Fred F. Fielding Quotes

Watergate was a constitutional crisis of the highest order.

An attempt is already underway to revise history - to leave the impression that the former president had nothing to do with Watergate. But there is no doubt about his obstruction of justice after the Watergate break-in.

He [Richard M. Nixon] told us he was going to take crime out of the streets. He did. He took it into the damn White House.

[Referring to Richard Nixon:] Either impeach him or get off his back.

Come, come, come and play spy with me, Down at the old Watergate; Come, come, come live and lie with me, Down at the old Watergate. See the little German band, Ehrlichman and Haldeman; Don't Martha Mitchell look great? Come, come, come don't be shy with me; I'll have the whole FBI with me; Down at the old Water—we'll make the police blotter — Down at the old Watergate.

Even the most cynical can hardly be surprised by the antics of Nixon and his accomplices as they are gradually revealed. It matters little, at this point, where the exact truth lies in the maze of perjury, evasion, and of contempt for the normal - hardly inspiring - standards of political conduct.

I don't believe President Nixon ordered a break-in, but people working for him were doing it. And then that dragged the president in. And then you have the cover-up. And before you know it, the president's gone.

Without the tape-recorded evidence demonstrating irrefutably, in Nixon's own voice, his knowledge of and active involvement in obstruction of justice, it is likely that Nixon would have escaped impeachment and removal from office.

I thought Nixon was getting ganged up on, but when I heard the tapes, I was shocked and terribly saddened.

Richard M. Nixon honestly believed in his bones that an organized conspiracy of liberal media insiders had literally been plotting against him ever since he broke Alger Hiss in 1948 (he never shifted course, and lost his soul).

The central question is simply put: What did the president know and when did he know it?

I'm still friendly with Dean. He still calls me on the phone from time to time. John Dean was fired and later ended up spending some time in prison for his role in Watergate.

To compare Whitewater to Watergate is a travesty.

Richard Nixon was the best thing that ever happened to journalism. I mean this guy was wonderful. Just when you thought he could get no worse, he got worse.

The fact of the Watergate cover-up is not nearly as interesting as the step into making the cover-up. And when you understand the step, you understand that Richard Nixon lied. That he was a criminal.

I suspect there have been a number of conspiracies that never were described or leaked out. But I suspect none of the magnitude and sweep of Watergate.

I was never for Richard Nixon until Watergate.

What did the President know and when did he know it?

As I watched some of the Watergate hearings I kept asking myself what all these people—[John] Dean and others—were doing there in the first place. Was there really an honest job that needed doing?

The only problem with drawing Nixon is restraint. Your tendency is to let your feelings come out. He's such a loathsome son of a bitch.

If I’ve done nothing else for the country, I’ve saved them from Dick Nixon.

Had matters gone as planned—and the [Watergate] tapes trickled out posthumously—[Richard] Nixon would have managed the extraordinary feat of committing suicide after his own death.

Reveal Richard Nixon … lay him and his motives bare … destroy him in his shot for the Presidency.

The searing melodrama of the Watergate investigation exposed new Nixon lies every day.

I’m positive that the President is innocent of any involvement in Watergate