How Kennedy Brought Down Nixon

Bettmann / CORBIS As the late senator's memoir hits bookstores Monday, Chris Matthews digs through White House tapes to reveal how Ted Kennedy drove the Watergate probe—and helped topple a president.

The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is hailed as a liberal hero for his tireless crusade for health care, his push for civil rights, and his forceful effort to block Robert Bork from winning a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. But there is another chapter of his legacy that has gone largely overlooked: Kennedy’s role as a hidden hand during Watergate—helping to bring down President Richard M. Nixon.

Kennedy played a critical role in setting in motion the chain reaction that became the “Saturday Night Massacre,” that fateful weekend when Richard Nixon had his great fall: the resignation of Attorney General Elliot Richardson, and with him Nixon’s last claim to honor; and the firing of Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, which was followed by the firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox—at the hand of then-Solicitor General Robert Bork. As the late Massachusetts senator’s chief counsel, Jim Flug, once said, “the Saturday Night Massacre was born in Kennedy’s office.”

Kennedy had his staff follow coverage of the Watergate break-in closely, then exercise the Judiciary Committee’s subpoena power to investigate further. “I know the people around Nixon,” Kennedy told Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein. “They’re thugs.”

Ted Kennedy had a firm grasp on the weapons he held as a member of the Judiciary Committee and knew precisely how to wield them. It turns out that Richard Nixon, like almost everyone else, was so afraid of the youngest Kennedy brother’s presidential ambitions that he was blinded to the backroom menace Kennedy posed.

Not long after the June 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate, Kennedy’s people went to work. Flug, who was chief counsel to Kennedy’s Judiciary subcommittee, had the Library of Congress begin collecting every news clipping on the break-in. Kennedy then got the full Judiciary Committee to investigate, using its subpoena power. “I know the people around Nixon,” he told Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein. “They’re thugs.”

Nixon’s men had put a “tail” on Kennedy. On a White House tape of July 27, 1971—with the election fast approaching—the president can be heard asking if they’ve got the Massachusetts senator under enough surveillance. “Teddy? Who knows about the Kennedys?” Nixon asks. “Shouldn’t they be investigated?” Aide John Ehrlichman assures him that Kennedy was getting special attention. “Teddy, we are covering personally,” Ehrlichman says. He briefs Nixon on a trip Kennedy had just taken to Hawaii. “Did he do anything?” Nixon asks. “He was very clean,” Ehrlichman responds. “Very clean. He’s very careful now.”

• Read highlights from Teddy’s memoir.On a September 7 tape, Nixon demands more information on any misconduct. “Plant one, plant two guys on him. This could be very useful. We just might be lucky and catch this son of a bitch, ruin him in 1976,” Nixon says of Teddy. “He doesn’t know what he’s really getting into. We’re going to cover him, and we’re not going to take ‘no’ for an answer. He can’t say ‘no’ to the Secret Service.” Nixon had told Treasury Secretary John Connolly, his chosen successor, that after the expected Democratic debacle that November, he didn’t want Kennedy politically fit to “pick up the pieces” in ’76.

Nixon’s immediate concern was how the Democrats might exploit Watergate. Listen to him on September 11, when he learned that Kennedy’s subcommittee was swinging into action. “They’re going to try to haul the thing up publicly,” Nixon worries in a chat with chief of staff Bob Haldeman. The president appears particularly nervous about Congress’ subpoena power. “It shows you how important it is to win the Congress. You win Congress, you take control of the committees,” Nixon says.

The Saturday after the election, Nixon still hoped Ted Kennedy would lay back on Watergate. “He can’t kill us,” he told Haldeman, “therefore he won’t strike.”