The Impeachment Diary by James Reston

Author:James Reston
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781950691197
Publisher: Arcade
Published: 2019-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

Nineteen Convictions Minus One. National Portrait Gallery © 1973 by Philip Lief and Marcel Feigel

July 15, 1974

Lunch today with ACLU’s legal director, Chuck Morgan, and Jack Nelson of the Los Angeles Times. The conversation devolved to the question of whether the country is really tired of the whole business. Nelson thinks so. Morgan feels only the newsmen are tired of the story. Nelson has been covering the story for two years and would like a break.

“I’d like to go cover conservation in the Okefenokee Swamp,” he said.

No wonder reporters are frustrated. The confidentiality of the Judiciary Committee has been humiliating for newsmen. Take this item on the news tonight. Colson testified in executive session before the committee. Outside the committee room, one congressman said Colson implicated the president in ordering the Ellsberg break-in. Another member, Charles Wiggins of California, who is the president’s articulate defender, says he heard no such thing. What are we to believe? The confusion inspires contempt for the process, and this, of course, redounds to the president’s favor.

Meanwhile, the street theater for impeachment flourishes.

July 18, 1974

Tonight, just for fun, I attended the banquet of the National Citizens’ Committee for Fairness to the Presidency in the massive banquet hall of the Shoreham Hotel. Lionel Hampton, “the president’s favorite musician,” kicked things off by having the audience sing with him:

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