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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (May 2, 1973)
God bless who? President Nixon Monday, at long last, moved to get himself and the presidency to high ground and out of the direct path of the deluge currently flowing from the Watergate scandal. He fired presidential counsel John Dean III, and accepted the resignations of three other top men in the Nixon Administration. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, the President's chief advisor on domestic affairs, all three announced that they were leaving Nixon's government Monday night, Nixon appeared in a nationally televised address on the Watergate affair. Early in his speech, the President said, "The inevitable result of these charges (charges that members of his staff and of the Committee for the Re-election of the President were involved in the Watergate mess) has been to raise serious questions about the integrity of the White House itself. Tonight I wish to address those questions." The President went on for nearly 25 minutes, but provided few answers to the Watergate questions. Most of his speech was devoted to a restatement of the charges and the questions. President Nixon offered few new insights which would make the integrity of the White House any less questionable than it was before Monday evening. Throughout the development of the Watergate affair, Nixon has repeatedly discounted news media reports implicating several of his top aides as accomplices, either before or after the fact, in the Watergate espionage. The President explained Monday night: he received repeated assurances from his staff that there were no members of his administration involved in the Watergate. Loyal Royal Smelly Editor's note: Bob Russell's horse sense column will not appear in the Daily Nebraskan this week iwcause Russell is out of town. Instead, a special edition of Arthur Hoppe's innocent bystander column appears below. Once upon a time, In the Kinqdon of Nixylvania, a Senator posing by ,aid he smelled a smell in the Loyal Royal Palace. But y., the Senator was a member of the Loyal Royal Opposition Pat ty and , had no love for the King, nobody paid much attention. After all, Opposition Parties were always smelling smells in the Loyal Royal Palace. The King, of course, ignored the Senator. He said he was very busy with his secret plans to spread peace, prosperity, honesty, decency and hard work throughout his Kingdom. He was making "real progress," he said. And he had not time for smelly Senators. But other leaders of the Loyal Royal Opposition took up the cry. "Something smells in the Loyal Royal Palace1" they shouted. And they were very noisy about it. To set the matter to rest, the King issued a statement: "All my life," he Nixon now has admitted that his hand-picked White House staffers lied to him. Yet, at the same time-almost in the same breath the President praised Haldeman and Ehrlichman as "two of the finest public servants it has been my privilege to know." One cannot help but wonder what kind of company the President keeps. As one political cartoonist stated it last week: if Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in, what is he doing in the White House; and if he didn't know about the Watergate affair, what is he doing in the White House? Nixon said Monday night that new information came to him in March which persuaded him "that there was a real possibility" that some of the charges reported by the press were true and "suggesting further that there had been an effort to conceal the facts" from both the public and the President. As a result, Nixon said, he launched his own investigation of the Watergate. However, statements made last March by Nixon and members of his staff do not indicate that there was any new White House policy of openness concerning the Watergate scandal. The presidential inquiry began on March 21. On March 24, Nixon was quoted as saying, "I have nothing to hide. The White House has nothing to hide. I repeat, we have nothing to hide, and you can make that statement in my name." On March 26, White House Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler "flatly" denied "any prior knowledge on the part of Mr. Dean regarding Watergate." Dean conducted the eailier investigation which supposedly cleared all White House staff members of Watergate involvement. Nixon said he "was determined that we should get to the bottom of the matter, and that the truth should be brought out-no matter who was involved." Yet, both of the statements quoted above were made after Nixon determined to get at the truth and after the March 21 decision to start a new presidential investigation of Watergate. And both of those statements subsequently have been proven false. Dean was fired, Haldeman and Ehrlichman have resigned because of their involvement in the Watergate scandal and other associated political espionage. In his .Monday night speech, Nixon accepted the responsibility, but not the blame, for the Watergate misdeeds. He denied any prior knowledge of the bugging incident or of the White House coverup of the scandal. Nixon said that he removed himself from the 1972 campaign for the presidency. It is, nevertheless, difficult to unquestioningly believe that a man who has run his own political campaigns for 27 years would suddenly remove himself from the 1972 operation or totally cut himself off from all campaign information. "We must maintain the integrity of the White House, and that integrity must be real, not transparent. There can be no whitewash at the White House," President Nixon said Monday. But Nixon's television appearance confirmed that there has been a whitewash at the White House. And it now is no less difficult to see through the thinning veneer of honor which Nixon believes covers him because he is the President. The White House shake-up and Nixon's public statement were involuntary reactions to a scandal which could not be covered up and which threatened to envelop even the President himself. All of God's blessings called down upon the American people by Nixon, or the collected sighings of relieved Republicans should not be allowed to enable Nixon to play the character of the white knight in shining armor who has come to battle evil. In the Watergate scenario, Nixon clearly is not suited to that role. Tom Lansworth orthur hoppe innocent i 1 V iri said, "I have been, rightly or wrongly, against smells. And if there is a smell in the Loyal Royal Palace, I would be the very first to smell it. " Yfni'ft think th.it wn'ilH thr end Vof it. But the newspapers began sniffing here and sniffing thei e. As the months passed, so mi; began detecting faint scents and others reported shong odors emanating from the Loynl Royal Palace. The King's Chief Advisor resigned to devote more time to listening to his wife, Martha. Seveial Special Assistants suddenly remembered appointments in private industry. The King was very, very annoyed, "I have ordered my Chief Smeller to smell as hard as he can," he said. "Furthermore, I have instructed the Federal Bureau of Smelling to smell every nook and cranny. I have complete confidence in my Chief Smeller and I can assure you that nobody, now employed in the Loyal Royal Palace, smells." But the p'oblem wouldn't go away. More ,irui more people s.iid ihey smelled something. At last, the Senators said they wanted to smell around thi,nselves. The Opposition Senators wonted to prove then; was a smell. And the Loyal Royal Senators wanted to prove there wasn't. The King indignantly refused their request. "Thdt would be a violation of the Doctrine of Royal Perogatives," he said angrily. "It would destory my Divine R ight to Smell." By now, however, every subjeei n, the Kingdom smelled a smell in the Loyal Royal Palace'. Expert sulleis burn j score of different pacK w'e hot on the scent, f'ven the I. oyd Royal Senators wen worried. It was then that the King made his historic announcement. "My loyal subjects,'' he said, "I have made a momentous discovery: Something in The Loyal Royal Palace smells! "fh,;nks solely to the keeness of my well-trained nose," he added, "I alone was able to detect it. But rest assured I have a secret plan to end the smell on which I am making teal p'oguss Whoever smells shall be banished fron the Loyal Royal Palace. f oi if there is one thing I cannot tolerate for a moment, it's smells." Oh, how pleaded and happy all his subjects were' "Huzah for our King's nose!" they cried. "Once again, he's come up smelling hk; j rose." Mural: In unbelievable fairy tales, He who smells last smells best. "-'i-yr.'itit i.m, note ruu,-,i,,t) ci. i ;;:( ;y page 4 daily nebraskan Wednesday, may 2, 1973