RICHARD NIXON 1973 Watergate (Part 9) The Resignations of Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kleindienst, and the firing of John Dean

The Richard Nixon Experience

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In this episode we get to listen in on what was probably the most agonizing and personally painful decisions that President Nixon had to make, save decisions involving the war in Vietnam. It was during these days that Nixon had to finally step up and force the resignations of two of his closest aids and confidantes, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. Two men who had been by his side through all the triumphs and tragedies of his entire administration and even stretching back to his wilderness years. They had been known as "The Berlin Wall" and they had protected the President from friend and foe alike.
Now in the chaos of the Watergate Scandal they had been sucked into the events and were going to have to be forced out. Richard Nixon trusted these men, he tried very hard to protect them, and now he was left with no choice but to cut them loose. He would also fire John Dean, a man who had betrayed him to the Prosecutors in his attempts to secure immunity for his own crimes.
This is a painful episode to listen to because you see the emotional toll it takes on the President. Who by all accounts was a man who did not like to have confrontations, or make decisions of this kind. It would be as though he had cut off his arms for him to lose so trusted a pair of assistants.
The toll is even more evident as we listen to the only actual calls that sound as though President Nixon has been drinking in order to emotionally handle the day. (Charges of his drinking being one of the more scurrilous and false of the many targeting the President through the years) We close with his conversations with Bob Haldeman and California Governor Ronald Reagan late in the night after he addresses the nation.
It was a sad day in the life of this truly great American Leader.