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American Morning

Today Marks 30th Anniversary of Most Famous Botched Burglary in History

Aired June 17, 2002 - 09:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Once again, as we've been talking about throughout the morning here, today marks the 30th anniversary of perhaps the most famous botched burglary in history. It was the Watergate break in, the event that eventually brought down the president of Richard Nixon.

Senior Political Analyst, Jeff Greenfield, here in New York to talk about it -- good morning to you, Jeff. Good to see you.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

HEMMER: Also, from Washington, Ben Stein, a former Nixon speech writer and host of "Win Ben Stein's Money." Ben, good morning. Good to see you again, albeit by way of satellite.

BEN STEIN, COMEDIAN: Nice to see you.

HEMMER: Let's start with you, Ben. Take us back 30 years ago. Give us a sense for the temperature not only in the country, but specifically in Washington at the time that the break-in occurred and all the stories started flowing after that.

STEIN: Well of course it was incredibly hot because it was Washington in the summer. It was very humid because it was Washington in the summer. But there was a lot of political tension. The Vietnam War was still going on. It hadn't really been brought to a conclusion yet. There was a lot of anger and animosity in the highly-spirited politics.

What people seemed to forget is there had been a recent tremendous amount of controversy about inflation and about wage price controls. It was a highly contentious atmosphere in the country, and Mr. Nixon was running for reelection. And he felt as if he was running against an always unpredictable and dangerous Democratic party.

HEMMER: At what point did you and others sit back and think, you know what, this is a really, really big deal?

STEIN: Well, certainly not at first. I remember watching it on TV with my then-girlfriend, Pat, and thinking, gosh, what a ridiculous thing. These people obviously thought they were breaking into some other office where there was money or something. But I would say pretty soon thereafter I realized it was a bottomless pit. There was just one story after another about lies and deception and deceit by Mr. Nixon and his colleagues. And I realized that there was no end point, short of his leaving office.

If I may so, I was incredibly sad about it, because I thought, and still think, he was a great president. But it didn't seem as if they were capable of controlling it. They never really figured out how to do what people like Clinton and especially Mr. Bush know how to do: to get in front of it, to come clean, to dump all the documents and to be ahead of their critics in white washing themselves.

HEMMER: I want to get back to that point in a moment, because Charles Colson made it last hour here on AMERICAN MORNING. You were shaking your head while Ben was talking about relaying the images and the thoughts at which point everybody thought this is a big deal.

GREENFIELD: Well I think there was one really specific moment when everybody realized it. That was months later in the spring of 1973, when James McCord, one of the accused, wrote a letter to Judge Sirca, the judge who was presiding over this, and he basically said, you know what, this is a lot bigger than just us. And that's when I think the dam burst.

Haldeman and Ehrlichman, Nixon's two top aides, were gone within about a month. The Senate Watergate Committee convened, and in the summer of '73, which was the Watergate summer, we learned of a taping system in a startling post-launch congressional hearing. You can still see on the tape the heads of the reporters snap up as Alexander Butterfield tells Fred Thompson, now a Senator -- that's the moment, I think, when everybody knew what Ben Stein described as the end game.

HEMMER: Charles Colson, I mentioned his name. He says America has yet to learn its lesson from this. I will get Ben's comment in a moment, but as you reflect back on that, his suggestions that we're all infallible because we're all human beings.

GREENFIELD: Yes, and I think what Chuck Colson is talking about was this kind of reformist impulse that we know -- he was talking particularly about campaign finance reform. We know how to fix it. We'll adjust this lug nut and turn this screw and everything will work. And I think he has a point.

The other thing, though, which I think is the great irony of Watergate, quickly, this was a tremendous boon to conservatives, even though it happened on Nixon's watch and it was aimed...

HEMMER: How so?

GREENFIELD: Because it increased skepticism and distrust of government. And after Vietnam, those twin hammer blows made everybody, I think, way more skeptical about government and way more willing to listen to Ronald Reagan's notion, as he said in his inaugural, that government is not the solution to the problem. It's the problem.

HEMMER: Ben, what do you think about that? Are you in agreement on that?

STEIN: Well it reminds of what Winston Churchill said after a disastrous day for the British in World War II, in which someone said, it's a blessing -- no, a disastrous day for himself. He said if this is a blessing -- as someone said to him -- it's very much of a blessing in disguise. Because at the time, the Republicans were virtually wiped out in Congress and we got a Democratic president.

But I think in the long run it increased skepticism into our government. But if I may say so, this point about people being fallible is the real one that Americans have not learned. You know Mr. Carter did serious wrong things, Mr. Kennedy did very serious wrong things. Johnson did very serious wrong things.

When I was working with Mr. Nixon as a very junior speech writer, I kept saying, "Why don't you give a speech just laying out in general that presidents are fallible human beings, that they make terrible mistakes? They bring mistresses into the White House, they bring call girls into the White House. They lie about incidents in the Tonkin Gulf that bring about wars."

And Mr. Nixon, I would have wanted to say, made mistakes too. I asked him to hold him to the same standard as other fallible human beings. He made terrible mistakes, but he was a man of peace. And it was a terrible tragedy to lose a man of peace midway through his second term.

HEMMER: Interesting reflections, men. I am almost out of time here. But John Dean stirring the pot again when it comes to deep throat. I don't know if either of you two think it even adds up to hill of beans. But quickly, Ben, do you believe you know who the deep throat source is?

STEIN: I'm sure there was no deep throat. I'm absolutely sure of it. I'd bet a million dollars there was no deep throat.

HEMMER: Charles Colson said the same thing. Ben Stein is going to put a million dollars of his own money on the line here.

GREENFIELD: I think the great lesson is when Washington doesn't know something it drives the town nuts. And not to know something for 30 years has driven them beyond the bend. They just can't stand not knowing.

So whether Ben's right or it's Pat Buchanan or it's Mark Felt or it's Pat Nixon, it's just a great unsolved mystery and it's driving people crazy. And it makes me very happy, because the people in Washington have to learn to be fallible too.

HEMMER: Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Ben.

STEIN: Pleasure.

HEMMER: We'll take that million bucks anytime. Pleasure talking to you once again. Jeff Greenfield here in New York.

GREENFIELD: Good to see you.

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