Stay Tuned

It had been a beautiful, crisp autumn day but it was not quiet along the Potomac the night Mr. Nixon drove of Archie down. Radio broadcasts in Washington by 10 p.m. Saturday, October 20, made the nation’s capital sound like downtown Santiago. The FBI had seized the offices of the Special Watergate Prosecutor. Various local figures were milling around in the street outside those offices, saying “Charles the First had his Cromwell . . .” or words to that effect. The broadcast reporters with their tape recorders were catching up with the politicians, with their tape-recorded minds (E. Muskie: “It smacks of dictatorship”).

But for all the fecklessness and demagoguery the major participants in the drama were large men playing with skill for high stakes in a clash of serious issues.

It had been a beautiful, crisp autumn day but it was not quiet along the Potomac the night Mr. Nixon drove of Archie down. Radio broadcasts in Washington by 10 p.m. Saturday, October 20, made the nation’s capital sound like downtown Santiago. The FBI had seized the offices of the Special Watergate Prosecutor. Various local figures were milling around in the street outside those offices, saying “Charles the First had his Cromwell . . .” or words to that effect. The broadcast reporters with their tape recorders were catching up with the politicians, with their tape-recorded minds (E. Muskie: “It smacks of dictatorship”).

But for all the fecklessness and demagoguery the major participants in the drama were large men playing with skill for high stakes in a clash of serious issues.