Word: graveness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...revealed a shocking disdain for both the spirit and the letter of the law at the highest levels of Government. Ultimately, not only the primacy of the rule of law on which the American system rests but the presidency of Nixon stood challenged, plunging the U.S. into a grave governmental crisis. Fittingly, it was the American legal system, which had trained so many of the malefactors caught in the Watergate web, that came to the rescue...
Richard Nixon's culpability is not yet clear, although the president of almost anything else would have been quickly forced to resign by a scandal infecting so much of his organization. Moreover, the strange oscillations in White House attitudes toward the various investigations raised grave doubts about Nixon's innocence. First there were blanket denials, lavish claims of Executive privilege and invocations of national security. Then came repeated clarifications, previous statements declared "inoperative," and multiple promises of full disclosure. Subpoenas were resisted. The persistent Special Prosecutor was fired. Next a sudden yielding to the courts, followed by an Operation Candor...
Some of the once faceless Nixon operatives ruefully admitted their own guilty roles in the several Watergate conspiracies. Others unconvincingly denied any participation by themselves or anyone at the White House. But only the relatively powerless John Dean, tainted but nevertheless courageous in his turncoat testimony, made grave accusations of the President's participation in the coverup. His chilling tale, conveyed in a lifeless baritone, was sharply denied by such far more influential and shrewd Nixon intimates as H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell...
...know that when I am in the presence of a Watergate discussion, I am proud and stand high, knowing that our Judicial Branch of the Government, through you, has saved our form of government from disaster. Your dedication to duty and to your oath of office, irrespective of the grave consequences that had to follow, have earned for you the everlasting gratitude of the bench and the bar of this country...
...except for narrow white cuffs at her wrists, wakes one of her nightgowned small children, pours and serves a glass of milk, then slays the child ritually with a glittering silver knife. She wakes the other child and repeats the action. Then she grieves for both with the same grave serenity with which she has killed them...