Send us a Text Message.With this episode we will be introducing our tapes series, this is the first of four such episodes in a row. These will be episodes that center on tapes from either meetings or phone calls involving the President and the various Watergate defendants and other Nixon Administration players.  These first four episodes center on the most damning of the Watergate tapes involving the President and used by the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office.  Again, no defense attorney was ever given a chance to defend the President nor make his case, nor, most importantly, point out the exculpatory portions of the very tapes the Prosecutor's were only using snippets and sections of in order to derail the President. Here on our show, unlike the situation our President faced in 1974, we believe in FAIRNESS!! So we have provided as much of the tape, or the entire tape available,   for you to listen to and make up your own mind about. In some of the episodes we also read to you introductions of the tapes by a Liberal Website called "Itapeyoubored" , in which we allow the common interpretation promoted by Nixon's most ardent detractors to be heard, and then I give my own analysis of what you are about to listen too.  In these episodes, we want to go ahead and make you aware that whenever it is a tape of a meeting rather than a phone call, President Nixon himself can be hard to hear. This is especially true in our first two tapes in our series. These are also two of the most damning of the tapes used against the President.  They are the infamous "Cancer on the Presidency" conversation involving President Nixon and John Dean with Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman joining the meeting and a later meeting in which Bob Haldeman and President Richard Nixon meet later to try and reconstruct the earlier meeting. This entire first episode in our tapes series  is the "Cancer on the Presidency" meeting with John Dean. You will hear the famous line about coming up with money to pay Howard Hunt. It was the most sensational of all the tapes used to force the President to resign, save the smoking gun tape. However, as we have seen before when dealing with evidence handled by the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office (the Sinister Force) things are not always what they seem. This tape is over an hour and a half long and what you won't hear is an order to pay Howard Hunt, and what you will hear, more than once, is a President who thinks those on his staff that may have been involved in a criminal act need to step forward and "come clean". Another case of things not always being what they seem, nor history being correctly written.

Send us a Text Message."Charles W. Colson, the Republican political operative who boasted that he would “walk over my own grandmother” to ensure the reelection of President Richard M. Nixon and went on to found a worldwide prison fellowship ministry after his conversion to evangelical Christianity, .......Mr. Colson’s reputation as a “dirty tricks artist” overshadowed his achievements as a darkly brilliant political strategist. He helped lay the groundwork for the Nixon landslide of November 1972 by appealing to disgruntled Democrats and blue-collar minority voters.A self-described “hatchet man” for Nixon, Mr. Colson compiled the notorious “enemies list” of politicians, journalists and activists perceived as threats to the White House. And most fatefully, he helped orchestrate illegal activities to discredit former Pentagon official Daniel Ellsberg, who was suspected of leaking a top-secret history of the Vietnam War to the New York Times and The Washington Post. "   ------ Washington Post Obituary written by Michael Dobbs This is what most everyone thinks they know about Chuck Colson. What has been the most stunning thing I have learned about the Watergate Scandal has been how little the Prosecutor's actually had to make a case on Chuck Colson. The case was weak and they all knew it. But Leon Jaworski, while simultaneously working to protect William Bittman from an overwhelming case of guilt, was determined to see Chuck Colson imprisoned. In this episode we will let you listen in on how the case was maneuvered, and how Chuck Colson was scared into a plea deal. We will also introduce you to Chuck Colson, what his role was in the Nixon White House, and finally you will hear his own opinion on what happened to him at the hands of the Sinister Force of Watergate. A Sinister Force who literally stole a portion of this man's life and destroyed his reputation too.

Send us a Text Message.It's February of 1974 and the Special Prosecutor's Office,  the Sinister Force of Watergate, has gone to work to lay down their indictments of those accused of orchestrating the cover up of the Watergate burglary. But they also have fanned out into other areas of interest and zeroed in on targets for no other reason than for the effective leadership they have provided for the President they loathed. Here you will listen in as a Grand Juror talks about the reaction of his fellow Grand Jurors to being told they could not indict the President. Hear as the Prosecutor's develop a plan to move the evidence they have gathered, without a Defense Attorney ever being present, from the Grand Jury to the Watergate Judge, an on to the Judiciary Committee of the Congress. The Committee investigation  was then just forming and its lead staffer, John Doar,  was an old friend of the Prosecutor's second  in command, Henry Ruth. This episode also zeroes in on another potential target.  That of E. Howard Hunt's Attorney, William Bittman. An old Washington hand and protector of former President Lyndon Johnson. He had aided his client in shaking down the White House for more and more money to pay for legitimate expenses and enormous legal bills too, some of it  owed to.... William Bittman. The entire Special Prosecutor's Staff wanted to indict Bittman but another old LBJ protector stepped in to protect him. His name was Leon Jaworski, The Special Prosecutor himself.  A determined friend for  William Bittman, no matter what the staff said, and a determined enemy of Chuck Colson, no matter what the staff said. No one would care enough about Justice nor the long term destruction to the reputation of Chuck Colson to protect him,  even though he had barely if at all been involved in any of what the office was supposed to be investigating.

Send us a Text Message.This episode begins with a simple statement that says it all about the Watergate Scandal from Nixon Speech Writer Ray Price "We screwed up so badly because we really never knew what we were being accused of"And that was by design. In this episode we look at the radicalization of Leon Jaworski, made largely possible by a tape of President Nixon giving advice to Bob Haldeman and John Dean on how to answer questions in a way that would not allow them to be charged with perjury. Now as bad as that may sound on face value  it is routine advice that every lawyer in America gives to clients.  You see you have to be able to recall things precisely and if you can't it can be used against you later. You need only ask Dwight Chapin the price of not recalling details of events when asked (he was convicted of  giving misleading statements to the Grand Jury  for statements that may not have been precisely correct)What we also learn, and was hidden from the public  for nearly a half century, is that Leon Jaworski was having issues controlling his rabid staff even as he came to believe in the President's guilt.  After a press conference in which Press Secretary Ron Ziegler expressed his view that the Prosecutor's Staff was out of control, and out to get the President, a rebuttal came flying out of the office now headed by Leon Jaworski. Jaworski in an open letter to Ron Ziegler professed his total faith in the honesty , integrity, and fairness of his new found colleagues, all of whom he had inherited from his predecessor, Archibald Cox. But newly uncovered memos show a totally different story brewing in the background that begs the question did Leon Jaworski  even write the very letter that glossed over the growing belief that Richard Nixon had, that the staff of that office intended to do whatever it took to get him. The media embraced Jaworski and touted to an interested public that he had vouched for the Special Prosecutor's staff as honest and ethical investigators of the truth. They pounded the wounded President every day driving his once lofty approval numbers down to record lows. All setting the stage to undo an unprecedented mandate of the people the previous November. All of this as Jaworski in private did battle with his own lead staffers about inventive ways to stack the deck on Richard Nixon, using secret meetings with the trial Judge, John Sirica, sleight of hand to the Grand Jury, and taking advantage of a long friendship between John Doar, now the lead staffer on the House Judiciary Committee looking into impeachment,  and Henry Ruth that stretched back to the days they were neighbors in New York. They did it  all with one goal in mind;   How do we nail Richard Nixon.  It appears very early on in the tenure of Leon Jaworski,  that things are not always what they seem.....

Send us a Text Message.In this special edition we lay the foundation for much of the story to come. At various times we will be listening in on history and truly examining the tapes of the Richard Nixon Administration. We will be focusing on the time period in which the most question has been raised about President Nixon's personal involvement in the cover up of the Watergate burglary.  After his "Cancer on the Presidency" conversation with John Dean and subsequent conversations into late May of 1973.We have made this special edition in order to explain what we are doing and to help not confuse  our listeners because we will be bouncing back and forth between the events unfolding in 1974 and the fact that almost all the evidence and focus will be on events that occured after March 21, 1973.  that is the universally accepted time that both President Nixon and his chief accuser, John Dean , agree that he had set down to inform the President fully as to what had been going on.  A little later we will be hearing the entire Cancer on the Presidency conversation.This episode will explain what we are doing, and also focus on a figure who is leaving the scene just as we begin the tale end of 1973 and entering 1974,  Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Our assessments of him will probably surprise you, and in telling his final story as Special Prosecutor we will  begin to show the little details that point to the manipulative powers of the partisan staff he has assembled. How he personally had come to the conclusion that the one person who needed to pay for the criminality of Watergate was,  John Dean, and how the staff he put together was more concerned with destroying Richard Nixon than actually finding justice in the case of Watergate.Finally, we thought it only fair to take a second to let John Dean tell his version of the story and what he felt he himself was trying to achieve by the actions he took that helped bring down the Nixon Administration. What we found was a fascinating interview on the ABC News program "Nightline with Ted Koppel" from December 2000. It was just after the National Archives started releasing the Nixon tapes for the public to hear.  It is an opportunity for John Dean to give his defense of Watergate, The Dean Defense.Support My WorkIf you love the show, the easiest way to show your support is by leaving us a positive rating with a review. You can also tell your family and friends about " Randal Wallace Presents : Nixon and Watergate " too

Send us a Text Message.In our third episode in our look at the various people whose oral histories we will be focusing on during our next two seasons of shows we leave behind the events of October 1973 and look back on who these people are and how they got to be players in the Watergate Scandal.  This episode will concentrate on five people, Henry Ruth, Jill Wine Banks, Richard Ben Venisti , Alexander Haig and Ray Price. Three of them are Special Prosecutors and two worked for President Nixon. One other person who worked for President Nixon, Geoff Shepard , we have devoted an earlier entire show into profiling.  This show will allow you to listen in on their earlier careers and how they came to have the positions they held. It is a fascinating look at how people build their careers and what influences their decision making during a historic moment in our nation's history. You will also very subtly learn tidbits of information that will come to be very important later. The most important is the long standing relationship between Henry Ruth , the second in command at the Special Prosecutor's office, and John Doar, the lead lawyer and staffer for the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives for the inquiry into the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.  It is a relationship that will grow to be of monumental importance, and may be the key to how secret Grand Jury evidence, normally sealed, gathered without defense attorneys' being present, in which only  the Prosecutors control access to the Grand Jury members, could be moved to the committee inquiring as to whether there would be grounds to impeach a duly elected President of the United States.  All of which was done without the benefit of a Defense Attorney having so much as the ability to raise an objection or ask a question. This is the first layer of a foundation of alleged misconduct that will stagger you, subtly  hidden in this oral history of Henry Ruth.

Send us a Text Message.In this second episode re-chronicling the Saturday Night Massacre a very disturbing picture will begin to emerge about the Watergate Special Prosecutor's office. You will begin to see a pattern of of behaviour where paranoia, arrogance, and an overall belief in the correctness of their cause emerges. That latter shows itself in decisions that get made where they themselves are willing to take matters into their own hands, without even consulting the very person who is supposed to be in charge of their office. Listen as they proudly discuss removing evidence from the office, weeks before the showdown that led to Archibald Cox's termination. The belief that they could defy the Federal Bureau of Investigation officers who had been sent to the office, even threatening violence at one point at the officers. They admit to sneaking more evidence out in the underwear of one of the staffers wives, they imply that they believe the FBI would ransack their files even though they later have to admit that at no time did that ever occur. They also openly discuss the contempt they held the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, even as he assumed the awesome responsibility of acting Attorney General and worked diligently to protect their jobs even as he had to carry out the order from the President to fire the Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. The picture that emerges is one of an out of control office with no respect for any person of authority over them whether it be a President they had targeted as a criminal, the former Attorney General that they accused of not acting in good faith, the new Acting Attorney General who protected their job, or even the man they were supposed to be working for who they lectured on how to conduct a criminal investigation and hid actions they took upon themselves , by removing evidence from the office weeks before a confrontation with the President had even occurred. And it will get worse from here.

Send us a Text Message.In this episode we are going to step back to October of 1973. The singular event that changes everything in Watergate was the Saturday Night Massacre. When we originally told the story we did so from the overall perspective of the Nixon White House and the news media that covered it. We travel back in this episode and let you hear the story from the oral histories of the members of the Special Prosecutor's office whose boss was fired. It is, we thought, the best way to introduce you to several people whose oral histories will take you to the very end of our Podcast Documentary look at Richard Nixon. While this episode centers more on the Special Prosecutors you will hear from two top level Nixon staffers, Ray Price and an oral history of Alexander Haig, read by me. You will also hear from Elliot Richardson, Williams Ruckelshaus, and Robert Bork. But at the end you will get a play by play from three members of the special prosecutor's office we have only brushed upon in our earlier episodes. They are the number two man in the office, Henry Ruth, who will one day become the Special Prosecutor,  along with Richard Ben Veniste, and Jill Wine Banks.  It will give you some insight as to what it was like for those in the office on the night of the firing of Archibald Cox. This is the first of three episodes centered on the people of the Watergate Scandal and their roles in it.

Send us a Text Message.It is January 1974, and the nation is all a buzz over two missing conversations and an 18 and a half minute gap on subpoenaed tapes from the White House. Judge Sirica has demanded that the tapes all be turned over to him. It is a no win scenario for the White House and for the first time they are losing the public relations war.  The gap would be one of the enduring mysteries of Watergate.Years later a couple of investigators would attempt to resolve the mystery of "who done it?" with , in my opinion, a less than satisfying answer complete with lots of unprovable innuendo.  The National Archives too would attempt to figure out if there was more to the notes that Bob Haldeman left behind that may give a clue about what was discussed in the famous meeting.  It seems it was a mystery the public never tired of trying tp resolve. In the end, the more likely and plausible answer is offered up by Geoff Shepard, who was there, a member of the White House staff who dealt directly with the tapes and the people transcribing the tapes. The machine in question, the Uher 5000, had a history of various recording issues and there is some evidence of a faulty plug in the wall of Rose Mary Woods' small working office.  Here in this episode you will get to hear every version of what could of happened that I could find, but if you are a believer in the old adage the most likely version is the least complicated one, you will probably be right. However, this is one mystery we will likely never know the answer too. There are also other issues on the front burner in January of 1974. One of them is a growing Energy Crisis, that grew to a serious crisis over the winter of 1974. In this episode we revisit a symposium with the major players as they remember the crisis and how the President dealt with it. We also feature an oral history with James Schlesinger , the cabinet member who had to help develop the strategy to combat the issue. In it he talks about the environmental President who is so responsible for how clean our air and water is today as he sought solutions to those problems and he moved us closer towards energy independence as well. We also hear how Watergate began to hamper every other initiative the administration was working on as 1974 began and President Nixon once again took to the stage for his  State of the Union address. He was under siege over a scandal that was crippling his administration even as our Union was the strongest it had ever been in its nearly 200 year history under the leadership Richard Nixon  had provided.

Send us a Text Message.This is our second episode where we listen to lectures from Geoff Shepard that deals directly with two of the most important, and frankly, sinister factors that led to the downfall of Richard Nixon. Judge John Sirica, often portrayed as the hero of Watergate, was in fact a known attention seeker with one of the worst records of any Judge on the D.C. Court. He was famous for disregarding the rights of defendants. It is combination of these weaknesses and his desire to play the hero, all fed to him by private meetings he was having with those interested in seeing that Richard Nixon would eventually be politically hurt by the case. It is a damning indictment of his behavior on the Bench that had it been known at the time would have led to his disbarment.  Then we get a look at the Watergate Special Prosecutors Task Force, a team of lawyers we have labeled the Sinister Force of Watergate. They were formed with only one target in mind and they never hid it. That target was Richard Nixon and over these lectures you will see a case form that should scare any person who has ever thought that somehow they could end up in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system. This is an excellent overview of the way things unfolded that led to the resignation of President Nixon. It is following this road map, complete with historical documents and various news reports from the time period that our podcast will soon begin to move you through the events of early 1974 that would lead to indictments of the President's top aids and the naming of President Nixon as an unindicted Co-Conspirator on March 1, 1974. Links to lectures and Website below: 1. https://youtu.be/hZIF0oSXBJE  Mysteries of Watergate Lecture Nixon Library  May 29, 20102. https://youtu.be/qXA2T23yoFU  Geoff Sheppard lecture Richard Nixon Library  August 11, 20153. https://youtu.be/9EPgLIWpFKA    Geoff Shepard - Special Prosecutors: Yesterday and TodayNovember 21, 2018 St. Vicente College 4. https://youtu.be/gHRv7WG7yTM  Watergate lecture at Hillsdale College  November 6, 2018*** For more information please go to the following website ShepardonWatergate,com

Send us a Text Message.In this first of two episodes,  we have culled several important points on the case that Geoff Shepard has laid out in his three books from several lectures he has made that are available on the internet and at his site. The links to which are below. This episode centers on various theories of Watergate that have been out there for a number of years, the role of Senator Ted Kennedy and his various staffers, and finally a focus on the role of former White House Counsel to the President,  John Dean. This is an excellent overview of the way things unfolded that led to the resignation of President Nixon. It is following this road map, complete with historical documents and various news reports from the time period that our podcast will soon begin to move you through the events of early 1974 that would lead to indictments of the President's top aids and the naming of President Nixon as an unindicted Co-Conspirator on March 1, 1974. Links to lectures and Website below: 1. https://youtu.be/hZIF0oSXBJE  Mysteries of Watergate Lecture Nixon Library  May 29, 20102. https://youtu.be/qXA2T23yoFU  Geoff Sheppard lecture Richard Nixon Library  August 11, 20153. https://youtu.be/9EPgLIWpFKA    Geoff Shepard - Special Prosecutors: Yesterday and TodayNovember 21, 2018 St. Vicente College 4. https://youtu.be/gHRv7WG7yTM  Watergate lecture at Hillsdale College  November 6, 2018*** For more information please go to the following website ShepardonWatergate,com

Send us a Text Message.Who in the World is Geoff Shepard?This show is an attempt to introduce you to him and exactly who he is. We have discussed him at various times in our 1973 episodes but this as an indepth look at who he is and why he is a man of unquestioned stature. I also wanted to put this show together because of my own experience with coming to learn about this man and his work.  I also wanted to address the usually skillful way the other side of this debate undermines everyone with a different viewpoint in the eyes of the public and how it actually usually works, and for a brief while even with me. It's also a way to keep a skillful eye on current events too.The first time I had ever heard of Geoff Shepard I was arguing with a former anchor at my local television station over drinks.  Since the advent of social media I have developed a reputation as a rabid Nixon defender.  My friend, who was on WPDE - TV 15 in Myrtle Beach, was not a Nixon fan. Over the course of our argument he said something along the lines of me believing looney conspiracy theories, and through out Geoff Shepard's name. I had never heard of him but was aware that a little cottage industry of hairbrained conspiracy theories had cropped up over Watergate and various other historic events from the Lincoln Assassination to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, to the Bermuda Triangle for that matter.  But for me after the back and forth with the anchorman, I mostly forgot about it. A while later I got to talking with a friend of mine who was the Assistant City Attorney for the City of Myrtle Beach. He was the young man who had broken up the fist fight years before between our Mayor Mark McBride and a City Councilman Wayne Gray in executive session.  That fight had made national news at the time.  The Assistant City Attorney had since moved on before I was elected, but we became friendly acquaintances. He had seen some of my posts on Facebook about President Nixon and had told me about his own legal work with Geoff Shepard and how Shepard had told him all about his time working with Richard Nixon. Then he sent me an article that had been in The Atlantic Magazine. It was a fascinating look at what had really happened in Watergate.  That is when I realized that there may be more to this man than what the anchorman had portrayed to me earlier.  When Geoff Shepard's second book came out "The Real Watergate Scandal (Collusion , Conspiracy and the plot that brought down Nixon) "  I went out and bought a copy. It was a stunning, shocking, mesmerizing book that I almost highlighted from cover to cover. It was one of the best books on Richard Nixon and Watergate I had ever read.  So I did some research on the author.  What I discovered was he is a very serious man, and more importantly, a very credible one with a long resume of experience both as part of the Nixon Administration an after.  So with this episode I want to establish with you, our audience, that Geoff Shepard is not a conspiracy theorist, not a person pedaling a story of a vast intricate plot of espionage designed to destroy a President, but a serious man who has uncovered a rather simple case of Prosecutorial Misconduct that has sadly occured in courtrooms and legal cases all over America.  It is a simple case of partisans in a political scandal who took control of the wheels of justice, with no real supervision, with over 100 of the best partisan lawyers and investigators in America, and a willing press covering it all, and then made a case up out of a mountain of materials and tapes they were able to force the President to turn over to them in an unprecedented way , with massive historical consequences for the country and the President it had overwhelmingly elected to office. *** You can look at the documents w

Send us a Text Message.Our story opens with a look at the conventional wisdom most of America, and the World, holds on Watergate. It is the story of the heroic Special Prosecutors who investigated the heinous crimes of Watergate. The story of a Washington Press Corp determined not to let the sly , crooked , Richard Nixon get away with running his, as Dan Rather called it, "crime syndicate" from the White House. It is the story of the heroic Democrats in Congress who continued to push for more and more information in order to protect the country from a President determined to undermine our constitutional democracy and trample over the American Criminal Justice System. It was nothing less than saving our democracy itself and stopping fascism from reigning over our mighty and free land. I don't know about you, but I ain't never bought that line of happy Horse manure!!But I also never had anything but a feeling that "something was not right in Denmark". I had studied the career of Richard Nixon most of my life. What I had found was if you really looked at it almost none of the accusations, other than those of Watergate, ever stood up. He had in fact exposed a real communist spy in Alger Hiss. He had defeated Susan Gahagan Douglas for the U.S. Senate  in a nasty race where most of the nastiness had been provoked by her not him. He had had a special fund to help with legitimate expenses related to his political career but he had been able to account for every dime spent from the fund, something the 1952 Democratic Nominee for President, Alai Stevenson, who also had a similar fund  could not do for himself. The 1960 election for President had been arguably stolen from Richard Nixon and Nixon had had his taxes audited by the IRS and his airplane and phone lines bugged by the FBI during the subsequent Kennedy and Johnson years. It just seemed that every time you really looked at it, except for Watergate, Richard Nixon was actually not at all what he was constantly being presented to the public as having been.  So you just always had this feeling that maybe Richard Nixon's claim that he would one day be vindicated, yet again, would prove true.  But like most Americans, while sympathetic, I guess I kind of doubted that it could actually be possible. Until I read three riveting books by a lawyer, former Nixon staffer, and a man whose own credibility is unquestioned. That man's name was Geoff Shepard and starting with this episode we are going to do a deep dive into documents he has unearthed over the past nearly two decades.  I think what you will see us lay out is an absolutely shocking and overwhelming story of alleged Prosecutorial Misconduct.And it will change everything you thought you knew about Richard Nixon. *** If you would like to see the documents they are available at ShepardonWatergate.com

Send us a Text Message.During our hiatus and just after the 50th anniversary of the  Watergate break in we were invited to do an interview on the New York City based talk show podcast "The Alex Garret Show" where for the first time we were interviewed basically just on our podcast show.  In it we discuss Richard Nixon , Watergate, how we put the show together, researching the material, our thoughts on the current state of politics, and what we have in store for our viewers over the next season or two as we cover the end of the Watergate scandal and the life of Richard Nixon,We thought it would be fun to rebroadcast the interview here on our own show in a special edition. We did have some technical issues with moving their show over so they were kind enough to send us the raw file of the interview and that is what we will be sharing with you, including a little bit of the chatter we had at the start that was not on the actual broadcast We hope you will like the show. We have also included links to the "Alex Garret Show" in which we were interviewed and to the page if you would like to start listening in to the "Alex Garret Podcast" itself on a regular basis. Enjoy!! Our interview:https://soundcloud.com/alex-garrett-podcasting/talkng-watergate50-with-randal?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing The Alex Garret Podcast:https://soundcloud.com/alex-garrett-podcasting?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Send us a Text Message.THE TRUTH HAS FINALLY COME HOME!!Season 4 Richard Nixon and Watergate, 1974 Through the Fire will take you from the start of the New Year in 1974 through the March 1, 1974 indictments against the defendants in the Watergate Case. One of the 19 people named as an unindicted Co-Conspirator was President Richard Nixon.  This is the story of how the President was named, how the defendants were indicted and the ways those decisions were made. Using oral histories and newly released documents made available to us from the National Archives and organized in three extraordinary books written by Geoff Shepard. Our show will attempt to lay out the case of alleged Prosecutorial Misconduct so extreme that it was hidden from the public for nearly five decades. In this introduction to our season we want to explain how this season will be different than how our other episodes have been constructed. We chose several players in the events of the period that would eventually lead to the fall of President Nixon. Here we introduce you to those players, who they were and what their role was in the events of 1974.We will be listening to oral histories from: The Special Prosecutors Jill Wine Banks, Richard Ben Veniste , and Henry Ruth. The Nixon Administration figures Alexander Haig, Ray Price, and Geoff Shepard. The House Judiciary Committee Members Trent Lott and Elizabeth Holtzman. House Judiciary Staff members Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bernard Nussbaum, and William Weld. Plus interviews with President Richard Nixon himself. All are discussed and introduced to you here in this introduction of Season 7, Richard Nixon and Watergate 1974 Through the Fire. By the time our story is through, It will change everything you thought you knew about the fall of President Richard Nixon *** To read the documents we will be using you can go to the following websiteShepardonWatergate.com

Send us a Text Message.THE TRUTH HAS FINALLY COME HOME!!Season 4 Richard Nixon and Watergate, 1974 Through the Fire will take you from the start of the New Year in 1974 through the March 1, 1974 indictments against the defendants in the Watergate Case. One of the 19 people named as an unindicted Co-Conspirator was President Richard Nixon.  He had been the target of the Watergate Special Prosecutors Task Force from the start. This is the story of how the President was named, how the defendants were indicted, and the ways those decisions were made. Using oral histories and newly released documents made available to us from the National Archives and organized in three extraordinary books written by Geoff Shepard. Our show will attempt to lay out the case of alleged Prosecutorial Misconduct so extreme that it was hidden from the public by Prosecutors, in various ways for nearly five decades. Here you will hear the documents, listen to the stories , and finally catch the prosecutors continuing to present a case, that at least on face value,  appears to be untrue, and the documents they had sealed, or took with them, that were unknown for years, will show it.  It is not some grand conspiracy, as we so often feel we need to make up to explain such enormous , monumentally,  historical events, like the removal of a President who had just won a 49 State landslide. Instead what it appears we have here is a basic case of alleged Prosecutorial Misconduct just like has happened in courtrooms and legal cases all across America. By the time our story is through, It will change everything you thought you knew about the fall of President Richard Nixon.We start the season August 9, and we have two special editions:  an interview with our host on Watergate on  August 4, and a special on "The President's Man Dwight Chapin" on August 7*** To see the documents we are using we invite you to go to the following websiteShepardonWatergate.com

Send us a Text Message.In our 1973 Enemies at the Gate  season finale, we look at the explosive circumstances around the 2 missing calls and an 18 1/2 minute gap on one conversation in the tapes requested by the prosecutor's office. It sets the prosecutors off and the Judge does it all with the maximum of theatrics to insure the spotlight shines brightly on him, John J. Sirica.  It will all set the stage for the contentious year to come in 1974. At the sametime the appointment to the Vice Presidency sails through the Senate with a 97 - 3 vote to make Gerald R. Ford the 40th Vice President of the United States. We will sit in for the vote and hear the new Vice President address the nation. It is in this address he very humbly says to the nation "I am a Ford not a Lincoln". It is that humbleness that will serve Ford well over the next year as it becomes increasingly certain that he will end up President of the United States. We wrap up 1973 with an address by President Richard Nixon as he lights the Washington D.C. Christmas Tree and tries once again to put the nation back on track. But 1973 turns out not to be the year the nation had hoped for after the long protracted war in Vietnam. The divisions caused by that war are now breaking apart the very administration that had been able to set us free from its poisonous effect. But it appears that in 1974, Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, may end up its final casualty.

Send us a Text Message.As the year winds down several things are happening at once. Representative Gerald R. Ford begins the process of being confirmed for Vice President. The entire procedure is a first under the new 25th amendment to the Constitution.  Ironically, it would be used again in 1974 to confirm Nelson Rockefeller. The process was about the only easy thing confronting Nixon at the moment as he has two other major things to contend with at the same time. The OPEC Arab nations in retaliation for our helping Israel order an oil embargo which causes an energy crisis in the United States. In yet another moment of crisis President Nixon goes right to work to come up with a plan that would have made our nation energy independent by 1980. It was not implemented due to the growing crisis over Watergate.  Another of his brilliant plans thwarted by the desire of democrats to remove him from office. Then there is the selection and arrival of a new Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. He was selected by the White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig along with Robert Bork, the acting Attorney General. Jaworski was a seasoned prosecutor who had actually prosecuted war criminals at Nuremberg. He was renown in legal circles and was by reputation a very formidable man. When he arrives you will see the Watergate investigation pick up speed. However, he was not the only new arrival. President Nixon hired his own lawyer, James St. Clair, and this will also change the ballgame as the prosecutors and the Judge find that this formidable man is someone they can't jerk around as they had been doing the Nixon team. Still the rabid partisans at the Watergate Special Prosecutor's office are determined to run over Jaworki if necessary to get at their target Richard Nixon and as the end of the year approached you will see it is an uneasy relationship between the new prosecutor and the staff his predecessor had assembled.

Send us a Text Message.In this episode we bring this historic month to an end. The Israeli's agree to a ceasefire with Egypt and Syria at the behest of our government and negotiated by Henry Kissinger.  The ending of the war where it was, would eventually help lead to the Camp David Accords between  two of the three countries involved that would come to fruition years later by President Jimmy Carter.  Egyptian President Anwar Sadat probably lost his life for his willingness to reach out for peace with Israel as well. The aftermath of the Saturday Night Massacre also weakened President Nixon's position and was the catalyst for the first real push to move toward impeachment against him.  In my opinion, one clear hero of the events emerged, Robert Bork the Solicitor General.  It would come at a price a decade later when Ted Kennedy mauled him and worked to steal his dream of becoming a Supreme Court Justice. No matter those events, Robert Bork would become and continue to be a hero to the conservatives of America and his mistreatment at the hands of Ted Kennedy was the single event that galvanized a movement that would eventually succeed in getting six conservative justices on today's Supreme Court. We end this show with a long segment that dealt with two of the historic events of October 1973 with the only real heroic figure to emerge from these events, Robert Bork.

Send us a Text Message.SHOWDOWN!!There was no question that after a junior officer of the Federal Government faced down the President of the United States on National Television that that junior officer was not going to have his job long and Archibald Cox didn't.  Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire him. Richardson refused, as did his next in line William Ruckelshaus before finally the true hero of the night stepped up and did the deed. Robert Bork, the Solicitor General, fired Cox and then held the Justice Department together for two and a half months all while being under attack for having done the right thing,  Richard Nixon was , contrary to popular belief, justified in that decision. We were dangerously close to a war with the Soviet Union as both sides sat on the sidelines helping the two sides of a conflict in the Middle East. In fact, this was the closest the two nations had come since the Cuban Missile Crisis a decade before. There was no way that Richard Nixon was going to let Archibald Cox, nor his Special Prosecution Force, get away with such insubordination at such a moment. I would dare say that the history you have read about would have looked totally different had it involved any other President other than Richard Nixon. That is how egregious this act by Cox was no matter how avuncular he appeared that night on television. The chain of events this situation set off changed everything for President Nixon and it was largely in my opinion unfair. Archibald Cox should never have been appointed in the first place. He was a known Nixon hater, puppet of the Kennedy family, and he loaded up his staff with rabid partisans that either came from the Kennedy-Johnson Administrations or were prosecutors who had spent years chasing gangsters and treated the Nixon staffers as though they were members of a crime family. From this point on Richard Nixon was at war with a prosecution staff willing to do , say, and perform any sleight of hand necessary to get the only target they were actually focused on, the facts be damned. And the at target was Richard Nixon and they cared not who all's lives they had to ruin to do it.