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Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Pardon -- Lawfare - Kimberly Wehle
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/behind-the-scenes-of-the-nixon-pardonA review of Jeffrey Toobin, “The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy” (Simon & Schuster 2025)
This looks like an interesting book. Many DU readers probably know most of what happened during the Nixon era and Ford's selection as VP and subsequent elevation to President, but Toobin's book seems to pull many details together.
Jeffrey Toobin’s new book, “The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy,” offers a detailed look into the machinations preceding the most famous presidential pardon in U.S. history (unless President Trump’s recent mass pardons of Jan. 6 convicts eclipse it): President Gerald Ford’s pardoning of the disgraced Richard Nixon for crimes relating to the Watergate scandal. By Toobin’s reckoning, Ford’s decision to pardon Nixon was both contemptible and foolish, converting Ford into an unwitting “villain in the story” of the spectacular downfall of his former boss, who, by resigning the presidency on Aug. 8, 1974, catapulted Ford to power without Ford’s ever having appeared on a nationwide ballot. Ford had nothing to do with the Watergate break-in or the White House cover-up, yet the pardon defined his legacy. While Nixon got “a free pass, a total gift, a complete exoneration,” as Toobin sees it, Ford’s four years as president began—and ended—with the plague of Watergate, which many believe cost him a second term. (Toobin isn’t so sure.)
Toobin conducted dozens of interviews for the book, which opens with a narrative of how Ford got both top White House jobs. Nixon had chosen his first vice president, Spiro Agnew, as an “insurance policy” against impeachment and removal. After Agnew resigned on tax evasion charges, Nixon tapped the unassuming Ford to replace him, believing that he too was “a light-weight whom one could envision as President.” In an Oval Office conversation with Nelson Rockefeller (who was then the governor of New York and a contender for vice president), Toobin writes, “Nixon put his hands on the arms of his chair and said with contempt: ‘Can you imagine Jerry Ford sitting in this chair?’”
The book paints a picture of Ford as politically naive, despite his having served 24 years in Congress. Ford assumed the vice presidency in the midst of the Watergate investigations, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee while seeking confirmation for the vice presidency just days after the so-called Saturday Night Massacre—a series of resignations by Justice Department officials who refused to carry out Nixon’s order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox.
Cox had drawn Nixon’s ire for refusing to drop a subpoena for the Oval Office tape recordings that wound up documenting the president’s involvement in the Watergate cover-up, including what was later deemed the “smoking gun” tape. On June 23, 1972, a week after five burglars broke into Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Hotel complex in Washington, D.C., that tape recorded Nixon conspiring with his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, about a plan to use the CIA to get the FBI’s Watergate investigation shut down. Nixon directed Haldeman to say to the CIA: “You open the scab there’s a hell of a lot of things, and that we feel that it should be very detrimental to let this thing go any further.” “Play it tough,” he added. “That’s the way they play it, and that’s the way we are going to play it.”
. . .
Toobin conducted dozens of interviews for the book, which opens with a narrative of how Ford got both top White House jobs. Nixon had chosen his first vice president, Spiro Agnew, as an “insurance policy” against impeachment and removal. After Agnew resigned on tax evasion charges, Nixon tapped the unassuming Ford to replace him, believing that he too was “a light-weight whom one could envision as President.” In an Oval Office conversation with Nelson Rockefeller (who was then the governor of New York and a contender for vice president), Toobin writes, “Nixon put his hands on the arms of his chair and said with contempt: ‘Can you imagine Jerry Ford sitting in this chair?’”
The book paints a picture of Ford as politically naive, despite his having served 24 years in Congress. Ford assumed the vice presidency in the midst of the Watergate investigations, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee while seeking confirmation for the vice presidency just days after the so-called Saturday Night Massacre—a series of resignations by Justice Department officials who refused to carry out Nixon’s order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox.
Cox had drawn Nixon’s ire for refusing to drop a subpoena for the Oval Office tape recordings that wound up documenting the president’s involvement in the Watergate cover-up, including what was later deemed the “smoking gun” tape. On June 23, 1972, a week after five burglars broke into Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Hotel complex in Washington, D.C., that tape recorded Nixon conspiring with his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, about a plan to use the CIA to get the FBI’s Watergate investigation shut down. Nixon directed Haldeman to say to the CIA: “You open the scab there’s a hell of a lot of things, and that we feel that it should be very detrimental to let this thing go any further.” “Play it tough,” he added. “That’s the way they play it, and that’s the way we are going to play it.”
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