly what good deeds each group had done that needed to be recognized and she was very, alert and very, gracious.
"I would go up with her after an event and we would rehash it over a glass of tea. There was never any hint of even the scent of liquor. I felt perfectly free to call her at any time and ask to see her and she would say. 'Come up.' As far as I am, concerned, they (Woodward and Bernstein) should put in front of their description of her: 'Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.'"
Conger, who saw Mrs. Nixon at all hours of the day several times a week, said, "The most I ever saw her take was one light drink of bourbon before dinner. She was always so neat, so orderly and so in command of the situation she could not have been drinking."
In their foreword, Woodward and Bernstein told of the 394 people whom they interviewed over many months. But they add, "A few, including President Nixon, declined to be interviewed." But those "few" constituted the principal players in the Nixon tragedy. Besides the President, they included Mrs. Nixon, Julie Eisenhower, Tricia and Ed Cox, Rose Mary Woods, Ron Ziegler, Manolo Sanchez and military aide Jack Brennan.
They did spend a half-hour with Henry Kissinger. Two of the Secretary's aides were present and the interview was recorded. And the tape shows that Kissinger was more circumspect than usual. In fact, in several phone calls to Nixon, the Secretary emphatically repudiated most everything attributed to him in the book.
At the same time, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, sent a cable to Nixon, saying that "I... want to reassure you that I have not contributed in any way to the book..." He spelled this out in a letter to a close friend. Dated April 15, 1976, the letter read in part:
With respect to the Woodward-Bernstein book, I too am depressed and appalled. As you know, I have steadfastly declined to contribute to any post mortems which in my view would never be objectively viewed in the current environment. This was all the more true in the case of Woodward and Bernstein. For this reason, you can imagine my disgust with the plethora of so called direct quotes, sometimes the product of alleged one-on-one discussions with members of the President's team, who should have known better.
As one who participated in the conduct of our Middle East policies, it would be impossible for me to accept the alleged anti-Semitism attributed to President Nixon. The book also suggests that Henry and I were fundamentally alienated. Nothing could be further from the truth since our relationship has been one of unbroken warmth from the very outset.
As you proceed with the book (I am only halfway through myself) I caution you to be most careful in accepting both its tone and underlying premises.
In a letter to me, also dated April 15, Haig had this to say:
I want to assure you personally that I did not contribute to the contents of the book despite repeated efforts by the author to get me to do so. Mr. Woodward even traveled to Europe where, in the presence of a note taking witness, I declined to comment in any way on the last days of the Nixon presidency. This past week in San Antonio, I reiterated this fact publicly and emphasized the imprecision of the book's revelations. This was carded by UPI.*
Haig and Kissinger are central in The Final Days. Unable to obtain information from either of them, the authors engage in mind reading, a form of psycho-journalism. Their "words," "deeds" and even "thoughts" dominate the Nixon saga. As Kissinger once asked Woodstein boss Ben Bradlee, "Just how did they know what I was thinking?" It was a good question, one still unanswered.
Here is a Woodstein version of a conversation between Nixon and Haig in the last days (pp. 403-404):
...The two men had been alone.
"You fellows, in your business," the President began, meaning the Army, which he always seemed to consider Haig's real business, "you have a way of handling problems like this. Somebody leaves a pistol in the drawer." Haig waited.
"I don't have a pistol," the President said sadly, as if it were one more deprivation in a long history of under privilege. As if he were half asking to be given one. It was the same tone he used when he talked about his parents not having had any money.
This was one of Woodstein's more extraordinary feats. Without having interviewed either Nixon or Haig, the authors are able to set down the President's exact words, noting the "tone" of his voice as well as describing the meaning of his "tone."
The authors continue:
Afterward, Haig called the President's doctors. He ordered that all pills be denied the President, and that the sleeping pills and tranquilizers he already had be taken away.
Dr. Tkach says he never received any such request from Haig. "It's bullbleep," he adds.
*Haig's meeting with Woodward was short and not so sweet. According to an unimpeachable source, Woodward walked into Haig's office and said, "General, I can make you either a hero or a bum. Which is it to be?" Haig told the intrepid Watergate sleuth to get lost.
As for the authors' contention that Nixon was on the brink of suicide, Dr. Tkach says, "It's a damned lie and they must know it's a lie."
The authors conclude with a statement, which, to them, is a fact: "So Haig had taken steps to make sure the President did not have the means to kill himself."
But, as Dr. Tkach notes, "The proof that this is nonsense lies in the fact that no medication was ever removed from the President's living quarters. Those boys are spinning fairy tales."
Dr. Tkach is particularly incensed about the sentence that claims that he "relied on those around the President, particularly his valet. Manolo Sanchez for information" about Nixon's health (p. 213)
"Not once in the thirteen and a half years that I served Mr. Nixon did I ever ask anyone around him for such information," the doctor says. "It's absurd to suggest I would consult with Manolo on medical problems."
Dr. Tkach also takes issue with Woodstein's analysis of Nixon's trip to the Middle East in the spring of 1974. It was in Salzburg, en route to Cairo, that Dr. Tkach discovered that the President had phlebitis (pp. 213-214):
Leaving his patient, Tkach hurried to Haig's room. He shook as he told him the diagnosis. "I am going to order him to go home," Tkach said, and he bolted for the conference room, where Bull and Henkel had established a temporary office. It was ornately decorated, with pictures of Hitler hanging on the walls: the Fuhrer had used the room during the war, carving up Europe on a map.
"I never told Haig I was going to order the President home.", says Tkach. "A physician doesn't order a President to do anything. The President told me that the trip was most necessary, to assure peace in the Middle East, and I wasn't about to argue with him."
Where Woodstein got the idea that there were pictures of Hitler hanging in the conference room puzzles both Dr. Tkach and Steve Bull. Again an example of vivid imagination. Says Bull: "What I had said was that I had heard that that particular room may have been used by Hitler during the war. But I didn't say anything about any pictures. There just weren't any."
Woodstein's thesis is that the trip was undertaken because "from Nixon's vantage point, the Middle East looked better and better compared to Washington" (p. 208). Then on page 209:
The next morning, as Air Force One headed for Salzburg, Austria, Henry Kissinger was still brooding. He was with Eagleburger and Scowcroft...They could see how terribly worn Kissinger looked. Scowcroft thought Nixon's trip should have been postponed for six weeks or so, to give Kissinger time to recover from his exhausting month in the Mideast. The wire-tapping accusations had frazzled him. But the President wanted to get out of the country to strike the pose of world peacemaker. Kissinger's problems would just have to wait.
"All of this is total fiction," comments General Scowcroft. "I never thought or said to anyone that the trip should have been postponed. That's just made up. As is the business about Kissinger's problems having to wait. The truth is that this was a most urgent trip. It was the first time since the founding of Israel that a President of the United States could visit all the countries in the Middle East. It was a major step for American diplomacy. The trip made great sense: it was the proper thing to do."
On page 210:
Aboard the plane, Kissinger told his aides that he saw an endless attack being mounted against him. Eagleburger and Scowcroft both recognized that Kissinger had shaded the truth in his testimony.
"Absolute nonsense!" says Scowcroft. "Neither Eagleburger nor I ever believed that Henry had ever shaded the truth in testifying about those wiretaps."
According to Scowcroft, Woodward had "tried to tell me that all through this period the President was disintegrating mentally. I told him that in all my dealings with him I could see no such signs. And I saw him regularly. The fact was the President was in total command. Which, in retrospect, is surprising considering the enormous pressures he was facing."
Needless to say, none of this comes through in The Final Days.
On page 314:
Scowcroft... recalled a conversation he and Kissinger had had in the spring. "There must be real dirt on the tapes." Kissinger had said to him, "otherwise the President wouldn't be fighting so hard." Scowcroft had suggested that perhaps the President was fighting for the principle-to preserve the confidentiality of the office. It was true, Kissinger had replied, that the President cared about the office. "But he would gladly sacrifice the principle to save Richard Nixon. He-cares about the office, but he cares about Richard Nixon more."...
Says Scowcroft: "This is unbelievable. None of those conversations ever took place - at least with me."
According to Scowcroft, he was never asked about the conversations during the half-hour session he granted Woodward.
Then, looking out on the White House lawn, he said, "It all reads like a novel. And I find myself one of the characters.