ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 19, 1996 TAG: 9611190092
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: COLLEGE PARK, MD.
SOURCE: Associated Press
In a midnight conversation more than a year before he resigned as president, a dispirited Richard Nixon talked about giving up his office and said his vice president, Spiro Agnew, was ``just panting to get at it.''
But Nixon quickly let chief of staff Alexander Haig talk him out of quitting. Haig told Nixon his resignation ``would be the greatest shock this country ever had.''
The telephone conversation is included in 201 hours of Nixon tapes - many hard to understand - made public Monday by the National Archives after a 22-year fight by Nixon and his daughters to keep them secret. Nixon's estate gave up in April.
The tapes offer glimpses into Nixon's mood as he fought to keep the Watergate scandal from consuming his presidency.
On May1, 1973, he was begging Gerald Ford, then House minority leader, to rally the Republicans to his side. ``Tell the guys'' to start fighting back, he told Ford.
To which Ford replied, ``Any time you want me to do anything, under any circumstances, you give me a call.''
It was three weeks later that Nixon talked to Haig about quitting.
With criticism coming in a torrent, ``the Congress being Democratic, the Republicans being weak, wouldn't it be better for the country to just check out?'' he asked his newly installed chief of staff on May25, 1973, in a call between 12:58 a.m. and 1:25 a.m.
Haig's reaction to the idea of a presidential resignation was a choking noise, a snort of surprise.
Nixon went on, ``No, no, seriously, because you see, I'm not at my best. I've got to be at my best.'' While trying to do his job as president, he said, he also would have to fight the Watergate allegations, deal with ``people running in with their little tidbits,'' rumors that he would ``make a deal to pay off this one or that one and the other thing.''
Haig: ``I'll tell you sir, if you ever conceived of leaving this - Listen, look what it would have done to those people'' - an apparent reference to supporters.
Nixon: ``Yeah, but they're such a small group, Al.''
Haig: ``No, sir. That's not so. They're all with you. It would be the greatest shock this country ever had.''
Nixon: ``Well, Al, we've got to take a hard look at it because - you see, what really counts is the man. And g--d--- it, the man's got to be doing his job, and I'm not really doing the job because I'm so wound up in this son-of-a-bthing. And you know, you've got Dean out there, you know, ready to scream about this and that - Ahhhh!''
At that time, White House counsel John Dean was talking to federal prosecutors about the cover-up of White House involvement in the 1972 break-in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate office building.
In the summer of 1974, a subpoenaed tape revealed Nixon's attempt to have the CIA - on national security grounds - tell the FBI to drop its investigation.
That tape became known as the ``smoking gun,'' and Nixon's support in Congress evaporated with its court-ordered release. A few days later, on Aug.9, 1974, Nixon became the first president to resign, saying he had lost a vital base of support in Congress.
By that time, Agnew had resigned in his own scandal - a plea of no-contest to charges of taking bribes - and Ford succeeded Nixon in the presidency. He later pardoned Nixon for any Watergate-related crimes Nixon might have committed.
Nixon had the taping system secretly installed in the White House as well as in his hideaway in the neighboring Executive Office Building and at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md.
The existence of the tapes came to light during 1973 Senate Watergate hearings; but Nixon, confident he would not have to give them up, made no effort to destroy them. Later, when he was losing control over them, their destruction would have amounted to a criminal act certain to bring impeachment.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 linesby CNB