The Saturday Night Massacre - A 40-year Retrospective

Comments · 75

• PH

  @philmoore71 · 4 years ago

  this would be a fascinating discussion if it was held in today's USA

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• NA

  @nandrumacparlan4086 · 2 years ago

  This is fantastic. Thanks for posting!

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• MI

  @michaelmcclary8054 · 2 years ago

  I lived through this mess!  I saw a Psychiatrist after the "Saturday night Massacre!"😢- Michael McClary, Professor of Trumpet 🎺, Georgia Perimeter College & GSU

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• JO

  @jokekelleey2071 · 4 years ago

  Richard Nixon president Richard Nixon did very many good things for the United States and the presidency

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• VO

  @VolneysRuins · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMAP0jZmlno&amp;t=2871">47:51</a> Woodward: “It’s a service we provide “

• PI

  @pining4apple · 8 years ago (edited)

  This is great, thank you.

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• DO

  @donnythompson408 · 6 years ago (edited)

  I don’t think that there’s much doubt, that by the time “The Saturday Night Massacre” happened, Nixon was not only unraveling, he had reached a point of being rabidly paranoid. <br>According to those who knew him (as much as anyone could ever get to “know” him), Nixon was always insecure to some extent; feeling all of his life that he was looked down upon by others, feeling inferior; whether it was because of his family being poor, or that he wasn’t chosen to pledge the “cool” fraternities, or because he wasn’t an All-American athlete - and that attitude eventually evolved into a certainty that people were “out to keep him down”. <br>But by this time (late ‘73), I think he had reached a new low, and he really was mentally breaking down; and in that state of mind, he wasn’t thinking things through, or with much clarity at all. For all his faults - he was known as being a very sharp (and at times a very brutal) political strategist. But he had come to the point where his actions weren’t well-planned, and instead became knee-jerk, impulsive, and without regard for the end-game. <br>His feelings of persecution had reached a boiling point, morphing from “people keeping him down” to people now being “out to get him”, and it made him paranoid, angry...and reckless. <br>In my personal opinion, I don’t think that Nixon was refusing to release the tapes because he felt that it was a matter of “principle”, or because he thought that doing so might set a dicey legal precedent for future presidents, - but because he KNEW what was on those tapes, and, like a drowning man, he was panicking, floundering, and reaching out for anything to hold onto, to control. <br>His motivations weren’t based upon protecting The OFFICE of The President, but motivated by a critical self-survival mode to protect himself. <br>As would be evident just a few months before the Saturday Night Massacre, he would make multiple attempts to divert guilt away from himself and try to blame others around him. Examples of this would be his attempt to get WH Council John Dean to summarize Watergate - and to then put his signature on the document under that summary, making it appear as though Dean knew everything, that Nixon had no previous knowledge of the crime(s), and that Dean’s summary was not only the first time he was being “briefed” about it, but that it was an admission of guilt (Dean saw the writing on the wall; he knew at that point that his grave had already been dug, so he refused). <br>In April of ‘73, Nixon would cut loose both Haldeman and Erlichman, his two most loyal colleagues, in another futile attempt to make it look as though they - and not he - had knowledge of the crimes. <br>Watergate was a test of our country’s foundation, of our Constitution. But as the years passed, and more information became known, it also turned out to be the study of a president imploding; the self destruction of a man who put his own interests and survival above that of the country that he was entrusted to lead. <br>Like a train heading for a cliff, it was inevitable, and ultimately, he was powerless to stop it. <br>IMO. <br>🙏

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• FI

  @filippellifrank1669 · 4 years ago

  It&apos;s reassuring to hear a nonpartisan &nbsp;civil debate,

• JA

  @jackdowd6238 · 4 years ago

  Always get a laugh when you see smart people talking to smart people and the questions have to be read off their clipboards

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• LA

  @larryfeatherstone8048 · 8 months ago

  Nixon did not have to do this, he was on to victory without a doubt.

• SA

  @sandercurtis1847 · 3 years ago

  Does anyone remember if a reporter went to a Justice&apos;s house in the middle of the night to obtain the Justice&apos;s reaction to the events?

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• HU

  @Hugo_StiglitzIB · 6 years ago

  He had Prof. Cox as a law professor. &nbsp;Alas, he was stone deaf and very old at the time, but it was clear that he was incredibly duty bound and honorable.

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