The New Regime

In his first public appearance since granting a full and unconditional pardon to Richard Nixon, President Gerald Ford was booed by an angry Pittsburgh crowd carrying signs reading “Justice Died.” Though that sentiment seemed characteristic of the overwhelmingly negative public reaction to the pardoning of the former president, it did miss the point. In this country, justice has been dead for a very long time and the double standard of mercy for the powerful and a punitive “amnesty” for draft-resisters simply demonstrates that little has been changed by the transition of presidents. The initial excitement and confidence in the new administration has now turned to disillusionment and betrayed hopes. This reaction says less about the “newness” of the Ford presidency as it does about the desire, and even need, of the press, the Congress, and the public to put Watergate behind and create a new image even if the reality isn’t there. It seems we have learned little from the Watergate experience about the idolatry of putting our confidence in presidents, governments, and political power generally. The vice-presidential appointment of Nelson Rockefeller, the symbol of the economic and political power that controls this nation, is a further indication that we can expect more of “business as usual” in American politics.

Finally, as a fresh reminder of the true nature of America’s “structure of peace” in the world, previously unreleased congressional testimony by C.I.A. Director William Colby revealed the active and aggressive role played by Henry Kissinger and the C.I.A. in the demise of the Allende government in Chile, which was replaced, in a bloody military coup, with a virtual military-police state more friendly to American business interests than the more democratic Allende administration had been.

Richard Milhous Nixon is gone and one of the most sordid and destructive political careers in American history has apparently been ended. He rose to power by aggravating the public’s fears and insecurities and became, himself, a man obsessed with a fearful paranoia that drove him to dangerous and extreme political actions. He exploited the worst instincts of the American people and became a symbol of the arrogant, self-righteous, imperial spirit that has shaped American history so decisively. He used the rhetoric of “law and order” to his own political advantage while prosecuting a brutal criminal war, flagrantly violating the law and constitutional processes, abusing his own power, and seriously failing his oath of office. A long-time anti-communist crusader, he quickly dropped his ideological concerns as the superpowers realized their own self-interest in cooperating in a new oligopoly of world power conceived at the expense of the world’s poor and oppressed majority. His administration had many victims: millions of Indochinese people killed, wounded, or made homeless by his “peace with honor”; almost 150,000 Americans killed or wounded fighting in a cause few believed in; students, black leaders, and other dissenters from administration policies also made victims of government violence, repression, imprisonment; the poor of this country who saw the quality of their lives deteriorate still further while the special interests, the large corporations, the rich and the powerful found an open door at the White House; all of us, as our basic civil rights and the principles of constitutional government were seriously eroded by this administration; even the president's principal aides and top advisors under indictment or already convicted while the man who gave them their orders goes free.

Even so, I had a difficult time identifying with the national mood on the evening of President Nixon’s resignation. It seemed that the left was busy trying to exploit Watergate for political advantage. Liberals were finally seeing what they had always wanted—the downfall of Richard Nixon. And even his previous supporters, those middle Americans for whom he had always been spokesman, were turning away in righteous indignation. Richard Nixon, who still stood for the things most Americans believe in, was being made a scapegoat for the national guilt. Though Richard Nixon had earned this fate, the nation did not deserve the right to cleanse itself in a dramatic act of national purification. Richard Nixon, despite the political excesses that undermined him, represented all too well the mindset and values of mainstream American life. Like most Americans, he saw life as a fight for success, a fight for a prize to be won and held at any cost. Unlike most Americans, he gained his dream and was corrupted by it. Now he was alone. The man who has been called “the most inauthentic man alive” had been deserted by even his former friends and supporters.

One cannot avoid a word concerning the role of Billy Graham in all of this. Despite the pleading of many fellow Christians, Billy Graham abandoned his prophetic responsibilities and failed to speak out against the injustice and violence of the Nixon administration. He claimed not to be a prophet and declared his role to be evangelistic and pastoral. It is now clear, however, that the relationship between Billy Graham and Richard Nixon was more of a “political alliance” based upon certain shared values and a similar worldview—both were spokesmen for middle America. It is unclear how aware Billy Graham was of the “political” nature of his relationship with the former president; however, it is painfully evident how that relationship was exploited by Richard Nixon and others. Because of the Watergate revelations, it would have been difficult for Billy Graham to go to Richard Nixon when the president was nearing the end of his options. He, like most of Nixon’s former allies who had put their trust in the president, had to sever ties with the discredited leader. But what if Billy Graham had been faithful to his prophetic responsibilities and had spoken out before with courage and conviction? Could he not now, when all others had deserted, go to Richard Nixon and make himself available in a pastoral way to a desperate and lonely man? He could go not trying to keep him in the White House or offering political support, but just to be present to him and to care for him as a person when few others, former friends included, find that expedient. That kind of witness would have been truly Christian—to have spoken the truth about the injustice, the violence, the violation of the laws of God and the laws of men but never forgetting to have love and compassion for the person responsible for the injustice, the man who now needed pastoral help and not mere support from religious leaders for his policies. But the opportunity was lost.

The full and unconditional pardon given by Gerald Ford and accepted by Richard Nixon came with still no admission of guilt or wrongdoing, much less repentance, on the part of the former president. He began by seeking to dismiss the whole Watergate affair as a “third-rate burglary.” He assured us that no one in the White House was involved; he lied continually to the public and to those investigating the case, he sought to use the justifications of “executive privilege” and “national security” to cover the facts of the case; he repeatedly withheld evidence from the special prosecutor, the Senate investigative committee, and the judiciary committee; he fired one special prosecutor for getting too close and resisted the efforts of a second until he was forced to turn over evidence by a unanimous Supreme Court ruling against him. He tried speeches, deceptive statements designed to end the affair “once and for all,” overseas trips, blaming it on others, seeking to discredit the investigators and congressional committees, and confidently predicting that the House would never impeach nor would the Senate convict. When he was finally cited by the House judiciary committee for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and failing to respond to congressional subpoenas for evidence, he resigned in advance of certain House impeachment and inevitable conviction after a Senate trial. Even at the end, he refused to acknowledge his guilt or responsibility when taped transcripts documented the deception and falsehood of his defense so convincingly that even his strongest supporters were forced to vote to impeach. He admitted only “some misjudgments” and was resigning because he no longer had “a strong enough political base in Congress” to continue to resist impeachment. The report of the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation stands as an irrefutable statement of Nixon’s guilt, but the former president’s statement upon accepting the pardon (the acceptance of which would logically imply guilt) contained no confession or admission of his own fault. In a moment of rare candor, Ronald Ziegler, the president’s spokesman made famous for his “inoperative” statements, declared, “contrition is bullshit.” When the transcripts revealed the president’s lying and his last Republican supporters turned against him, Nixon characterized the defectors as “soft bastards.” One remembers the words of John Mitchell speaking for this “law and order” administration: “Don’t watch what we say; watch what we do.” Nixon’s first vice president was a grafter, four of his Cabinet have been indicted, and 17 of his principal assistants have been indicted or convicted. Nixon himself has not the character to admit his wrongdoing and so will be regarded as an unrepentant criminal who must live a continuing cover-up.

Despite this lack of confession and contrition, President Gerald Ford has granted a full and unconditional pardon to the former president after previously stating that he thought such an action to be unwise and against the public’s wishes. Ford had been informed that Jaworski was about to indict Nixon for a whole series of crimes, that the case against him was “ironclad,” and that conviction was almost certain. The pardoning of Nixon, in advance of due legal process, leaves doubt as to whether the entire story of Watergate will ever be known and made public. Richard Nixon continually sought to block disclosure of the crimes of Watergate since the beginning of the investigative process. His resignation prevented a full disclosure of his crimes through an impeachment trial. The pardon prevents a full disclosure through a criminal trial. He even tried to resign from the California Bar and thus prevent disclosure through a disbarment hearing. The pardon, then, becomes a further cover-up of the cover-up rather than an act that ends the whole matter in a decisive way. It is yet another demonstration that “equal justice under the law” remains an unapplied principle in the American political system especially when the offenders are the rich or powerful. On the day the pardon was granted, a man who had just been arrested for being drunk in a small town in Northern California also requested a pardon. When the request was denied, he replied, “I guess I’ve committed two unpardonable offenses: I’m poor and I’m black.”

Ford said that he felt Mr. Nixon had suffered enough. While it is true that Mr. Nixon has suffered, so have countless others whose suffering never gave them an exemption from legal prosecution. Draft resisters and their loved ones have also suffered but they must now “earn” their way back into their country. Nixon is free with government pensions and financial support while those who took his orders suffer from being jailed and having their lives and careers broken. The pardon is a clear case of mercy without justice and without contrition and repentance on the part of the guilty offender. Neither the cause of justice nor the cause of mercy was served by such an act.

While Richard Nixon was free and protected from federal prosecution, the young men who refused to fight in a criminal war were told they could “earn” their way back into American life by working for up to two years in alternative service and by taking an oath of allegiance as if they had done something wrong to atone for. Having to work for re-entry and the requirement of a pledge of allegiance is an attack upon the character and integrity of those who believed their resistance to the war to be right and required by conscience. Attorney General William Saxbe (who wanted to drop the investigation of the murders at Kent State) referred to the oath of allegiance as an “act of contrition.” Contrition for what? War resisters might well ask why no “act of contrition” is being demanded of those, like Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, who vigorously prosecuted and continually supported an illegal, unjustifiable, aggressively destructive, and divisive war. Such a program, conceived in a punitive and self-righteous spirit, is no amnesty and will not bring either healing or reconciliation. In contrast with the unconditional pardon to Richard Nixon, this conditional “amnesty” is particularly offensive. “The American people have come to accept the judgment that we made about the Vietnam war when we refused to fight in it,” said one resister now living in Canada. “The only thing we were guilty of was premature morality.” “It is too much to ask that we accept punishment for our justified resistance to the illegal and immoral United States war in Indochina,” said another. Bob Greene, of the Chicago Sun-Times, recently reported the story of Pete Bezich, a 54-year-old Chicago carpenter who was awarded a silver star in the Pacific during World War II. Pete’s son Steven lives in a prison cell at the El Reno (Oklahoma) federal penitentiary. Steven was a young construction worker who decided it was wrong to fight in the Vietnam war. He offered to help build hospitals in Vietnam instead but his request was denied by the Justice Department and he was given a three-year prison sentence. Pete Bezich, who drives 600 miles to visit Steven each month, has supported his son’s stand since the beginning. Pete remembers how the now-pardoned Nixon kept saying “never” when asked about amnesty for others and says this about Ford’s new plan, “Steve will do his hitch. He doesn’t want any part of a deal where he will have to pretend that he thinks he was wrong in what he did. He knows that he wasn’t wrong. He’ll serve his time. He’s done 21 months, so that means he only has 15 more months to go. We love him, and we know he can make it.” Richard Nixon isn’t the only one who has suffered.

Nelson Rockefeller is a leading member of the richest family in the world. Rockefeller interests reach deeply and secretly into almost every area of the economy and government: oil companies, the largest banks and industrial corporations in the world, life-insurance companies, airlines, communications media, prime defense contractors, universities, foundations, mines, computers, the State Department (where do you think we got Henry Kissinger?), transportation, trusts, cultural centers, and the list goes on and on. The Rockefeller wealth is estimated well into the billions of dollars: more than is possessed by millions of the nations’ blacks, Chicanos, Indians, Puerto Ricans, and poor whites combined. Their power is even greater than their wealth as they exercise critical influence and control at crucial points of economic and political life. Nelson Rockefeller’s recent protestations before Senate committee hearings that wealth doesn’t necessarily mean control are nothing short of ludicrous. The Rockefellers have gathered an empire around them that extends to every corner of the “free” world and is larger and more complex than many previous empires would have dreamed possible.

Nelson Rockefeller has been the family’s most successful politician, and they have spent more money keeping him in office than has ever been spent on any other governor— a full $27 million since 1962. In the 1970 campaign alone, he spent more than $7 million dollars, more than 10 times what his opponent had to spend. His tax policies, his stands on social welfare legislation and minimum wage, his punitive drug law, and his “law and order” measures are so conceived as to victimize chiefly the poor. Many black leaders and others hold him responsible for the massacre at Attica because of the way he handled the situation. In 1970, Nelson Rockefeller went on a fact-finding tour of Latin America and was met with angry violence and protest in most every country visited—protest specifically directed at Rockefeller and the economic and political impact of the enormous Rockefeller interests in Latin America. This was the vice-presidential choice of the man who would have us believe that he is giving a new face to the government.

The recent revelations that the United States had directly and deliberately participated in the economic and political undermining of the government of Salvador Allende in Chile provoked a defense of such interventions by both Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger. It was revealed that a full $11 million dollars had been approved by Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon to, first, seek to prevent the election of Allende through bribes and other means, and then to “destabilize” his government by making it impossible for him to govern. This was accompanied by a planned campaign to strangle Chile economically by initiating a policy of economic denial in U.S. lending agencies and in international agencies where the U.S. has virtual veto power. Chile was thus under an economic siege internationally while being politically subverted by C.I.A. money. The Nixon administration and Henry Kissinger, in particular, reportedly took an aggressive role in all of this. This was all in retaliation for the legal nationalization of U.S. and European copper holdings and for the determination of the new Chilean government to pursue its own development by steering a course away from cooperation with U.S. business interests.

Ford and Kissinger have defended the intervention with the statement that the U.S. was only seeking to preserve democratic rule, an assertion rendered uncredible by the subsequent heavy U.S. support for the military dictatorship that ousted the Allende government and by crucial U.S. economic and military support for similar dictatorships around the world, i.e., South Vietnam, South Korea, Brazil, Philippines, etc.

The past voting record of Gerald Ford on civil rights, military spending, legislation for social needs, consumer and environmental protection, and other critical areas has been discouraging at best. The double standard of justice in relation to his pardon of Nixon and his program for amnesty indicates that not much has changed in the administration of American government. His appointment of Nelson Rockefeller and his support of the Kissinger-directed intervention in Chile show Mr. Ford’s commitment to the continuation of American dominance in the world. One must thus conclude that there is not much new in the new regime.

Jim Wallis is editor in chief of Sojourners.