Washington Connection; Watergate Morality

[Sustained tone] [Several short tones] [Static] [Music] [Music] And the thing that bothered me most about Watergate, I felt that all those things we had been taught had been violated, all of the principals we'd been taught, the ethics, the morality of the government, the integrity of the government had just suddenly been shattered. - I do think that we, we individually, myself and others who have pled guilty as an example have

to and have accepted the fact that we had individual responsibility. We were mature individuals. We were not unable to understand the difference between right and wrong. And we accepted what were unethical and illegal practices because I think, in my case anyway, I felt the president's policies were correct. [Music] [Music] Good Evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Watergate is no longer just the name of a fancy apartment and office building here in Washington. Among many many other things it's come to signify a standard of morality, an ethical substandard for conducting the business of our government

and politics. That's been part of the overall Watergate story from the very beginning but it has intensified in recent weeks with the release of the presidential tape transcripts. Clergyman thus have joined with editorial writers, politicians and most everyone else in the national debate over this thing called the Watergate morality. We're going to examine just that one aspect of the total Watergate definition tonight from two very diverse points of view. That of an uninvolved observer and that of an extremely involved participant. The observer is a forty-eight-year-old Long Island, New York housewife who has done little in politics besides vote--an ordinary citizen in other words--whose concern for what has happened caused her to write a letter, which in turn caused us to go talk to her. The involved participant is Jeb Stuart Magruder, former White House aide, number two man in the nineteen seventy-two Nixon campaign and one of the key figures in the Watergate episode. He's done a lot of thinking about the moral questions raised by what he and others did and he discussed them with NPACT's Paul Duke. The interview was

filmed this week, the day before the thirty-nine year old Magruder entered a federal prison farm to begin serving time for obstruction of justice. But first to Mrs. Grace Crawley, who lives in Babylon, New York. Three weeks ago, Mrs. Crawley wrote a letter to Neil MacNeil, the Time magazine correspondent and regular panelist on our Friday night program Washington Week in Review. It was a thoughtful four pages of troubled questions and concern about the Watergate ethic. Impressed with her words NPACT reporter Missie Rennie went to Babylon and talked with Mrs. Crawley. The first question had to do with her background. - Well, I was born right here in this house and I was raised here, lived in Babylon all my life, went to school here from kindergarten through high school in the same building. My family have always been Republican. I think I would feel the same sadness whether it was a Republican or Democratic administration. I feel sad that this has happened in our government. - Mrs. Crawley's home town is an older middle

class suburb of New York City, a forty mile sixty minute commute on the Long Island railroad. Politically, it's two hundred and three thousand people usually vote conservative republican majorities. They went for President Nixon in nineteen-sixty, sixty-eight and seventy-two by overwhelming margins. - It's a traditional community but Babylon has definitely changed. It's grown tremendously since the war. Our population is just about tripled and, of course, when you have an influx of new people, you have an influx of new ideas and new ways and new methods but essentially a lot of the old-time residents are still here and still cling to their old ideals, their old principles. - While we were in Babylon, we also talked with Mrs. Crawley's mother and minister as well as following some of the themes to discussions with groups of young people and older citizens. The thrust of every conversation was the current damage and the potential good wrought by Watergate. - The thing that bothered me most about Watergate, I felt that all those things we had had been taught

had been violated. All of the principals we had been taught, the ethics, the morality of the government, the integrity of the government had just suddenly been shattered. The perfect willingness to subvert the Constitution, to subvert the American way of life and their behaviour throughout the entire thing, is the only important thing was that this was being exposed and how can we best keep the American people from knowing about it so that we can go on and continue doing the same darn thing. I've always felt that the government pretty much ran itself, that those men were put there because they knew their business, they were educated to run the government, they knew things that naturally all of the citizens couldn't begin to know, couldn't begin to comprehend and I felt that it would be a little presumptuous on my part, for instance, to question our congressman why he did a certain thing or why he did not do something. I feel now that this isn't going to happen again.

To carry one step further the remark that one of the news commentators made, that no word politician will ever dare try this sort of thing again. I don't think the people in the country are going to permit anyone to try this again. I hope now that we're all going to pay closer attention to what our politicians are doing, what they stand for. Well, the older people it's something else. The senior citizens, I think, is a very sad situation because they had struggled so long and so hard. They've come through so many wars. They've come through a depression. They struggled to raise their children decent, to give their children some sort of a background, always with the feeling that they were heading in the right direction, faith in the integrity of their government intact and now at an agewhere many of them know they don't have enough years left to see the thing put right, they find themselves confronted with this situation.

- We didn't have anything like this happen before. - I remember in the Harding administration, that we had the Teapot Dome scandal, that's such a different scandal... [inaudible] - They were perfectly willing to make any sacrifices because the country was growing all the time, it was growing stronger and it was worth whatever they had to do to help it along. And now they suddenly find that perhaps it was all for nothing. And it's had a very depressing effect on a great many of them. Well, my mother is a good example. - You used to say to me that you thought the saddest time in our country was during the Depression. Do you think that this is worse or did you have the same reaction to this? - Yes, I think this is worse. I do. Because the Depression I don't think could've been avoided at the time. But this certainly could've been avoided. - Do you feel that there is any good that will come out of Watergate? - Oh, yes. - Or that we're just sliding downhill now? - Well, they said we

lived through the wars, the Depression, assassinations, riots and we came out all right. We'll come through this because it's in good hands now and it will be taken care of. - I suppose, especially those that are up in their eighties, they know they don't have enough years left to see the country set right again after what it's been through. - Well, that's true. They worry about the reaction on their grandchildren. What do you tell these young children. You tell them not to do certain things and then your government does it, does worse. - I hope the schoolchildren don't even try to reconcile this thing. I hope they see this whole Watergate affair as something completely apart from American history and from the way the government and the country are supposed to be run, that they just recognize this is human failure perhaps brought about by the inattention of my age group by not having paid close enough attention to what was going on and hopefully they will benefit by it and do a better job. - Watergate's most definitely had an effect on the

American people. - How do you believe Watergate has effected America? - Mostly people are beginning to realize that this has probably been going on for a while now and Nixon's only been the first to get caught and that's why it's been so blown up because you can just imagine with everything else that happened. I think that politicians in the future are going to be elected you know mainly because they're honest. - Well, the American people have become more aware of their government right now. I mean most people, like even I can remember, I mean was like younger then before this, but like I never used to think about the government. I'm sure that most people didn't either. They just said hey it works, it’s working good, let’s keep it going. Maybe something that was voted and they didn’t like, they’d have it, you know, they’d get a revote or something, you know, they’d re-campaign for it or something. But now the American people have become so much more aware of their government and so much more aware of the Constitution itself that, I mean, it would be suicide for any other politician or anybody to ever try anything like say the Watergate break-in, the bugging or anything of that nature. - Do you believe that this is a good curing process for some of the things that

may be ailing and effecting America? - Well, I don't know. Maybe it is. Maybe not. You see, you have to wait for the outcome to see what happens, how it turns out. Because it can get awful ugly at the end. - Can it be a beautiful ugliness? Or does it have to be a real bad and bleak ugliness? - You know it seems like maybe it will turn out good because maybe, you know, other politicians or dirty politicians will refrain from this kind of stuff in the future. Or maybe it will be a bad ugliness where the hole government might, we might expose the whole government because the whole government may be a little corrupt, maybe a lot corrupt. But people will then have no faith in the government and they'll turn away from the government. And that's bad. - Does anyone else have an opinion that they'd like to express. Tom? - I still have a lot of faith in the government and I think that after

this is all over, we're gonna have a lot, our government is going to be a lot better. - I think that our government does work when it's properly administered and when the people make it work. I wouldn't want to see us change one bit our government. I think it's set up the way it should be set up for our kind of a country, for our democracy. I think it's very important to have the ideals. I'm just being guided by the things I've always been taught and the things that I've always believed in. The behavior of those in the government now and the present condition of the government hasn't changed my basic principles at all. Perhaps I'm optimistic about the American people but I think they're shocked and outraged by what happened and I don't think they're just going to treat it as an unfortunate incident in the life United States of America and go on to the next problem. I think they're going to try now to see that it doesn't happen again. I know I'm

personally not going to forget it. I hope that the country as a whole won't forget it. I still rely on the old values and standards that I've always relied on. - The Bible says that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap and many times we think that we can work in an expedient way in order that it might serve our purposes but when we have a responsibility, a national responsibility, a responsibility to the people who elected us, it seems to me that we need to direct our thoughts in terms of what is in the best interest of them and in the best interest of a God, whom we seek to serve. And I think that too many of our servants have been self serving rather than seeking to serve a higher power. I believe also that people who are lead by an amoral concept of life, which is devoid of any absolutes and I think that we see this in terms of life and

in politics today. - What has your congregation's reaction been to the Watergate incident? - Well, my congregation, I think, tends to reflect just any suburban community especially here in the east and it covers the gamut. There's been silence on the part of many and there's been horror and shock, in spoken words in a lot of others and I think that probably because many of our people had a great deal of confidence in the administration, that they have believed for a long time that they wanted to believe the best and now I think that they've just been completely disillusioned by the whole thing. - Does Watergate represent a temporary loss of our ideals and or more prominent realization that we should temper our ideals to the realities of today. - I think that we should always keep before us the ideal, I think this is what's made our country great. I think that we have become aware of, of problems within our system and Watergate has exposed them and to that degree I think Watergate is good

These things have been happening for a long time, some of our people have said in our congregation, "Well, the others do it too," meaning the Democrats do it too, and that's true. But i'm glad that it's been exposed and perhaps out of this will come a greater moral sense and a moral indignation that our people will have, demanding the honesty and integrity in our leadership. - One morning recently I stood in the church where I was christened, the Old First Presbyterian in Babylon and that looked at a plaque placed there many years ago in living memory of a boy I went to school with, who was killed in nineteen forty four while he was serving with the Air Corps. I think back to our days in high school together and I see him as a young carefree boy. Periodically the boys would go off to join the Army and there'd be a little parade down Main Street and up to the railroad station and they'd get on the train and everyone would bid them a tearful farewell and off they'd go. But we'd all be very proud of our country, very

proud of what our contemporaries were doing, and I look back now I think here is a young boy who was born in nineteen twenty-three and was killed in nineteen forty four, had no chance really to live, he thought he had lived for something and he was dying for something. I think now really was it worth it? I wondered if his death merely helped us move the way for the Chapins, Magruders, Strahans, who debased the country and the flag he died for and to erode our principles. Jeb Magruder as you prepare to begin your prison sentence for the crimes of Watergate which have involved so many high White House an administration officials, there is one fundamental question: and that is, why? Why would a young man with such a bright future, with a beautiful wife, beautiful children, beautiful home, why would you become involved? - Well I think, you,

you have to go back to the atmosphere at that time and Watergate and the whole bugging of the Watergate DNC was a secondary matter in the campaign and that was something that most of us who happened to get involved were not concerned with. Now of course what that shows is that we have had somewhere there decided that these type of the illegal activities were ok, and consequently we didn't concern ourselves with them. And that as I've said many times in hindsight was absolutely wrong and because we didn't pay any attention to it and accepted that as a principle and because the atmosphere was such that that there was this desire for information, this desire to sort of get your enemies, most of us accepted that principle and went along with it and therefore the bugging became a very and natural thing, I think as John Dean said at a senate hearing that Watergate was inevitable. - Why was there this

atmosphere of "get your enemies"? - Well, I think I mentioned in the book that I just finished that the leadership in the White House had this feeling that I think had developed over the years, the president had been in public life, that people in the other political party, the news critics, were not just their opponents, were not just adversaries, they were enemies. And I think Senator Humphrey said it very well, he said, "When you take people who are your natural opponents and treat them as enemies, you're going to come to your Watergate." You're going to have those kind of problems, you're going to do things that are unethical and illegal, and primarily there was this atmosphere, we as the staff, the people under the president accepted it and found that this was one method to show our good faith in working in the White House and at the Committee to Re-Elect

to follow along with this desire for intelligence information and to get your enemies, and we accepted it and that of course that was absolutely wrong. - One of the things you suggested in your book was that the president sets the tone for his administration, no matter who the president may be. Do you believe that President Nixon set an immoral tone for his administration? - Well, rather than characterizing it as immoral or unethical I think the tone was set to do anything to prevent his enemies from getting him, and I think it was true as I think Bud Krogh mentioned in the... when he pleaded guilty in the Ellsberg case, that the president ordered "Do anything to stop those leaks," well, when you open it up on that framework where there is no restriction to your activities, then you are going to come to the kind of activities of the Plumbers and the Watergate break-in. - When we survey the

damage of Watergate, when we see the number of lives which have been damaged and destroyed, all involving people who were closely connected with the president or had faith in the president and worked for the president, doesn't this tell us something about the moral tone, the moral atmosphere at the White House and the president personally? - Well I think no question about it; leadership as I think I've indicated, sets the tone of an administration or a corporation or whatever it may be, but I do think that we individually--myself, others who have pled guilty as an example-- have to, and have accepted the fact that we had individual responsibility, we were mature individuals, we were not that are unable to understand the difference between right and wrong and we accepted what were unethical and illegal practices because I think, in my case anyway, I felt the president's policies were correct and that it was more important to achieve the policy end of this administration and therefore some of the means that we used to achieve that end

seemed unimportant at the time. And for all of us I'm sure it's been a tragic mistake and a tragic lesson but maybe we will have learned something from this and for us individually anyway, will be able to go on a little more fruitful life. - What you're saying is that during this period you were more dedicated to Richard Nixon than to the country's ideals. - Oh, there's no question about it that we subjugated our ethics to what we thought were his policies and we accepted practices that I think, if anybody ever asked me, would I have ever been involved in something like this, before I would have said of course not, because my background and training was I think such that I never would've concerned myself with anything illegal of this kind, but when I was there all I can say and I think for all of us it was very easy. - Did you ever feel that what you were doing was undermining the foundations, the very foundations of democracy?

- No I don't think we ever got... again, Watergate was a minor part of the campaign. We were not particularly interested in it, as you know Gordon Liddy and I did not particularly get along well, if I spent half of one percent of my time on that activity that was more probably more than I did spend because it just was an important. I didn't think of it in those terms. Now you can make a case probably that this type of activity if allowed to continue by administrations, would certainly do that. - Do you feel at all morally responsible for some of the younger members at the Republican campaign headquarters who looked up to you because you were one of the principal leaders? - Oh I think no question about it, particularly Bart Porter, who was a close friend of mine and who I brought into the Watergate problem and who had to plead guilty to a one-count charge and served a certain amount of time in prison and others who were not involved but who I think did look to me because I think my relationship with my staff at

the Committee to Re-elect and the White House was a very strong one and I think these people were very disappointed and probably none as disappointed that I was in myself but certainly I'm sure they were very disappointed and I was disappointed in having run I think one of the most professional and I think that finest campaigns that's been run in this country to have it really ruined because of this aberration and it was an aberration, I think. - Do you think the country has learned anything from Watergate - I hope so. I don't know. I think we'll have to see. I think that'll take time. - We've heard it said that "everybody does it," that what happened in Watergate was just the tip of a traditional and longstanding iceberg which has really marred American political ideals. Do you feel that way? - Well, it may or may not be, I don't know, I've not been in other administrations, I've been in many campaigns and there were things in other campaigns were probably unethical at least. But I don't think that's really important I think now that, if you, if something's unethical, you shouldn't do it, it

doesn't really matter whether it's been done before, you still shouldn't do it. It's illegal, unethical. - How do you feel about the political process now, have you lost faith in that process? - Oh no. No, no. I still think good young men ought to get involved... good young men and women should get involved, get interested, because we need good people in Washington and in state governments and local governments and I'd hope Watergate would not discourage people. - You once planned to pursue a political career yourself. Do you see any chance now that you could do that? - Absolutely not. I don't want to, even if I could, and I don't think i could but i don't want to. I think I'll find other endeavors to keep myself occupied. - How do you see your own life at this stage now? What do you see lies ahead for you? - A life, I would hope that I'll be able to lead a useful life after I return from prison. That's what I would hope to do. - One of your old professors, the Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin, has said that you were a nice young man when he knew you, but you were not yet a good man. Do you think you will emerge from this a good man?

- Well, I hope I'm a better man than I was before I, again, I think I'll have to let other people judge that, I think that's a difficult question to judge yourself. - But you have faith in yourself? - Oh yes. Absolutely. - A few final words now. They were written by Charles Colson, former presidential counselor and were part of his formal statement when he pleaded guilty earlier this week to obstructing justice. Said Colson, "I truly believe that out of all the agonies of Watergate it is possible to bring about important changes in our political process and to strengthen our institutions in such a way that they are better protected against those who would abuse the political process or abuse their public trust. All of us who have been involved in this unhappy chapter of history, along with those who occupy public office today, have an overriding obligation to do everything in our power to help restore the confidence of the American people in this government." To that I think we all would add just one

final word. Amen. And thus we close the maiden voyage of Washington Connection. There were to be twenty programs of the series, and this is the twentieth. We began in january with the stated purpose of dealing with aspects of Washington's stories and events which have a direct gut connection with the way we all live. We did programs on income taxes, occupational health and safety, the postal service, the energy crisis, the cost of food and prescription drugs, school busing, the press, lobbyists, housing, to name just a few. We also tried an experiment: a people's press conference kind of thing where you, rather than we, ask the questions of government officials. All of these programs brought us mail from people throughout the country, and our thanks to all of you who were interested, happy, or mad enough to take the time to write. Our thanks also to the more than forty public television stations all over the US who helped us in various specific ways produce the twenty programs. So we're through. At least for now, and for Paul Duke and for my NPACT colleagues whose names you are about to

see, I'm Jim Lehrer, thank you and goodnight. - I think I would feel the same sadness whether it was a Republican or a Democratic administration. I feel sad that this has happened in our government. - We lived through the wars, the depression, assassinations, riots and we came out all right. We'll come through this. - But now the American people have become so much more aware of their government and so much more aware of the Constitution itself, that, I mean, it would be suicide for any other politician or anybody to ever try anything like say the Watergate break-in, the bugging, or anything of that nature. - Do you believe that this is a good curing process for some of the things that may be ailing and affecting America? - Well, I don't know, maybe it is, maybe not. You see, you have to wait for the outcome to see what happens, how it turns out. Because it can get awful ugly at the end. - We had somewhere there

decided that these type of illegal activities were ok, and consequently we didn't concern ourselves with them. And that as I've said many times in hindsight was absolutely wrong. Washington Connection has been made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation. This has been a production of NPACT, a division of GWETA. [PBS synthesized tones] [tones continue, fade] Yellow's Eyes