The Richard Nixon Experience

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Our Season 3 Premier and the first in our NIXON and WATERGATE series:

This season opens just as the Vietnam War ends for America. Even as the treaty is signed there are still last minute maneuverings that President Nixon and Henry Kissinger have to deal with in order to get our Prisoners of War out of Vietnam. You will listen in on the discussions between the President and his speech writer Ray Price and then Dr. Henry Kissinger as the war finally comes to an end. 

Then we will listen to the memories of the brave soldiers of that war and the ordeals they suffered through as Prisoners of War in the Hanoi Hilton. The most famous of which, the future Senator from Arizona, John McCain, recounts his years in the prison and the moment that the Vietnamese almost broke his indominable spirit. You will hear several other soldiers tell their stories as well.

Then we will shift gears to the burgeoning scandal that would soon dominate the Nixon Administration, Watergate. You will hear ABC News set the stage for the coming sentencing of the Watergate burglary defendants and we will be introduced to a cast of characters from G. Gordon Liddy, to Judge Sirica to future Chairman of the Watergate Committee in the Senate Sam Irvin of North Carolina. 

In this episode we will also meet Geoff Shepard, the last living defense Attorney for Richard Nixon, he had been a mid level employee, and White House Fellow , there working on policy. He would move up to being Nixon Attorney Fred Buzhardt's right hand man.  He will play a major role in the telling of our story on "Bridging the Political Gap" over the next three seasons. 

You can read up on Mr. Shepard and get copies of his three landmark books at his website:

 https://shepardonwatergate.com/

 and starting with this episode you will hear excerpts from his extraordinary  podcasts with the Nixon Foundation and its then President Hugh Hewitt titled "Known Unknowns" , here is a link to the first episode and you can then go from there to the rest. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWxWKSK0cmc 

We will be using a lot of these conversations throughout our series on Watergate over the next three seasons

Finally our show will then return to the POW's as they are released and we get to hear their stories of returning, finally, home. 

It remains perhaps the true high point of one of the greatest Presidencies in all of American History, the Presidency of Richard Nixon. 

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From the Richard Nixon Foundation video collection introduction to this speech: 

"On January 14, 1971, President Nixon made an appearance at the University of Nebraska to present its football team with a presidential plaque recognizing them as undisputed national champions. The President also took the opportunity to address some of the problems currently facing the Nation, "common problems, for younger people and older people as well."

The speech is an excellent one with inspiring words for the University full of young people with deeper meaning than just giving an award to the National Championship Football team. I thought it a great speech to share with you.  That some hopes and thoughts about our country and its greatness and opportunities, especially for our young people, are timeless no matter how divided we are nor what era we are living in. 

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"As the Watergate era passes into history, the voices of most of the key players now stilled, Dwight Chapin -- a loyal and discreet member of Richard Nixon's inner circle before and after he captured the White House -- emerges with an intimate and insightful memoir that students of the era never imagined we would see. With its eyewitness account of critical events, many previously undisclosed, "The President's Man" brings to life the extraordinary cast of characters of that tumultuous time: Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kissinger, John and Martha Mitchell, and, of course, the late President himself. Dwight Chapin's unsparing  recollections make a significant addition to the literature of the Nixon Administration and the annals of the postwar presidency"  --- James Rosen, author of The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate

That is one of many powerful reviews for one of the most important books written on Richard Nixon over the past half century. It was authored by a man who can genuinely claim to be "The President's Man", Dwight Chapin. If you have followed our podcast it often seems that everywhere you look you will see Dwight Chapin. 

On our shows about President Nixon's remarkable run and the 1968 campaign, it was Dwight Chapin that got President Lyndon Johnson on the phone, that went with Nixon to Martin Luther King's funeral, that helped arrange the meeting with Hubert Humphrey at the elections end. He was there for the "Silent Majority Speech" and he was the man who helped put together every aspect of the trip to China that shook the World. No one was more intricately involved at every turn of the remarkable Presidency of Richard Nixon than Dwight Chapin. 

This episode is a brief look at this remarkable person entrusted to be at the side of one of our nation's greatest leaders. Dwight Chapin has recently written an outstanding book that we highly recommend, "The President's Man",  and here we have compiled some of the interviews, panel discussion, and a few added insights and materials we thought would compliment the material he has provided as he conducted his recent book tour.  It will give you some insight into the greatest of American Presidents on the eve of our podcasts deep dive into the scandal that ended Richard Nixon's Presidency. 

For more information on Dwight Chapin's new book and materials here is his website 

ThePresidentsMan.com  

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For all of the folks who have said to me that our long documentary on Watergate and the massive evidence of alleged prosecutorial misconduct just did not seem plausible. This special edition is for you. It is a story I had not heard before until our podcast's friend , Geoff Shepard, sent the story to me and then I proceeded to research it. 

It is the story of one of greatest injustices ever perpetuated on a group of our soldiers, accusing three African American fighting men of murder, and causing 47 more, all African Americans, to face trial and court martial for a riot in November of 1944. It would be another 64 years before this injustice was ever set straight. An early investigation had been conducted of the events in question before the Army Prosecutor had been sent to work on the case and that investigation had cleared every single African American soldier involved of any wrong doing. 

But the Prosecutor decided to prosecute all of them  anyway, even though he knew of the report that said they were all innocent men. He actively hid the report refusing to turn it over to a rushed Defense Team knowing they only had 10 days to prepare their case. It was a travesty of American Justice. 

That prosecutor was named Leon Jaworski and the case has many earie similarities to the long national nightmare of Watergate, we just chronicled in our last three season series.  This is a sad, sad , story.  A story that brings new insight to the massive amount of new evidence that has emerged that shows that Richard Nixon, and many of his top aids, may not have been as guilty as we have all been led to believe for the past half century. 

To learn more about the 1944 Fort Lawton riot see these links :  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lawton_riot

KCTS 9 Connects: Miscarriage of Justice

https://youtu.be/Nxil2dibqiU

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In this new introduction to our podcast documentary series “Nixon and Watergate” we take you through the many exculpatory examples of events that are exposed over the next three seasons that the public was unaware of a half century ago. 

All of which points to one extraordinary fact, that Richard Nixon did not deserve to be forced out of the office he had earned. That there truly was a sinister force at work to remove one of the greatest political figures of the century from public office. 

We hope this episode will intrigue you enough to join us through out 2024 as we take you through the wild ride that was the real story of “Nixon and Watergate” 

** This episode is running simultaneously on “Randal Wallace Presents” and  “Richard Nixon Experience “ podcasts as the latter prepares to rebroadcast our documentary series

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As we finish the first half of our series on the Nixon Administration and its place in our much larger series of shows that covered the Vietnam Era, we thought we would preview the events on the way over the next 3 seasons of our shows. This is the coverage of the fall of Richard Nixon and the scandal known as Watergate. 

It would undermine in the eyes of the American People all he had accomplished to bring peace to millions around the world and to bring peace, prosperity, and a healthier, more equal country,  at home. 

This preview we hope will leave you asking a question about the scandal we are about to embark on a comprehensive look at and that question is simply, was it fair? 

Was Richard Nixon and those defendants, tried and convicted of criminal acts in the scandal, really able to receive fair treatment in the eyes of the American people, or in the Federal Court System, and if not, is it now time to change it for the sake of a truthful and fair assessment for History. 

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In this episode we listen in as a nation says farewell to one of its most  larger than life leaders, the former President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson. We tune in at his funeral services in Washington D.C. and in Texas. 

Then we travel halfway around the world to hear the signing of the Paris Peace accords that would effectively end the Vietnam War for America after a decade of lost youth and treasure. The South Vietnamese government would stand and President Nixon had secretly assured the South that if the North moved on them he would return to aid in their defense.  We had gotten out of the war with honor and our POW's would soon be home. 

We end the season on 1972, The Foundation of Peace, with a peace in Vietnam.

 Richard Nixon would go to sleep on the night of January 29, 1973, on top of the political world with what he thought was a secure place in history alongside George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as one of the greatest Presidents in all of American History. He had plans for a second term that while less dramatic would have changed our nation dramatically, foreseeing the many issues we have today, from Healthcare, to the environment, to major welfare reform, to government restructuring, and revenue sharing, by a full half century. 

It all seemed to be coming together for this President like no agenda had ever been put together in our history. What could possibly go wrong?

On January 30th, the tenth day in this remarkable run by President Richard Nixon, the defendants in the Watergate trial would be convicted and the unraveling of a cover up by the President's men would lay in motion a set of events that would bring Richard Nixon down and overshadow all that he had achieved for America. 

 It has been decades since the Watergate Scandal removed Richard Nixon from office, but he always claimed that history would declare him one of our greatest Presidents, and that one day his side of the story would eventually emerge.  It never has.

But it will now, starting on January 22, on our show "Bridging the Political Gap" and it will change everything you ever thought you knew about Richard Nixon........

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Finally, an agreement seems to be at hand and the war in Vietnam can be brought to an end for America. 

No one wanted to see this day more than former President Lyndon B. Johnson. He was a man who never wanted to be a wartime President. He had worked to stall making a decision to enter the war on a massive scale, he had tried all he could to find another solution to the growing issues in Vietnam, issues almost all of which had been created by an American decision to remove the leader of South Vietnam just before Johnson had ascended through assassination to the Presidency.  Johnson would sacrifice his entire career in a search for an elusive peace in South East Asia.

On the eve of that peace, Lyndon Johnson would die of a heart attack at his ranch in Johnson City, Texas. Fortunately, the Nixon Administration had informed him that a peace agreement was finally at hand. 

In this episode, we look straight into the ultimate irony of war.  As we listen to the back and forth between President Nixon and his negotiators halfway around the world in Paris and listen to the news coverage of the death of the man who tried so valiantly to find a peace in Vietnam for five years as President. 

When the deal finally was done, President Richard Nixon addressed the nation to inform them that our long nightmare was over and to also pay homage to a man who worked so hard to make America a better land for all of its citizens of every race, color, religion, and station in life. 

Richard Nixon, at his most triumphant moment as President, made it a point to say of his immediate predecessor, "No one dreamed bigger dreams for America, than did Lyndon Johnson". 

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Frustrating, frustrating is about the best way to put the ongoing negotiations and often the most frustrating part has been our allies not our enemies. 

Here we listen in on conversations between the President and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger as they discuss the details of the agreement being negotiated and how to deal with their ally in South Vietnam. 

It is an insiders look at how the war was finally brought to an end. It was never easy and these calls show it right up to the last. 

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We start the ten days that elevated President Nixon to the status as one of the four greatest Presidents in American history with his second  Inauguration as President. In this episode we will plug into ABC News coverage of the day in 1973, with anchormen Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner.  It will include his entire second Inaugural speech, a real treat if you have never heard the speech before. 

President Nixon's speech looks forward to what he thought would be a more peaceful term because peace with honor in Vietnam was now about to be within his grasp. He knew he was only days away from finally having an agreement. 

On this January 20th, Richard Nixon had only the slightest of hints that over the next ten days he would see his place in history soar to a status only shared with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and on the last day, there would be a turn that would lead to events that would totally over shadow those tremendous accomplishments in the eyes of the American people for the next half century. 

The audio for almost this entire podcast episode comes from the legendary ABC News Network and its extraordinary team of top notch journalists, who were even in this era, the most fair to the figures they covered, in my opinion.