1. Evaluate Richard Nixon’s presidency.  Aside from Watergate, should he be considered a good president?

Use the information below to answer the following question

Lesson plan: Watergate and the limits of presidential power | Lesson Plan | PBS NewsHour Extra

Richard Nixon served as Vice-President of the United States from 1953 to 1961, and as President from 1969 to 1974.  He was the only person to be elected twice to both the Presidency and Vice Presidency.  In 1969 Americans had joined together in pride over the lunar landing and Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon.

Yet Nixon’s personality may have played a part in his eventual demise. He believed the United States faced grave dangers from the radicals and dissidents who were challenging his policies, and he came to view any challenge as a “threat to national security.” As a result, he created a climate in which he and those who served him could justify almost any tactics to stifle dissent and undermine the opposition. He has been described as being a devious, secretive, and embittered man whose White House became a series of covert activities.  On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon became the first chief executive in American History to resign, because of his role in the Watergate scandal.

Some Americans viewed this as an indication that the system worked.  They were proud of the way the US political system had weathered the crisis and peacefully transferred power. Others worried about the further erosion of popular trust and belief in their government.  Regardless, when he left office the nation remembered an administration that had been discredited by the Agnew and Watergate scandals. Watergate has come to define Nixon’s presidency.

The Nixon Tapes

HALDEMAN: Now, on the investigation, you know the Democratic break-in thing, we’re back in the problem area because the FBI is not under control because Gray [Patrick Gray, acting director of the FBI] doesn’t exactly know how to control it and they have–their investigation is now leading into some productive areas– because they’ve been able to trace the money– not through the money itself– but through the bank sources– the banker. And it goes in some directions we don’t want it to go. . . . That the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters [General Vernon Walters, deputy director of the CIA] call Pat Gray and just say, “Stay to hell out of this– this is ah, business here we don’t want you to go any further on it.” That’s not an unusual development, and ah, that would take care of it. . . .

NIXON: Well, what the hell, did Mitchell [John Mitchell, former attorney general and head of the president’s campaign] know about this?

HALDEMAN: I think so. I don’t think he knew the details, but I think he knew.

HALDEMAN (about three hours later): Well, it was kind of interesting. Walters made the point and I didn’t mention Hunt [E. Howard Hunt, ex-CIA agent and White House consultant who was convicted in the Watergate conspiracy]. I just said that the thing was leading into directions that were going to create potential problems because they were exploring leads that led back into areas that would be harmful to the CIA and harmful to the government. . . .

Recorded presidential conversation submitted by Richard Nixon to the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, April 30, 1974.

Debating the Past The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People, 5/e Alan Brinkley, Columbia University Chapter Thirty-Two: The Crisis of Authority Where Historians Disagree – Watergate Thirty years after Watergate–the most famous political scandal in American history–historians and others continue to argue about its causes and significance. Their interpretations tend to fall into several broad categories. One argument emphasizes the evolution of the institution of the presidency over time and sees Watergate as the result of a much larger pattern of presidential usurpations of power that stretched back at least several decades. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., helped develop this argument in his 1973 book The Imperial Presidency, which argued that the belief of a succession of presidents in the urgency of the Cold War, and in their duty to take whatever measures might be necessary to combat it, led them gradually to usurp more and more power from Congress, from the courts, and from the public. Gradually, presidents began to look for way to circumvent constraints not just in foreign policy, but in domestic matters as well. Nixon’s actions in the Watergate crisis were, in other words, a culmination of this long and steady expansion of covert presidential power. Jonathan Schell, in The Time of Illusion (1975), offered a variation of this argument, tying the crisis of the presidency to the pressure that nuclear weans placed on presidents to protect the nation’s–and their own “credibility.” Other commentators (but not any serious historical studies) go even further and argue that what happened to produce the Watergate scandals was not substantively different from the normal patterns of presidential behavior, that Nixon simply got caught where others had not, and that a long-standing liberal hostility toward Nixon ensured that he would pay a higher price for his behavior than other presidents would. A second explanation of Watergate emphasizes the difficult social and political environment of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nixon entered office, according to this view, facing an unprecedentedly radical opposition that would stop at nothing to discredit the war and destroy his authority. He found himself, therefore, drawn into taking similarly desperate measures of his own to defend himself from these extraordinary challenges. Nixon made this argument himself in his 1975 memoirs: Now that this season of mindless terror has fortunately passed, it is difficult– perhaps impossible–to convey a sense of the pressures that were influencing my actions and reactions during this period, but it was this epidemic of unprecedented domestic terrorism that prompted our efforts to discover the best means by which to deal with this new phenomenon of highly organized and highly skilled revolutionaries dedicated to the violent destruction of our democratic system.* The historian Herbert Parmet echoed parts of this argument in Richard Nixon and His America (1990). Stephen Ambrose offered a more muted version of the same view in Richard Nixon (1989). Most of those who have written about Watergate, however, search for the explanation not in institutional or social forces, but in the personalities of the people involved, and most notably in the personality of Richard Nixon. Even many of those who have developed structural explanations (Schlesinger, Schell, and Ambrose, for example) return eventually to Nixon himself as the most important explanation for Watergate. Others begin there, perhaps most notably Stanley I. Kutler, in The Wars of Watergate (1990) and, more recently, Abuse of Power (1997), in which he presents extensive excerpts from conversations about Watergate taped in the Nixon White House. Kutler emphasizes Nixon’s lifelong resort to vicious political tactics and his longstanding belief that he was a special target of unscrupulous enemies and had to “get” them before they got him. Watergate was rooted, Kutler argues, “in the personality and history of Nixon himself.” A “corrosive hatred,” he claims, “decisively shaped Nixon’s own behavior, his career, and eventually his historical standing

Over the course of the 20th century, the presidency gradually supplanted Congress as the center of federal power. Presidential authority increased, presidential staffs grew in size, and the executive branch gradually acquired a dominant relationship over Congress.

Beginning with Theodore Roosevelt, the president, and not Congress, established the nation’s legislative agenda. Increasingly, Congress ceded its budget-making authority to the president. Presidents even found a way to make agreements with foreign nations without congressional approval. After World War II, presidents substituted executive agreements for treaties requiring approval of the Senate. Even more important, presidents gained the power to take military action, despite the fact that Congress is the sole branch of government empowered by the Constitution to declare war.

No president went further than Richard Nixon in concentrating powers in the presidency. He refused to spend funds that Congress had appropriated; he claimed executive privilege against disclosure of information on administration decisions; he refused to allow key decision makers to be questioned before congressional committees; he reorganized the executive branch and broadened the authority of new cabinet positions without congressional approval; and during the Vietnam War, he ordered harbors mined and bombing raids launched without consulting Congress.

Watergate brought a halt to the “imperial presidency” and the growth of presidential power. Over the president’s veto, Congress enacted the War Powers Act (1973), which required future presidents to obtain authorization from Congress to engage U.S. forces in foreign combat for more than 90 days. Under the law, a president who orders troops into action abroad must report the reason for this action to Congress within 48 hours.

In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed a series of laws designed to reform the political process. Disclosures during the Watergate investigations of money-laundering led Congress to provide public financing of presidential elections, public disclosure of sources of funding, limits on private campaign contributions and spending, and to enforce campaign finance laws by an independent Federal Election Commission. To make it easier for the Justice Department to investigate crimes in the executive branch, Congress now requires the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate accusations of illegal activities. To re-assert its budget-making authority, Congress created a Congressional Budget Office and specifically forbade a president to impound funds without its approval. To open government to public scrutiny, Congress opened more committee deliberations and enacted the Freedom of Information Act, which allows the public and press to request the declassification of government documents.

Some of the post-Watergate reforms have not been as effective as reformers anticipated. The War Powers Act has never been invoked. Campaign financing reform has not curbed the ability of special interests to curry favor with politicians or the capacity of the very rich to outspend opponents.

On the other hand, Congress has had somewhat more success in reining in the FBI and the CIA. During the 1970s, congressional investigators discovered that these organizations had, in defiance of federal law, broken into the homes, tapped the phones, and opened the mail of American citizens; illegally infiltrated anti-war groups and black radical organizations; and accumulated dossiers on dissidents, which had been used by presidents for political purposes. Investigators also found that the CIA had been involved in assassination plots against foreign leaders–among them Fidel Castro–and had tested the effects of radiation, electric shock, and drugs (such as LSD) on unsuspecting citizens. In the wake of these investigations, the government severely limited CIA operations in the United States and laid down strict guidelines for FBI activities. To tighten congressional control over the CIA, Congress established a joint committee to supervise its operations.

Desiderius Erasmus, In Praise of Folly

Introduction: Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536) was a Christian scholar and philosopher. Many scholars distinguish Erasmus’s humanist writings as part of the “Northern Renaissance” or Christian Humanism movement to distinguish his works from the likes of Machiavelli in Italy. As with all humanists however, he wrote in a classical ancient Latin style, imitating and discussing the past alongside commentaries on the present. In his work In Praise of Folly, Erasmus uses satire—using humor or exaggeration to ridicule or criticize a person’s vice—to in fact criticize the corruptions he saw evident in the Church as an organization and the priesthood more generally. Erasmus is sometimes credited as being a pre-cursor to the Reformation.

As you read this excerpt, consider how Erasmus uses the past and satire to criticize the evils of humans, and specifically of the Church. How might this compare to Machiavelli or Petrarch? Are the three authors more similar or different? Why do you think so?

PREFACE

Erasmus of Rotterdam to his Friend Thomas More, Health:

AS I WAS COMING awhile since out of Italy for England, that I might not waste all that time I was to sit on horseback in foolish and illiterate fables, I chose rather one while to revolve with myself something of our common studies, and other while to enjoy the remembrance of my friends, of whom I left here some no less learned than pleasant. Among these you, my More, came first in my mind, whose memory, though absent yourself, gives me such delight in my absence, as when present with you I ever found in your company; than which, let me perish if in all my life I ever met with anything more delectable. And therefore, being satisfied that something was to be done, and that that time was no wise proper for any serious matter, I resolved to make some sport with the praise of folly. But who the devil put that in your head? you’ll say. The first thing was your surname of More, which comes so near the word Moriae (folly) as you are far from the thing. And that you are so, all the world will clear you. In the next place, I conceived this exercise of wit would not be least approved by you; inasmuch as you are wont to be delighted with such kind of mirth, that is to say, neither unlearned, if I am not mistaken, nor altogether insipid, and in the whole course of your life have played the part of a Democritus. And though such is the excellence of your judgment that it was ever contrary to that of the people’s, yet such is your incredible affability and sweetness of temper that you both can and delight to carry yourself to all men a man of all hours. Wherefore you will not only with good will accept this small declamation, but take upon you the defense of it, for as much as being dedicated to you, it is now no longer mine but yours. But perhaps there will not be wanting some wranglers that may cavil and charge me, partly that these toys are lighter than may become a divine, and partly more biting than may beseem the modesty of a Christian, and consequently exclaim that I resemble the ancient comedy, or another Lucian, and snarl at everything. But I would have them whom the lightness or foolery of the argument may offend to consider that mine is not the first of this kind, but the same thing that has been often practiced even by great authors: when Homer, so many ages since, did the like with the battle of frogs and mice; Virgil, with the gnat and puddings; Ovid, with the nut; when Polycrates and his corrector Isocrates extolled tyranny; Glauco, injustice; Favorinus, deformity and the quartan ague; Synescius, baldness; Lucian, the fly and flattery; when Seneca made such sport with Claudius’ canonizations; Plutarch, with his dialogue between Ulysses and Gryllus; Lucian and Apuleius, with the ass; and some other, I know not who, with the hog that made his last will and testament, of which also even St. Jerome makes mention. And therefore if they please, let them suppose I played at tables for my diversion, or if they had rather have it so, that I rode on a hobbyhorse. For what injustice is it that when we allow every course of life its recreation, that study only should have none? Especially when such toys are not without their serious matter, and foolery is so handled that the reader that is not altogether thick-skulled may reap more benefit from it than from some men’s crabbish and specious arguments. As when one, with long study and great pains, patches many pieces together on the praise of rhetoric or philosophy; another makes a panegyric to a prince; another encourages him to a war against the Turks; another tells you what will become of the world after himself is dead; and another finds out some new device for the better ordering of goat’s wool: for as nothing is more trifling than to treat of serious matters triflingly, so nothing carries a better grace than so to discourse of trifles as a man may seem to have intended them least. For my own part, let other men judge of what I have written; though yet, unless an overweening opinion of myself may have made me blind in my own cause, I have praised folly, but not altogether foolishly. And now to say somewhat to that other cavil, of biting. This liberty was ever permitted to all men’s wits, to make their smart, witty reflections on the common errors of mankind, and that too without offense, as long as this liberty does not run into licentiousness; which makes me the more admire the tender ears of the men of this age, that can away with solemn titles. No, you’ll meet with some so preposterously religious that they will sooner endure the broadest scoffs even against Christ himself than hear the Pope or a prince be touched in the least, especially if it be anything that concerns their profit; whereas he that so taxes the lives of men, without naming anyone in particular, whither, I pray, may he be said to bite, or rather to teach and admonish? Or otherwise, I beseech you, under how many notions do I tax myself? Besides, he that spares no sort of men cannot be said to be angry with anyone in particular, but the vices of all. And therefore, if there shall happen to be anyone that shall say he is hit, he will but discover either his guilt or fear. Saint Jerome sported in this kind with more freedom and greater sharpness, not sparing sometimes men’s very name. But I, besides that I have wholly avoided it, I have so moderated my style that the understanding reader will easily perceive my endeavors herein were rather to make mirth than bite. Nor have I, after the example of Juvenal, raked up that forgotten sink of filth and ribaldry, but laid before you things rather ridiculous than dishonest. And now, if there be anyone that is yet dissatisfied, let him at least remember that it is no dishonor to be discommended by Folly; and having brought her in speaking, it was but fit that I kept up the character of the person. But why do I run over these things to you, a person so excellent an advocate that no man better defends his client, though the cause many times be none of the best? Farewell, my best disputant More, and stoutly defend your Moriae.

From the country, the 5th of the Ides of June.

Adapted from: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1509erasmus-folly.asp (accessed 12/10/2