For hard-core Watergate freaks, this book provides perspective on The Downfall from one of Nixon's right-wing, law-n-order stalwarts - the chief of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice and director of the organized-crime Strike Force. The tone is of surprised disappointment and condemnation. Old Watergate buffs will lose patience with Wilson's rehash of known facts (he adds few new ones) but the book's worthwhile contribution is its analysis of the catastrophe through the eyes of an experienced criminal lawyer, and its judgment on what happened through the failure of the President to get and exercise proper legal advice, which failure Wilson contends reflects the core problem - Nixon's stubborn refusal to recognize that he was, in fact, behaving like a criminal.Looking deeper into how Nixon and his White House staff could so seriously misjudge the situation, Wilson cites lack of executive experience among the critical decision makers - including and especially the President - who nevertheless were given extraordinary latitude in exercising public responsibilities. In this regard, Wilson reaffirms in spades what other commentators have noted - that Nixon's White House was utterly unable to make the distinction between public and private agendas, between political ends and public policy.
And no wonder. H. R. Haldeman, the "custodian of the body", vaulted to his position as chief gatekeeper from a career as an advertising executive. John Ehrlichman, the other corner of the "Berlin Wall", was promoted from 18 years of quiet law practice with his father, mostly limited to real estate condemnation. John Mitchell was a municipal bond lawyer. Each of them was impressively successful in his own speciality, but specialists they were, with no experience in trying to balance or mediate competing political interests of equal merit, which is the heart and soul of the process over which they were empowered with stewardship. Nixon chose them not for their statesmanship, but for their fanatical loyalty to Nixon.
Of the characters in this familiar drama, Wilson was closest personally to John Mitchell, Henry Petersen and Richard Kleindienst. Wilson provides a friend's sympathetic explanation, if not a defense, for Mitchell's series of mistakes in handling a matter outside his experience. God knows, Mitchell could use a friend in the historical record.
And Nixon's own executive experience? It is surprising to reflect on how little he actually had. Wilson notes that Nixon is best known even among his friends as a tireless political campaigner, not as a policy wonk or a project ramrod. He never really "ran" anything while in public office. Indeed, he hated bureaucracy and bureaucrats. Wilson reminds us that several times President Eisenhower expressed reservations about Nixon's ability to follow him as President, saying that he had "watched Dick a long time, and he just hasn't grown. So, I just haven't honestly been able to believe that he is Presidential timber."
Why didn't Ike say it louder?
