Watergate

Jeffrey Kluger is Editor at Large for TIME.

The human brain forgets much more than it remembers, and that has an impact on history, criminal justice and more

Here’s a difficult one, history buffs: Who was Harry Truman? I know, I know, I told you it would be tough, but think hard: Some famous general? Maybe a physicist?

If you guessed U.S. president, good for you! And if you also knew that Truman was the one who came right after Roosevelt (Franklin, that is) and right before Eisenhower, go to the head of the class.

OK, so maybe remembering Truman isn’t such a big deal. But here’s the thing: By 2040, according to a new study just published in Science, only 26% of college students will remember to include his name if they are asked to make a list of all U.S. Presidents, regardless of order.

That finding, which is less a function of historical illiteracy than of the mysterious ways the human brain works, reveals a lot about the perishability of memory. And that, in turn, has implications for contemporary dramas like the Ferguson tragedy, the Bill Cosby mess and the very underpinnings of the criminal justice system.

The Science study, conducted by a pair of psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis, was actually four studies that took place over 40 years—in 1974, 1991, 2009 and 2014. In the first three, the investigators asked groups of then-college students to list all of the presidents in the order in which they served, and also to list as many of them as they could by name regardless of where they fell in history.

In all three groups over all three eras, the results were remarkably similar. As a rule, 100% of respondents knew the president currently serving, and virtually all knew the prior one or two. Performance then fell off with each previous presidency. Roughly 75% of students in 1974 placed FDR in the right spot, for example. Fewer than 20% of Millennials—born much later—could do that. In all groups, the historical trail would go effectively cold one or two presidents before the subjects’ birth—falling into single digits.

There were exceptions. The Founding Father presidents, particularly the first three—George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—scored high in all groups. As did Abraham Lincoln and his two immediate successors, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant. As for the Tylers and Taylors and Fillmores? Forget about them—which most people did. The pattern held again in a single larger survey conducted in 2014, with a mixed-age sample group that included Boomers, Gen X’ers and Millennials, all performing true to their own eras.

Almost none of this had to do with any one President’s historical relevance—apart from the Founding Fathers and Lincoln. James Polk’s enormously consequential, one-term presidency is far less recalled than, say, Jimmy Carter’s much less successful four-year stint. Instead, our memory is personal, a thing of the moment, and deeply fallible—and that means trouble.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the Ferguson drama is the mix of wildly different stories eyewitnesses presented to the grand jury, with Michael Brown portrayed as anything from anger-crazed aggressor to supine victim. Some witnesses may have been led by prosecutors, some may have simply been making things up, but at least some were surely doing their best, trying to remember the details of a lethal scene as it unfolded in a few vivid seconds.

If forensic psychology has shown anything, it’s that every single expectation or bias a witness brings to an experience—to say nothing of all of the noise and press and controversy that may follow—can contaminate recall until it’s little more reliable than that of someone who wan’t there at all.

Something less deadly—if no less ugly—applies in the Bill Cosby case. In an otherwise reasonable piece in the Nov. 25 Washington Post, columnist Kathleen Parker cautions against a collective rush to judgment and reminds readers that under the American legal system, Cosby is not a rapist, but an alleged rapist; and his victims, similarly, are as yet only alleged victims. Fair enough; that’s what the criminal justice rules say. But then, there’s this:

“…we have formed our opinions… only on the memories of the women, most of whom say they were drugged at the time. Some of them have conceded that their recollections are foggy—which, of course they would be, after decades and under pharmaceutically induced circumstances, allegedly.”

In other words, if Cosby did drug them, then perhaps we must throw their testimony out of court because, um, Cosby drugged them. Talk about the (alleged) criminal making hay on his crime. And yet, when it comes to the science of memory, that’s an argument that could work before a judge.

Finally, too, there is the unseemly business of Ray Rice. Virtually nobody who knows what he did has forgotten it—which is what happens when you’re a massively strong athlete and you cold-cock a woman. But it was the complete elevator video actually showing the blow, as opposed to the earlier one in which Rice was seen merely dragging the unconscious body of his soon-to-be-wife out into a hotel hallway, that spelled his end—at least until his lifetime NFL ban was overturned on Nov. 28. Knowing what happened is very different from seeing what happened—and once you saw the savagery of Rice’s blow, you could never unsee it.

When it comes to presidents, the fallibility of memory can help. In the years immediately following Richard Nixon’s resignation, it was a lot harder to appreciate his manifest triumphs—the Clean Air Act, the opening to China—than it is now. George W. Bush is enjoying his own small historical rebound, with his AIDS in Africa initiative and his compassionate attempt at immigration reform looking better and better in the rear-view mirror—despite the still-recent debacles of his Presidency.

We do ourselves a disservice if we hold historical grudges against even our most flawed presidents; but we do just as much harm if we allow ourselves to forget why ill-planned land wars in countries like Iraq or cheap break-ins at places like the Watergate are so morally criminal. Forget the sequence of the Presidents if you must, but do remember their deeds.

In a situation in which no outcome would be good, the president illogically doubled-down on certain disaster

To understand how someone as politically savvy and intelligent as Richard Nixon gambled away his presidency, employing increasingly spurious defenses, I decided to do what no one else had done: Identify, listen to, and transcribe all of Nixon’s secretly recorded Watergate-related conversations. I doubt if anyone outside the National Archives has ever heard even half of the one thousand conversations I discovered. It took me four years and a great deal of assistance to accomplish this task, the results of which I have reported in The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It. My book is primarily an almost day-by-day narrative of Watergate scandal as it unfolded, covering the period from the break-in in June of 1972 to Alexander Butterfield’s revelation of Nixon’s secret taping system in July of 1973. Most of this account consists of a carefully culled record from over four millions words of direct dialogue of the principal figures, with context and comments as necessary.

The object of my search was an explanation of why Nixon would risk his presidency with the concocted defenses he ultimately offered—defenses based not in fact but in his effort to twist and distort events. Broadly speaking, what I found was that at the outset, Nixon considered Watergate merely a political embarrassment that would pass. He incorrectly concluded, however—based on less than complete information from White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman—that Watergate did not directly involve the White House, or him. This is not to say that the president was uninvolved, for clearly he did not want Watergate to destroy his former attorney general and campaign manager, John Mitchell, who he correctly suspected had approved the illicit operation undertaken by former White House aides G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt, with their team of amateur operatives.

Unintentionally, within days of the Watergate arrests, Haldeman drew the president into a conspiracy to obstruct justice by covering up what had actually transpired there. The tapes and related records clearly establish that this initial conspiracy was formed and directed by Haldeman, Mitchell, and John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s top domestic adviser, who had commissioned the earlier criminal activities of Liddy, Hunt, and their men. The president himself was not informed of some key facts of the situation, such as the prior criminal activities of those involved at the Watergate had been undertaken earlier for the White House. Although Nixon’s role in the affair was initially surprisingly passive, he did expressly approve elements of the subsequent cover-up, including payments to the Watergate defendants and the perjury necessary to make the scheme work.

It was not until eight months after the arrests at the Watergate that I was summoned by the president to discuss the matter. I was uncertain then about what he did or did not know; as it turned out, he knew much more than he let on. But when Nixon soon began insisting that I write a bogus report about Watergate, I warned him we were involved in criminal conduct with the payments to the Watergate defendants, and that it was almost certain these cover-up activities would soon collapse. Following that March 21, 1973, conversation, Nixon began to focus on the details of White House’s response to the break-in, carefully examining everything that had occurred in the relevant period, particularly his own conduct. When he realized he was culpable he fell into a period of protracted dread and denial, which was manifested by increasingly obsessive-compulsive behavior. In the following months he discussed Watergate with his aides ad nauseam, as he endlessly rehashed and refashioned his justifications and rationalizations—all the while distorting his own role to protect himself and his presidency at the expense of everyone, notwithstanding having approved their actions. Nixon, realizing that he had clearly violated criminal laws, understood that he had few options, and none of them was good. While as president he was immune from criminal prosecution, he knew he could be removed from office, then prosecuted and even further disgraced by being sent to prison.

While working on this book, I became aware of a number studies conducted after Watergate, research with well-tested findings by psychologists and economists who examined risk-taking and decision-making by people in a “loss frame”—that is, a situation in which none of the options is good. Study after study demonstrated how decision-making becomes remarkably illogical in conditions like that which the president faced in Watergate. Nixon, who boasts during the recorded conversations of this period of his prowess as a poker player, initially tried to bluff his way through the scandal with small bets. As he kept losing, however, the more exposed he became, and the more he was inclined to risk. Nixon’s defenses were, in effect, a series of increasingly bad bets. Had I known in March 1973 what I know today, when warning him of a cancer on his presidency I would have also cautioned him about the nature of decision-making when there are no acceptable choices. The prudent thing for a person in a loss frame who must make a decision is to discuss the problem with someone who is not in that loss frame.

Nixon, as the tapes reveal, confided in no one outside his immediate circle, all of whom had their own motives to support the deceptions, and was thus he was a classic loss-frame decision maker. That, of course, was not his only problem, but certainly among the more glaring for his deeply flawed defenses and related decisions which would cost him his presidency.

John W. Dean was legal counsel to President Nixon during the Watergate scandal, and his Sen­ate testimony lead to Nixon’s resignation. In 2006, Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Commit­tee investigating George W. Bush’s NSA warrant­less wiretap program. He teaches a continuing legal education program throughout the country, drawing on the lessons of Watergate, and contributes political/legal commentary to Justia.com. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Blind Ambition, Broken Government, Conservatives Without Conscience and Worse Than Watergate.

As Obama impeachment chatter continues, Nixon's resignation hits its 40th anniversary

Read more about Nixon’s resignation in TIME’s archives.

Friday marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon resigning from the U.S. presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and subsequent cover-up. The anniversary comes just as a handful of Republicans, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, threaten to impeach President Barack Obama. “Impeachment is a message that has to be sent to our president that we’re not going to put up with this lawlessness,” Palin said in early July.

But the current situation is still a far cry from what went on 40 years ago. Today, even the President’s opposition in the House admits that there’s no serious impeachment effort underway. (The House did vote to support Speaker John Boehner’s lawsuit against Obama, but that’s not about impeachment.) For Nixon, however, the House Judiciary Committee went through with it, passing one article of impeachment against Nixon on July 27, 1974. The issue would have then moved to the full House of Representatives, where it had been likely to pass and continue on to the Senate, which had the power to remove Nixon from office. None of that happened, of course. Nixon resigned before it could.

In recognition of a political decision that rocked the country 40 years ago — and that other one currently attempting to rock the Democratic fundraising arm — here are six quotations from TIME’s 1974 coverage that show what an impeachment process looks like:

“People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.”

Nixon said these words in a press conference several months before resigning, in November 1973, as inquiries into the Watergate Scandal continued to pick up speed.

“For years we Republicans have campaigned against corruption and misconduct…But Watergate is our shame.”

The House Judiciary Committee that determined Nixon’s impeachment as the recommended course of action reached a vote of 27 to 11. Six Republican Congressman joined 21 Democrats to approve the motion. Among them was Virginia Republican Rep. M. Caldwell Butler, who said this quote. Butler helped Nixon on his reelection and stated that, after he announced he would vote for the President’s impeachment, he cried.

“I felt that if we didn’t impeach, we’d just ingrain and stamp in our highest office a standard of conduct that’s just unacceptable.”

Alabama Democrat Walter Flowers, who said these words, struggled with deciding whether he would vote in favor of Nixon’s impeachment. He came from an overwhelmingly pro-Nixon district. Other members of the committee were, like Flowers, hesitant to impeach but feared the precedent that could be set by not doing so. “I have been faced with the terrible responsibility of assessing the conduct of a President that I voted for, believed to be the best man to lead this country,” said Maine Republican Rep. William Cohen. “But a President who in the process by actor acquiescence allowed the rule of law and the Constitution to slip under the boots of indifference and arrogance and abuse.”

“There was just too much evidence.”

Republican Rep. Lawrence Hogan of Maryland said that he made his decision to impeach while driving home one night, as the weight of the evidence against President Nixon finally hit him. “After reading the transcripts, it was sobering: the number of untruths, the deception and the immoral attitudes,” Hogan said. “By any standard of proof demanded, we had to bind him over for trial and removal by the Senate.” In the public eye, the Maryland Congressman offered a sterner view of the situation. “The evidence convinces me that my President has lied repeatedly,” Hogan said at a press conference, “deceiving public officials and the American people.”

“This is the most important thing I shall ever do in my whole life, and I know it.”

Republican Rep. Charles Sandman of New Jersey understood the importance of the task at hand, which makes it even more interesting that he was one of Nixon’s staunchest supporters through the Watergate scandal. As one explanation for opposing all articles of impeachment, Sandman recalled the 1868 impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, which he called “one of the darkest moments in the Government of this great nation.” Sandman added, “I do not propose to be any part of a second blotch on the history of this great nation.” Sandman, like Nixon’s other defenders, paid dearly for their support of the administration after the White House tapes were released on Aug. 5, revealing the President’s demands to cease Watergate investigations. Sandman was defeated in his re-election campaign of 1974 and never served in Congress again.

“I think it could perhaps be one of our brightest days.”

New York Democrat Charles Rangel, who continues to serve in the House of Representatives, took an optimistic outlook on the impeachment proceedings. He viewed them as living proof of the Constitution’s soundness. “Some say this is a sad day in America’s history,” Rangel said. “I think it could perhaps be one of our brightest days. It could be really a test of the strength of our Constitution, because what I think it means to most Americans is that when this or any other President violates his sacred oath of office, the people are not left helpless.”

If polls from that time can serve as an indication, the House Judiciary Committee did act on the wishes of the American people. Even before the release of the incriminating White House tapes, a Harris poll showed that 53% of Americans supported the impeachment of Nixon, who held an approval rating of 24% at that point. In comparison, a July CNN poll found that 65% of Americans oppose an impeachment of Obama.

Read more about Nixon’s resignation in TIME’s archives.

Apartments and a mall will take its place, leaving only a historical plaque to commemorate the location where Mark Felt, a top FBI agent known as "Deep Throat," would share Watergate secrets with journalist Bob Woodward