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R E C E N T L Y Blood Money Portrait of a political "pit bull" What if it were President Packwood? |
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(Sound bites from 3 scandals) BY DAVID FRIEND | Watergate. Iran-contra. The Lewinsky Affair. Nixon, Reagan, Clinton. The Plumbers, Oliver North, Monica Lewinsky. Rose Mary Woods, Fawn Hall, Bettie Currie. All three White House scandals entailed allegations of coverup and obstruction of justice. All three invited a legion of grand inquisitors from the press, the prosecutor's office and the halls of Congress. And all three were dutifully recorded for all to hear -- on audio- and videotape. Nevertheless, as this year-end survey makes clear, each administration coined a distinctive dialect for its peculiar scandal, full of its own brand of sound and fury. So sit back and listen. These pages offer a sort of comic fugue, blending the voices of crisis from 1998 and across three decades. Each White House scandal, it seems, is pathetic in its own way. | |
| Watergate - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Iran-contra - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Lewinsky - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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| TALE OF THE TAPES: |
261 hours of secretly recorded Oval Office audiotapes (including phone calls); 250 hours of televised congressional Watergate hearings; related materials | 30 hours of televised Iran-contra hearings; 3,888-page congressional report; testimony and evidence from Lawrence Walsh independent counsel investigation; 758 Oliver North e-mail messages; related materials | 700-page Paula Jones deposition transcripts; 20 hours of Linda Tripp audiotapes; 4 hours of videotape of Clinton grand jury testimony; 6-volume Kenneth Starr independent counsel testimony and evidence, including 7,793-page appendix and Monica Lewinsky e-mail and answering machine messages; House Judiciary Committee transcripts and broadcasts; full House debate broadcasts; related materials |
| THE CRUX: | "What was Watergate? A little bugging! I mean, a terrible thing -- it shouldn't have been done -- shouldn't have been covered up. And people shouldn't have and the rest, but we've got to beat it." -- President Richard Nixon, strategizing with White House counsel John Dean, on secretly recorded tape | "What began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, not trading arms for hostages." -- President Ronald Reagan, in televised address to the nation, on Iran-contra charges | "Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate." -- President Clinton in televised address to the nation, after appearing before special prosecutor in the Monica Lewinsky matter |
| MEMORY LAPSES: | "You say, 'I don't remember.' You can say, 'I can't recall. I can't give an answer to that, that I can recall.'" -- Nixon, brainstorming with aides on how to tailor grand jury testimony | "The only honest answer is to state that try as I might, I cannot recall anything whatsoever about whether I approved an Israeli [arms] sale in advance. My answer therefore and the simple truth is, I don't remember -- period." -- Reagan, to Tower Commission investigating Iran-contra affair | "That is not my recollection. My recollection is that I did not have sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky and I'm staying on my former statement about that." -- Clinton, in grand jury testimony |
| CONSPIRACY THEORY: | "The arts, you know, they're Jews, they're left-wing -- in other words, stay away." -- Nixon on tape | "The most sophisticated disinformation and active-measures campaign that we have seen since Adolf Hitler has been launched against our support of [the Nicaraguan contras]" -- Lt. Col. Oliver North, in speech secretly taped and given to the Washington Post | "After I went through a presidential campaign in which the far right tried to convince the American people I had committed murder, run drugs, slept in my mother's bed with four prostitutes and done numerous other things, I had a high level of paranoia." -- Clinton, in Paula Jones deposition |
| CLOAK & DAGGER: |
"[G. Gordon] Liddy laid out a million-dollar plan that was the most incredible thing I have ever laid my eyes on: all in codes, and involved black-bag operations, kidnapping, providing prostitutes to weaken the opposition, bugging, mugging teams." -- Dean, to Nixon | "I flew up to New York and I took a cab down ... to a corner Chinese market ... The person ... rolled up his pant leg and pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills." -- Robert Owen, North operative, in Iran-contra testimony | "I am certain that at some point in time I told Bettie Currie, 'Mission accomplished.'" -- Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan, testifying about having informed the president's secretary he had helped secure a job for former White House intern Lewinsky |
| NOMENCLATURE: | "Martha [Mitchell] picked up the phone so it was all in code. I said, 'Have you talked to the Greek?' And [Attorney General John Mitchell] said, 'Yes, I have.' I said, 'Is the Greek bearing gifts?'" -- Dean, to Nixon, relating details of phone call | CHIEF HOUSE COUNSEL JOHN NIELDS: The next entry is "If these conditions are acceptable to the banana, then oranges are ready to proceed." What is "banana"? NORTH: The banana is Israel ... Oranges is the United States. -- Excerpt, Iran-contra hearings |
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the -- if he -- if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not -- that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement." -- Clinton, in grand jury testimony |
| DOUBLESPEAK: | "I wasn't lying. I said things that later seemed to be untrue." -- Nixon on tape | "We did not -- repeat -- did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages -- nor will we." -- Reagan, in televised Oval Office address on Iran-contra charges | "He says it doesn't matter what anybody said, you just deny it. As long as you say it didn't happen, it didn't happen." -- Lewinsky, on tape, to confidante Linda Tripp, recounting advice given to her by Jordan (denied by Jordan) |
| HONESTY: | "Tell the truth. That is the thing, I have told everybody around here -- tell the truth! ... That [Alger] Hiss would be free today if he hadn't lied ... If you are going to lie, you go to jail for the lie rather than the crime." -- Nixon to Dean | "The policy ... was driven by a series of lies: lies to the Iranians, lies to the Central Intelligence Agency, lies to the attorney general, lies to our friends and allies, lies to the Congress, and lies to the American people." -- House Iran-contra committee Chairman Lee Hamilton | "I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time." -- Clinton, in remarks at reception in Roosevelt Room |
| COVERING TRACKS: | NIXON: I'd like to tell you to take all these tapes, if you wouldn't mind. In other words, uh ... AIDE H.R. HALDEMAN: Yeah. NIXON: Most of it is worth destroying. Would you like -- would you do that? HALDEMAN: Sure. |
"I think I shredded most of that. Did I get 'em all? ... I tried, as I was departing the NSC ... to destroy all references to these covert operations." -- North, Iran-contra testimony, admitting having shredded memos, possibly even five that sought Reagan's approval for Iranian arms sales | "Go home and make sure they're not there." -- Jordan, advising Lewinsky on how to handle notes she had drafted to the president, according to Lewinsky grand jury deposition (denied by Jordan) |
| EXPLETIVES DELETED: NOMENCLATURE: |
"Yes (expletive deleted). Goldwater put it in context when he said, '(Expletive deleted) everybody bugs everybody else. You know that.'" -- Nixon to Dean | "Let's get our little-nipper in here and find out wtf is going on." -- e-mail, North to Robert Earl, as NSC team was creating false chronology | "A year from now, when you look back on this, you will have a much, much healthier perspective, and you will be so glad you got the [REDACTED] outta there." -- Tripp, on tape, to Lewinsky |
| CUBAN CONNECTION: | "The Cubans that were used in the Watergate were also the same Cubans that [E. Howard] Hunt and Liddy used for this California [Daniel] Ellsberg thing, for the break-in out there." -- Dean, to Nixon | "The Cuban military is engaged around the world as the surrogates of the Soviets ... But there is now a place much more vital to our interests ... the poor, tortured country of Nicaragua, which could become the next Libya." -- North, in secretly taped pro-contra speech ("Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North," by Ben Bradlee Jr.) | "He was chewing on a cigar. And then he had the cigar in his hand and he was kind of looking at the cigar in ... sort of a naughty way." -- Lewinsky, testifying about her recollection of an Oval Office encounter |
| FOLLOW THE MONEY: | "If you need the money you could get that. You could get a million dollars. You could get it in cash. I know where it could be done. But the question is who the hell would handle it? Any ideas on that?" -- Nixon, to Dean, considering ways to buy the silence of arrested Watergate participants | "All I know is that some sum of money over and above the $12.2 million purchase price appeared in a Swiss bank account ... which ... had been used on other occasions to help the contras." -- Reagan, in deposition at Iran-contra trial of former National Security Advisor John Poindexter | "I would be indebted to you for life. I would write you a check for the entire portion [of a condo] I own in Australia." -- Lewinsky, urging Tripp to lie under oath, in conversation recorded by FBI |
| COMIC RELIEF: | DEAN: They can subpoena any of us ... They can always find you. HALDEMAN: We move to Camp David and hide! They can't get in there. NIXON: Well, go ahead. |
"I also added that this is roughly like inviting [Libyan leader Moammar] Gadhafi over for a cozy lunch." -- Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, on draft of plan to reassess U.S. policy toward Iran as a step to freeing the hostages | "Linda, if I ever want to have an affair with a married man again, especially if he's the president, please shoot me." -- Lewinsky, on tape, to Tripp |
| TALKING POINTS: | AIDE JOHN EHRLICHMAN: We have, I think, a useful statement that has been cleared by Dean and Mitchell and is directed with the coverup charge ... PRESS SECRETARY RON ZIEGLER: It's not a statement, Mr. President, it's some talking points for me. |
"By the time that group convened ... the primary objective was to [draft] a sequence of events that would distance the president from the initial approval of the Iran arms sale." -- Reagan National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, on the team that created a false Iran-contra chronology | "Anyone who testifies ... that I authorized or was involved in the preparation of the 'talking points' would, in fact, be committing perjury." -- Linda Tripp, on memo supposedly intended to advise her on how to slant her affidavit in the Paula Jones lawsuit |
| SMOKING GUNS: | "Is it an early tape or a late tape? ... If it's a June or July of '72, then that's the smoking gun." -- White House speech writer Patrick Buchanan, commenting to special counsel J. Fred Buzhardt about secret tape revealing Nixon's Watergate complicity ("The Final Days," by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein) | "There is probably no smoking gun here. But there is a new mess in Washington, if not a new Watergate." -- Anonymous White House source to New York Times correspondent R.W. Apple Jr. | "For six months, Starr and his allies promoted the 'talking points' as the smoking gun of this investigation, despite the fact that the White House had no involvement in them." -- White House spokesman Jim Kennedy |
| LOOSE CANNONS: | "This man is crazy, Mr. President. He's burning his arms. He showed the prosecutor and said, 'I will stand up to anything.'" -- Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen, commenting on Liddy | "I don't want you to think, Counsel, that I went about this all on my own. I realized, there's a lot of folks around that think there's a loose cannon on the gun deck of state at the NSC." -- North, in Iran-contra testimony | "[Ms. Lewinsky] threatened him. She said that she would tell people they'd had an affair, that she was known as 'the stalker' among her peers." -- Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal, testifying about his recollection of the president's statements |
| MEMORY REFRESHERS: NOMENCLATURE: | "I would like for you to say ... 'I told the president about this. I told the president first there was no involvement in the White House' ... And the president said, 'Look I want to get to the bottom of this thing, period.'" -- Nixon coaching Dean prior to Dean's Watergate hearings appearance | "Isn't it true [you] and ... others above you, by putting out this version of the facts, were committing the president of the United States to a false story? ... to a lie?" -- Chief House counsel John Nields on North and others' motives in drafting a false Iran-contra chronology | "You were always there when she was there, right? We were never alone. You could see and hear everything. Monica came on to me, and I never touched her, right?" -- Clinton secretary Bettie Currie's testimony of her recollection of the president's statements to her the day after his Paula Jones deposition |
| DENIABILITY: | NIXON: But you had knowledge; Haldeman had knowledge; Ehrlichman had knowledge and I suppose I did that night. That assumes culpability on that, doesn't it? ... DEAN: I have tried all along to make sure that anything I passed to you myself didn't cause you any personal problems. |
"I was convinced that the president would, in the end, think it was a good idea. But I did not want him to be associated with the decision." -- Poindexter, on why he shielded the president from certain Iran-contra decisions | "People ... said, well, this is not really a story about sex, or this is about subordination of perjury ... So what I was trying to do was to give them [information] ... that would be true, even if misleading in the context of this deposition, and keep them out of trouble." -- Clinton, testifying about why he misled aides about the nature of his relationships with Lewinsky |
| DUMB & DUMBER: | NIXON: Tying [the break-in] to us is an insult to our intelligence. EHRLICHMAN (laughing): We don't mind being called crooks, but not stupid crooks. NIXON: That's right. We know we'll never convince them on our morality, but do they think we're that dumb? |
"This guy, I know, was an actor ... but I'd give him an Academy Award if he knew anything about this." -- Chief of Staff Don Regan, in House testimony, on Reagan's purported ignorance of Iran-contra activities | LEWINSKY: My mom's big fear is [the president]'s going to send somebody out to kill me ... TRIPP: Oh, my God. Don't even say such an asinine thing. He's not that stupid. He's arrogant ... but he's not that stupid. |
| CUISINE: | NIXON: [Aide Frederick] LaRue. He broke down and cried, I guess. EHRLICHMAN: That's a-right. Are you going to have spaghetti tonight? [SECRETARY OF STATE WILLIAM] ROGERS: Spaghetti and singing Toscanini [sic] |
"The delegation also carried a chocolate cake [in the shape of a key] from a kosher bakery in Tel Aviv -- 'more of a joke than anything else between North and [arms middleman Manucher] Ghorbanifar.'" -- NSC staffer Howard Teicher, in testimony cited by Tower Commission | "Sir, the girl's here with the pizza." -- Lewinsky testimony, recalling Currie statement to the president |
| TELEPHONE MANNER: | "I was just sitting here with John Dean ... This is just one of those side issues and a month later everybody looks back and wonders what all the shooting was about. OK, John ... Get a good night's sleep. And don't bug anybody without asking me? OK? Yeah. Thank you." -- Nixon, in phone call to Mitchell | "I recall the president calling me ... and [he] said, 'Get on with that. Let's go ahead ... I'll be glad to take all the heat for that.' And that, frankly, was more the way the president dealt with an issue, as opposed to saying, 'Well, I like option 1, 2, 3 or 4.'" -- McFarlane, in Iran-contra testimony, on Reagan's decision to begin covert arms sales | "Good morning! What a way to start a day." -- Lewinsky testimony of recollection of Clinton statement after alleged phone sex |
| PIGS: | "Well, did you do any fornication this weekend?" -- Nixon, off-camera, during TV taping with David Frost | "[I am] shocked to hear what Sen. [Howell] Heflin said about me smuggling documents out in my bra. It is untrue. It is outrageous ... and it is certainly sexist." -- Fawn Hall, Oliver North's secretary, at Iran-contra hearings | "Is this just about sex ... or do you have some interest in trying to get to know me as a person?" -- Lewinsky, testifying about a question she posed to Clinton concerning their relationship |
| EXCUSE ME??!: | "Please get me the names of the Jews. You know, the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats. Could we please investigate some of those c---suckers?" -- Nixon, on tape | "I wouldn't say that we treated him as a mental patient ... But certainly we were all appalled by the absence of the kind of alertness and vigilance to his job." -- Sen. Edmund Muskie, Tower Commission member, characterizing Reagan | "And he said, well, I don't know, I might be alone in three years. And then I said something about ... us sort of being together ... I left that day, sort of emotionally stunned ... I just knew he was in love with me." -- Lewinsky, in deposition |
| PHILOSOPHY 101: |
"Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in." -- Haldeman, to Nixon | "Winston Churchill ... said, 'In time of war, the truth is so precious, it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies.'" -- CIA Director William Casey, to journalist Bob Woodward ("Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987") | LEWINSKY: If truth is synonymous with good, then truth is good and good is God, OK? ... TRIPP: I think everyone has a moral code of some sort. LEWINSKY: We do. But to everybody, it's different. |
| SPEAKING IN TONGUES: | HALDEMAN: Strachan would say it was Operation GEMSTONE, not Operation SEDAN CHAIR -- and GEMSTONE wasn't Watergate ... NIXON: They tell me GEMSTONE was the code word for everything -- GEMSTONE is for everything. HALDEMAN: Well, I thought SEDAN CHAIR was the Watergate thing, OK. |
"Air drop at sea for UNO/KISAN indigenous force are a ... lethal drop to UNO South... transfer of 80 UNO/FARN recruits." -- Secure message from CIA field officer to North, about plans for a supply "drop" to the contras | "If the deponent is the person who has oral sex performed on him, then the contact is with -- not with anything on that list, but with the lips of another person. It seems to be self-evident that that's what it is ... Let me remind you, sir, I read this carefully." -- Clinton, in grand jury testimony |
| DUPLICITY: | NIXON: I think Dean, frankly, is more inclined to give Ehrlichman a screwing than anyone else. I have that feeling. HALDEMAN: Well, and if [special counsel Chuck] Colson gets hung up anywhere, he will go on Ehrlichman and not on me. |
"He showed deception on virtually all of the relevant questions ... The [lie detector] test indicated that he knew ahead of time that the hostages would not be released and deliberately tried to deceive us." -- Tower Commission, conveying report on arms middleman Ghorbanifar's polygraph test | "I'm being a shitty friend ... because I won't lie ... I feel like I'm sticking a knife in your back, and I know at the end of this, if I have to go forward, you will never speak to me again, and I will lose a dear friend." -- Tripp, on tape, to Lewinsky |
| PRIVACY & SECRECY: | "Never before in the history of the presidency have records that are so private been made so public." -- Nixon, upon releasing transcripts of White House tapes | "You're not going to make public all of this stuff when you get done ... I hope. I mean, there's Top Secret, code-word documentation ... I pray to God you're not going to turn all these loose." -- North, at Iran-contra hearings | "This matter ... is private. And I intend to reclaim my family life for my family. It's nobody's business but ours. Even presidents have private lives." -- Clinton, in mea culpa speech |
| EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE: | "Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs. This principle is recognized in the constitutional doctrine of executive privilege, which has been defended and maintained by every president since Washington." -- Nixon, in address to nation, upon releasing Watergate tapes | "My preferred response ... was not to tell the Congress. In no disrespect to this body, none whatsoever, but, in fact, exercising what I understood to be executive privilege." -- North, in Iran-contra testimony | "I'm not going to discuss my conversation with the president ... [because of] attorney-client privilege ... I was receiving this information in [my] role in connection with ongoing matters that would affect the presidency." -- Deputy White House Counsel Bruce Lindsey, refusing to answer independent prosecutor's questions |
| GRAND INQUISITORS: | "[Watergate special prosecutor] Archibald Cox should not have been fired because he was a partisan extremist in the pursuit of Richard Nixon. He was not conducting a balanced inquiry into the process; he was conducting a politically biased inquiry ..." -- White House Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler, in interview for "Nixon: An Oral History of His Presidency" by Gerald S. and Deborah H. Strober | "I take all charges seriously ... by an independent counsel running an extraordinary, unbridled, enormous investigation and I am the only person on the entire planet, Earth, named in his appointment order." -- North, in Iran-contra testimony | "Do we want to have prosecutors with unlimited powers, accountable to no one, who will spend millions of dollars investigating a person's sex life? Is that the precedent we're setting?" -- Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., House Judiciary Committee member, in opening statement on whether to move toward impeachment inquiry |
| FOR THE COUNTRY'S SAKE: | "If there's one thing you have got to do, you have got to maintain the presidency out of this. I have got things to do for this country." -- Nixon, to Assistant Attorney General Petersen, while considering whether to resign from office | "I believe, from the moment I was engaged in this activity in 1984, that this was in furtherance of the foreign policy established by the president. I still believe that." -- North, at Iran-contra hearings, justifying covert operations | "The truth is I felt -- and I know this is going to sound really hokey, but ... To me, a little bit of -- it's for the country. Every president we ever had has always had lovers because the pressure of the job is too much." -- Lewinsky, to Tripp, on FBI-monitored wire, explaining the patriotic motives behind her relationship with the president |
| THE LONG VIEW: | "You have saved the country. History books will show that when no one will know what Watergate means." -- Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, to Nixon | "Roger, Ollie. Well done -- if the world only knew how many times you have kept a semblance of integrity and gumption to US policy, they would make you Secretary of State." -- E-mail, McFarlane to North | "He said, 'I promise you,' you know, something like, 'if I win in November, I'll have you back like that' ... And I said, 'Well, can I be Assistant to the President for Blow Jobs?'" -- Lewinsky, in testimony about alleged discussion with Clinton |
| ACCEPTING BLAME: | "In any organization, the man at the top must bear the responsibility. That responsibility, therefore, belongs here, in this office." -- Nixon, in speech upon firing top aides Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Dean | "I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration ... And as personally distasteful as I find secret bank accounts and diverted funds -- well, as the Navy would say, this happened on my watch." -- Reagan, in televised address to the nation | "I am solely and completely responsible ... I know that my public comments and my silence about this matter gave a false impression. I misled people, including my wife. I deeply regret that." -- Clinton, in televised address to the nation |
| THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: | "Well, [for] one thing, the saturation level of the American people on this story is cracking. The saturation level in this city is pretty high now, and they can't take too much more of this stuff." -- Dean, to Nixon | "The people in this country just don't think [aiding the contras is] a very good idea ... The American people have the constitutional right to be wrong. And what Ronald Reagan thinks or what Oliver North thinks ... [means] not a whit, if the American people say, 'Enough.'" -- Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., at Iran-contra hearings | "By golly, there is a way to punish the lying without punishing the American people who have clearly had enough of this and then some." -- Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, during House impeachment inquiry debate |
| LET'S MOVE ON: | "It's clear from this report that you are guilty as hell. Now, John, for (expletive deleted) sake go on in there and do what you should. And let's get this thing cleared up and get it off the country's back and move on." -- Ehrlichman, offering recommendations with regard to Dean's testimony | "This report ... culminate(s) the long summer of self-examination for America and for the administration. And now we are through it. We are moving on." -- White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, reacting to congressional Iran-contra report | "It's time to move on. Reprimand the president. Condemn him. But let's move on. These grossly unfair procedures will only tear this Congress and this nation apart." -- Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., in House debate before impeachment inquiry votes
SALON | Dec. , 1998 |
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David Friend is Vanity Fair's editor of creative development and former director of photography at Life. A Watergate junkie, he was the only journalist allowed into the private lives of Oliver and Betsy North during the Iran-contra hearings, for Life; more recently, he coordinated Vanity Fair's exclusive coverage of Monica Lewinsky. |