Word: pardon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Blind Ambition has good intentions; this mini-series is even more ambitious than its protagonist. By tracing the career of White House Counsel Dean (Martin Sheen), the show can touch on virtually every Watergate headline: the Huston plan, the Saturday Night Massacre, the plumbers' dirty tricks, the Nixon pardon. Unfortunately, Writer Stanley R. Greenberg (Pueblo) retells the story without regard for the niceties of strong character development or well-paced storytelling. In the entire series his only theatrical flourish is the use of a flashback format in the first half. Besides being a TV cliché (especially in nonfiction...
...Ford testified before a House subcommittee in October 1974, Nixon's chief of staff, Alexander Haig, first suggested to him the possibility of a pardon for Nixon a week before the President resigned. Further, Ford writes, "I did ask Haig about the extent of a President's pardon power." But after being warned by Aide John Marsh that the mention of a pardon in this context was "a time bomb," Ford later read Haig a statement: "I want you to understand that I have no intention of recommending what the President should do about resigning or not resigning...
...settle. He feared that Nixon "would not spend time quietly at San Clemente." Says Ford: "It would be virtually impossible for me to direct public attention to anything else ... [At Yale Law School] I learned that public policy often took precedence over rule of law." Consequently, he decided to pardon Nixon "to get the monkey off my back one way or the other." Ford adds: "Compassion for Nixon as an individual hadn't prompted my decision...
...Ford sent Aide Benton Becker to San Clemente to persuade the former President to make a full confession. Becker was met by Nixon Aide Ron Ziegler, who declared: "Let's get one thing straight immediately. President Nixon is not issuing any statement whatsoever regarding Watergate, whether Jerry Ford pardons him or not." Ziegler proposed a statement that Becker turned down; after three more drafts, they agreed on one in which Nixon stopped far short of a full confession. When Becker tried to explain to Nixon that accepting the pardon was an implied confession of guilt, Nixon wanted to talk...
...seemed to have learned even to joke about her ordeal. She opened a bulky ski parka to show a T shirt bearing the words PARDON ME. She pointed to a large round pendant hung around her neck with the inscription SURVIVOR, 2-4-74, the date she was dragged screaming from her apartment by the S.L.A. "Now I'll get the other date on at the bottom," she vowed. "Today's date...