I can think of a plot for a great movie.
Imagine a movie set in the background of Washington DC, imagine the plot unfolds
in the context of a nasty campaign for president of the United States, imagine
though, criminal activities coming directly from the White House itself, all
in order to help the incumbent president win the election.
Imagine top White House staffers involved in break-ins, acts of sabotage,
theft and illegal slush funds worth millions of dollars,
imagine secret tape recordings along with arrests and perjury and corruption
reaching to the office of the President himself. Sounds like it could be a good
movie, couldn't it? Well the fact is, this eventually was made into a movie, but it
was a movie based on a true story; the Watergate scandal that rocked the
United States in the early 1970s and led to the only time in history a United
States president was forced to resign, in this program, called The Downfall of the
President, we're going to look at the scandal, why? Because I think there's a
bit of the president in all of us. Those old enough will remember the
1960s as one of the most incredible decades, JF Kennedy was elected president
of the United States, only to be taken out by a sniper's bullet three years
later, the Soviets put the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin, the Beatles exploded
into popular culture in a big way, student riots and strikes all but shut
down France, famine hits Biafra, now known as Nigeria, about 1 million people
died between famine and war, the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia, the Australian
Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared and has never been heard from again.
APRANET, the precursor of the internet, was created, Martin Luther King Jr. was
assassinated, hundreds of thousands of concert goers converged in a rural New
York area known as Woodstock, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison,
the Russians test a 15 Megaton hydrogen bomb - the biggest man-made explosion in
history and Americans landed on the moon. Yes a lot happened in the 1960s, but amid
it all one event started to dominate the decade and that was the Vietnam War. What
began with 600 United States military advisers in the early 1960s, had swelled
to five hundred and thirty six thousand US troops by 1968 and as the war dragged
on people began to turn against it. The results were protests, riots and violence
in the streets of America and elsewhere. Probably no one in America hated the war
more than the one who kept committing troops to it and that was President
Lyndon Baines Johnson, wornout, bedraggled and personally defeated by the conflict,
Johnson stunned the world with his announcement that he would not run for
president in 1968, instead Richard M Nixon, a man many thought was done
politically, succeeded Johnson into the White House, now, when we hear the name
Richard Nixon most people conjure up images of corruption, scandal, evil and
deceit, he was even known as 'tricky dick' and yet here's the thing about Richard
Nixon, in many ways he'd been a very good and successful president, he founded the
Environmental Protection Agency whose job is to protect the environment, Nixon
ended the draft in America, Nixon poured money into the war on cancer that still
has a positive impact around the world, he signed legislation that greatly
reduced gender discrimination in America, Nixon was the president who opened the
door to good relations with communist China, an event that has radically
changed the world, Nixon saved the nation of Israel from
sure destruction in the 1973 Yom Kippur War when a host of Arab nations attacked
and yes, lest we forget, Richard Nixon ended the
war in Vietnam, however as I just said, when most people think of Richard Nixon
they don't think of these good and positive things, rather they associate
him with corruption, deception and evil. Now I would like to argue though, that
Richard Nixon is a bit like all of us. What do I mean? I mean that we're all a
mixture of good and bad aren't we? Richard Nixon, like you, like me, had some
very good traits, some very good qualities and they served him well, but
he also had some bad traits - I mean who among us doesn't have a bad side, who
doesn't have thoughts, feelings and maybe even habits
that we would just assume others didn't see or even know about, thoughts, feelings
and habits that we really wish we didn't have to begin with. Well as with us,
so with Richard Nixon and I want to talk about the story of his fall, because
however dramatic and however consequential the downfall of Richard
Nixon was there is a lesson here, not just a history lesson but a moral one, a
lesson about how we need to be careful because no matter all the good we might
do, or want to do, only a little bit of unrestrained evil could ruin everything.
Now I want to pick up the story in the middle of 1972, in the months before the
presidential election, this should have been a great time for Richard Nixon, yes
the first four years of his term were tumultuous for sure, but the Democrats
have nominated a very liberal candidate George McGovern who was running on an
anti-war platform, only one problem though, true to his word
Nixon was already ending the war, peace talks were going on in Paris, and American
troop levels were at only 24,000 and dropping fast and so Nixon was way ahead
in the polls and heading into an election that he would win by a
landslide, however in a recent biography of Nixon, called 'Being Nixon - A Man
Divided', author Evan Thomas told about Nixon's cronies sitting around a pool at
the Doral Hotel in Miami Beach in August 1972, this was during the Republican
National Convention, the eyewitness described what he saw like this: "One
afternoon at the pool, I noticed a sizable group of administration
stalwarts huddled together at the outdoor bar, they were whispering
worriedly, chain-smoking, chain-drinking and obviously not having any convention
fun. With Nixon sure to win what were they worried about?" Well a lot
as it turns out. Two months earlier, just after midnight, on July the 17th 1972 at
the Watergate complex in Washington DC a security guard noticed tape placed on
door latches leading from the underground parking lot to offices in
the Watergate, he removed the tape and left thinking little of it, when he
returned an hour later he saw that someone had re-taped the latches, he
called the police, they arrested five men who had broken into the Democratic
National Committee main office, they were attempting to wiretap phones and steal
documents. Where did these men break into and try to steal documents and wiretap
phones? Well it was the headquarters of Richard Nixon's political rivals in the
upcoming election, now if that wasn't bad enough, FBI investigations soon lead
money found on the burglars to a slush fund from an organisation called The
Committee For The Re-election Of The President,
this was the official organisation of Richard Nixon's election campaign, so
money from Nixon's re-election campaign was tied to men who had broken into the
headquarters of Nixon's campaign rivals in order to steal documents and wiretap
phones. Hmm sounds suspicious, now historians still question if Richard
Nixon had any advanced knowledge of or if he had even authorised the burglary
itself, most think not but it was certainly possible,
in fact, Nixon had been recorded on tape ordering the break in of a local think
tank called the Brookings Institute. Because he believed that Brookings had
papers that Nixon wanted he ordered his own people to break in
and steal those papers. Nixon said, verbatim on tape, "Get those files, blow the safe
and get it". Blow the safe and get it? The President of the United States ordering people to break into a building,
blow a safe and steal documents. Now this hardly proves that Nixon knew about the
Watergate break-in, or even approved of it in advance, but it certainly shows
that it would not have been past him. Anyway
the burglary was in June of 1970, two months before the election, Nixon then
made a critical decision, he decided on a cover-up and though more evidence
pointed to the White House, Richard Nixon openly lied to the American people,
saying that no one in the White House was involved in Watergate. The American
people believed him and he easily won a second term, he was confident that he
could get away with it and, at first, all went well for months and months after
the break-in, most Americans didn't care about it, however, as with most cover-ups,
one sin leads to another and so, over the next two years, the scandal came to
dominate the country and the president had to keep lying,
but despite Nixon's assurances to the contrary, more and more evidence pointed
directly to his White House and though questions remain, what is certain is that
Richard Nixon violated the law in an attempt to thwart the criminal
investigation and cover up the crime. But the more he lied, the deeper he got
sucked into the quicksand of deceit, he was on a slippery downward slope, one
dishonest act led to another, it was like a domino effect,
indeed not too long after the break in Nixon was recorded agreeing to pay
money to keep the burglars quiet, in the tape Nixon was talking to John Dean, his top White House lawyer. Can you believe that?
Here is the President of the United States agreeing to bribe people in order
to obstruct a criminal investigation. Another time, again in the context of
stopping the investigation, Richard Nixon said he didn't care about what happened,
"I want you all to stonewall it, let them plead the fifth amendment, cover-up, or
anything else if it'll save the plan" Nixon and his cronies might actually
have succeeded in getting away with everything, were it not for the work of
Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein both were young, and
not very high up the ladder in the organisation, in fact the editor of the
newspaper was getting ready to fire Bernstein, nevertheless over the next two
years the two journalists pursued the story. Their work was immortalised in the
movie, All the President's Men, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. Also
someone in the government, known as deepthroat had been secretly feeding them
information, about 31 years later it was revealed that deep throat had been
Mark Felt, the second highest in command at the FBI at that time. Anyway,
the work of Woodward and Bernstein, following up the Watergate break-in,
revealed an extensive program of political espionage and sabotage run by
Nixon subordinates at the White House, many ending up in jail for what they did.
For instance G Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent,
along with E Howard Hunt, a former CIA agent had organised the Watergate
break-in, in his autobiography Liddy said that they talked about killing
journalist Jack Anderson because of the things he'd been writing against Nixon,
nothing ever came of that plot but after the Watergate scandal started to unfold
Liddy wrote that he told John Dean that he, Liddy, should take the heat for the
botched job "Look John, I said that I was the captain of the ship when she hit the
reef and I'm prepared to go down with it. If someone wants to shoot me, just tell me what corner to stand on and I'll be
there, okay? Dean searched my face to see whether I was joking or not. I wasn't, and
he could see that. 'Well uh' he stammered, I don't think we've gotten there yet Gordon'"
Wow, this was the chief lawyer for the
president speaking, now no one is saying that Nixon knew about these
specific events, but accounts like this show just how corrupted his White House
had become under President Nixon. The web of deceit spread wider and wider, more
and more people became ensnared in it, and the president was becoming more and
more entangled. During Senate Watergate hearings, it came out that Nixon had been
secretly taping all conversations in the Oval Office, when investigators realised
what great potential these tapes had they subpoenaed them, Nixon, claiming
executive privilege, fought the release all the way here, to the United States
Supreme Court. On the 24th of July 1974 the Supreme Court voted eight to zero in
United States versus Nixon that he must turn over the tapes, even with a
mysterious 18 and 1/2 minute gap in tapes they revealed more evidence of
lies, cover-up and criminal activity by the President of the United States and
so, on the 9th of August 1974, just a little over two years after the
Watergate break-in, facing certain impeachment, Richard Nixon became the
first United States President to resign the office. "Therefore I shall resign the
presidency effective at noon tomorrow Vice President Ford will be sworn in as
president at that hour". What started out initially as a small
cover-up spread like a cancer to infect and taint the highest office in the land
and those associated with it. It brought about the downfall of the
President and it was such a tragedy because Nixon had some very good
characteristics and in many ways had been a very good president, some who knew
him talked about how kind, caring and ethical he could be. Just one story from
even before he was president captures this side of the man, Nixon became
friendly with Martin Luther King Jr. after a trip to Africa in 1957 and was
close to Jackie Robinson the baseball player who broke the colour barrier when
he became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball, on the
campaign trail Nixon practiced what he preached in Springfield Missouri, when a
hotel refused to rent rooms to some black reporters covering the campaign,
Nixon moved his whole entourage out. I said in the beginning of this program,
we're all not that different from Richard Nixon, in the sense that we all
have good and bad points, the problem however is when you ascend so high as
did Nixon, your bad side, if not contained, can lead to a very big fall. Most of us,
even if we do fall, don't fall from such a big height do we? But who amongst us
hasn't suffered at least somewhat from some of the character defects that we
have? Who among us hasn't fallen, maybe not from the heights that Richard Nixon
did, but fallen nonetheless? I want to read you a few verses from the New
Testament, from the writings of the Apostle Paul, he was quoting the Old
Testament when he wrote this in Romans chapter 3 verses 10 to 12, "There is none
righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is
none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; There is none who does good,
no, not one". Kind of strong words aren't they? But look at our world, I don't think
those words are too exaggerated are they? You'd have to be blind not to sense a
big disconnect with the way things are in contrast to the way things should be,
and I don't just mean the world picture, global warming,
Isis, income equality, terrorism and many others, I mean even in our own individual
lives, who doesn't sense that things are just wrong, that things are not the way
they should be, even in our own personal lives and sometimes it's not our fault
but sometimes it totally is our own fault. In Nixon and Watergate I see an
image of our own lives, a mixture of good and bad, and unless we are careful the
bad can do us in just as it did the president, there's a story in the Bible
about Jesus and how early on, because of his words and deeds, people started
believing in him, but according to the Bible Jesus was still very careful with
them, "But Jesus did not commit himself to them. Because he knew all men,
and had no need that anyone should testify of man. For he knew what was in
man." Now did you notice what it says? For he knew what was in man, in other words
Jesus knew just how corrupt and unstable people could be and yet what? This same
Jesus died for these people, this same Jesus gave his life for these
people, this same Jesus offered them a chance to change, to have new lives in
him. As with those people, as could have been with Richard Nixon, so it is with us,
with you with me, if we but choose to accept Jesus and give our lives to him.
But you might think, I'm not good enough for God, and you're right, you're not, so
you might as well forget about making yourself good enough for God,
trust me, you can't, we only deceive ourselves if we think we can cover up
our mistakes, our sins and make ourselves good enough for God. Listen to what the
Bible says in proverbs chapter 28 and verse 13 "People who conceal their sins
will not prosper." So it's impossible to cover up our mistakes and deal with our
sin problem on our own, but the great news of the Bible is that you don't have
to, God's grace covers you, please notice the rest of proverbs chapter 28 and
verse 13 "People who conceal their sins will not prosper. But if they confess and
turn from them they will receive mercy." Jesus has already paid the penalty for
your mistakes, your sins, he truly has covered your mistakes, it doesn't matter
how big, black or bad your mistakes may be. If you accept Jesus as your Saviour
he will forgive you and cover them. Please notice what the
Bible says in 1John chapter 1 and verse 9 "If we confess our sins he is
faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness." You are accepted and loved by God right now, just as you are,
God will change you and make you into a new person, just accept Jesus as your
Saviour and follow him. President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal remind us
of four important spiritual truths. Firstly we all make mistakes. Secondly
trying to cover up our mistakes, our sins only makes matters worse. Thirdly God
promises that if we come to him and confess our sins he will forgive us and
fourthly, each one of us has a choice, we can unsuccessfully try to cover up
our own mistakes ourselves or we can ask God to forgive us and cover our sins.
Really there's only one sure way to deal with our mistakes, our sins, confess them
to God and he will cover us, but you and you alone have to make the choice to
accept Jesus and ask him to forgive you. Why not do it now? Why not reach out to
Jesus right now as we pray? Dear Heavenly Father, we've all made mistakes, we've all
done things we regret, like Richard Nixon we have our faults, but we thank you that
despite our weaknesses and mistakes you still love us, you forgive us and want to
help us. Lord, today we reach out to Jesus and commit our lives to you, we commit
our lives fully and unconditionally to you, and now we invite you to come into
our lives and change us, so that through the power of Jesus in our lives we will
not engage in behavior that will lead us in the wrong
direction and do things that we will later regret. We ask these things in
Jesus' name. Amen. The story of Richard Nixon and the
Watergate scandal has fascinated people around the world for decades, people
struggle to understand how someone in such a prominent and trusted position
could become involved in activities that would bring dishonor to his office and
ultimately lead to the downfall of the President of the United States of
America, but this story is relevant to all of us, because in a sense there's a
bit of the president in all of us, it's a reminder that we all make mistakes and
do things that we regret, it tells us a lot about human nature, many of us
struggle with sin and issues for a long time, but the best way to deal with them
is to give them up to God, because despite our mistakes and weaknesses he
still loves us and wants to help us. If you would like to know more about God's
love and forgiveness, then I'd like to recommend the gift we have for all our
viewers today, it's a booklet called Keeping Broken Promises. This booklet is
our gift to you and is absolutely free, there are no costs or obligations
whatsoever, this booklet will bring you fresh courage and hope, in fact it could
change your life forever. So please don't miss this wonderful
opportunity to receive the free gift we have for you today. Here's the
information you need: Phone us now on 0481 315 101 or
text us on 0491 222 999 or visit our website theincrediblejourney.tv
to request today's free offer. So don't delay. contact us
right now. If you've enjoyed today's journey be
sure to join us again next week when we will share another of life's journeys
together and experience another new and thought-provoking perspective on the
peace, insight, understanding and hope that only the Bible can give us.
The Incredible Journey truly is television that changes lives.
Until next week, remember the ultimate destination of life's journey: "Now I saw
a new heaven and a new earth and God will wipe away every tear from their
eyes, there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, there shall be no more
pain, for the former things have passed away.
