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"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonablesearches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrents shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized."
-- Amendment 4
In 2005, Carroll & Graf Publishers reissued The Senate Watergate Report. This is the historic report that resulted from the Ervin Committee's investigation of the crimes we know collectively as "Watergate." These hearings played a significant role in the collapse of the Nixon administration.
It is important to remember that in January, 1973, after the convictions of the seven men involved in the break-in at the Watergate, it seemed likely that the White House could close the door on scandal. On February 2, Chief Judge John Sirica stated, "Everyone knows there's going to be a Congressional investigation in this case. I would hope, frankly, not only as a judge, but as a citizen of a great country and one of millions of Americans who are looking for certain answers -- I would hope that the Senate committee is granted power by Congress by a broad enough resolution to get to the bottom of what happened in this case."
In part of the Committee report, Senator Sam Ervin, Jr., wrote, "One shudders to think that the Watergate conspiracies might have been effectively concealed and their most dramatic episode might have been dismissed as a 'third-rate' burglary conceived and committed solely by the seven original Watergate defendants had it not been for the courage and penetrating understanding of Judge Sirica, the thoroughness of the investigative reporting of Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, and other representatives of a free press, the labors of the Senate Select Committee and its excellent staff, and the dedication and diligence of Special Prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski and their associates."
The copyrighted introduction by Daniel Schorr, we read that the "Watergate Committee's televised heyday, which left some shaking their heads and others shaking their fists," covered a total of 37 days (May 17 to August 7, and then September 24 to November 15). "In the way that it only does for great moments in history," Schorr wrote in 1974, "television dropped everything to focus on 'gavel-to-gavel' coverage. In the coming weeks, America sat through two billion viewing hours -- an average of thirty hours per household -- of Watergate hearings -- many of them avidly, some of them resentfully, wondering where the scheduled soap operas had gone. But, for some of those the Watergate hearings, with a teaful Strachan, a mocking Ehrlichman, a stonewalling Mitchell, had become a soap opera itself. And, in the end, having drifted to rotating coverage and then no coverage, the networks were surprised to learn that their aggregate audience during the hearings was greater than it would have been with normal programming." (xix-xx)
Schorr had reason to take interest in the hearings. As reported by John Dean, "Haldeman requested Larry Higby to direct the FBI to do an investigation of CBS news correspondent Daniel Schorr." (228) When this became public, the White House claimed that this was a mere back-ground check being cnducted because Schorr was being considered for an administration position. Dean testified that this was a lie, and that the White House was hoping to smear Schorr.
Indeed, in part of the public record under the heading "What Was Watergate?", Ervin wrote, "They branded as enemies of the President individuals and members of the news media who dissented from the President's policies and opposed his re-election, and conspired to urge the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Federal Communications Commission to pervert the use of their legal powers to harass them for doing so."
That brings thoughts of Keith Olbermann's reporting on MSNBC's Countdown to mind. I would like to dedicate the following section of Ervin's "Why Was Watergate?" to Mr. Olbermann:
"They had forgotten, if they ever knew, that the Constitution is designed to be a law for rulers and people alike at all times and under all circumstances; and that no doctrine involving more pernicious consequences to the commonweal has ever been invented by the wit of a man than the notion that any of its provisions can be suspended by the President for any reason whatsoever.
"On the contrary, they apparently believed that the President is above the Constitution, and has the autocratic power to suspend its provisions if he decides in his own unreviewable judgement that his action in so doing promotes his own political interests or the welfare of the nation. As one of them testified before the Senate Select Committee, they believed that the President has the autocratic power to suspend the Fourth Amendment whenever he imagines that some indefinable aspect of national security is involved.
"I digress to reject this doctrine of the constitutional omnipotence of the President. As long as I have a mind to think, a tongue to speak, and a heart to love my country, I shall deny that the Constitution confers any autocratic power on the President, or authorizes him to convert George Washington's America into Gaius Caesar's Rome."
Let's make sure that we elect a democratic congress. We need both the House and Senate to put the imperial presidency of George Bush and Dick Cheney in check.
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