captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: as militants seize control of the largest christian city in iraq, president obama weighs u.s. air support to bring aid to trapped refugees. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. also ahead this thursday, russia bans u.s. and european food imports for a year. retaliating for sanctions imposed by the west over moscow's support for rebels in ukraine. >> woodruff: plus, a look back forty years ago, president richard nixon exited the white house as the first and only president to resign from office. those are just some of the stories we're covering on

tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people. people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: secretary of state john kerry returned to afghanistan today, in an urgent bid to end the deadlock over the presidential election. in kabul, he pressed the two candidates, abdullah abdullah and ashraf ghani, to accept results from an ongoing audit of votes from the june runoff. the u.s. wants a national unity government formed by next month. all u.s. combat forces are due to leave afghanistan by year's end. >> woodruff: meanwhile, the body of u.s. army major general harold greene arrived back in the u.s. he was killed this week by an afghan soldier outside kabul. troops carried the flag-draped metal case off a c-17 cargo

plane at dover air force base in delaware. the general's family and officials, including army chief of staff, general ray ordierno, were on hand. >> ifill: this was the final day of a 72-hour truce between israel and hamas with negotiations continuing in egypt for a longer cease-fire. in gaza, several thousand palestinians marched in support of hamas. a spokesman for the militants insisted there can be no peace until the blockade of gaza is lifted. >> ( translated ): the talks in cairo are going on and we are still waiting to hear the answers. we have fair and legal demands and the israeli occupation has no choice except to respond to our demands. there will be no cease-fire and the enemy will not live in security while palestinians aren't living in real security. >> ifill: in turn, israeli officials have said hamas must disarm first before the blockade can end.

>> woodruff: in cambodia, two of the last leaders of the khmer rouge reign of terror were convicted today of crimes against humanity. the fanatical communist movement killed nearly two million people in the late 1970's. a quarter of the population. 83-year old khieu samphan and 88-year-old nuon chea remained stoic today as the verdict was read. they were sentenced to life in prison by a u.n.-backed tribunal. >> ( translated ): this verdict cannot turn back time or the lives of those who died or were killed under the sun's heat, overworked, starved. this verdict will also not reunite the families who have been separated due to their however, this verdict can provide some justice and restore the respect of victims. >> woodruff: the khmer rouge's supreme leader, pol pot, was never tried, and died in 1998.

>> ifill: the russian government has granted permission to edward snowden to remain in russia for three more years. his one-year asylum expired august first. snowden faces espionage charges in the u.s. for leaking extensive records on surveillance by the national security agency. >> woodruff: back in this country, a jury in detroit convicted a white homeowner today of killing an unarmed black teenager on his front porch, last november. theodore wafer fired a shotgun at renisha mcbride, after she knocked at his door, early in the morning. he said he thought it was a break-in. prosecutors said mcbride was drunk and had wrecked her car and was looking for help. the case sparked comparisons to the trayvon martin killing in florida. >> ifill: hawaii is bracing for hurricane iselles arrival tonight, the first direct hit on the state in more than 20 years. the storm could arrive with winds of 85 miles an hour and heavy rain, but governor neil abercrombie counseled residents and tourists today not to panic.

>> we all have to have confidence in one another. and i want to assure the public that from the point of view of those that you have appointed, who have the jurisdiction, who have the responsibility, we're ready. and if we all work together we're going to come through this in very fine fashion. >> ifill: a second hurricane is also headed toward hawaii, but is still several days away. and if that weren't enough, a moderate earthquake jolted the area today. there were no reports of damage. >> woodruff: president obama has signed a bill to help veterans who've endured long waits for health care. the ceremony today, at fort belvoir, virginia, involved a $16 billion measure. it will pay for hiring thousands more v.a. doctors and nurses, and for vets to see private doctors in some cases. the new law also makes it easier to fire senior v.a. officials for poor performance. >> ifill: the top conferences in college sports moved a big step closer to making their own rules on everything from scholarships to recruiting. the n.c.a.a. governing board voted to let the five richest conferences make unilateral changes in some longstanding rules.

the new system could take effect in january unless other schools combine to vote down the changes. >> woodruff: on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average lost 75 points to close at 16,368; the nasdaq fell 20 points to close below 4,335; and the s&p 500 slipped ten to finish at 1,909. >> ifill: also ahead on the newshour, the obama administration considers military options to support refugees fleeing islamic militants in iraq. russia bans western food imports for one year. reevaluating crime and punishment in america's jails and prisons. and the legacy of watergate, 40 years after president richard nixon resigned. >> woodruff: as the humanitarian situation grows dimmer by the

hour for some in northern iraq, the white house is now considering taking military action against sunni extremists inside the country. hari sreenivasan reports. >> any sort of military action that would be taken in iraq would be very limited in scope. >> reporter: that was the official word at the white house, amid reports that president obama is considering air strikes against the islamic state group. the sunni extremists have renewed their surge across northern iraq. capturing more villages and seizing the country's largest dam today. their advance has sent thousands of christians and yazidis fleeing in the face of ultimatums to convert to islam, pay heavy fines or face death. the yazidis, who adhere to their own ancient religion, left their town of sinjar, and many have been trapped in nearby mountains without food. white house spokesman josh earnest calls the situation a catastrophe.

>> the humanitarian situation is deeply disturbing there, and it's one that we are following closely. that said, it's important for everyone to understand and the president's made this clear that there are no american military solutions to the problems in iraq. we can't solve these problems for them. >> reporter: meanwhile, the u.n. has begun sheltering hundreds of yazidis, and others have streamed across the turkish border. but at least 40 children have already died from dehydration. >> ( translated ): what we want is to just rescue these people from the danger zone. we don't want anything else. we don't want money, we don't want cars, we don't want donations, we don't want food, we don't want anything. if they don't get water and food to those trapped or get them out, it will be a disaster. >> reporter: for more on what the white house is considering

on iraq i'm joined by karen deyoung who is reporting on the story for the "washington post." >> i'm hearing that that's not true. i think that the pentagon and the central command that will be running this operation if and when it's approved is still waiting for the president to sign off on any activity at all either humanitarian or any air strikes. >> sreenivasan: we also had heard the administration say today that any military action would o only be if it was in lie with core american objectives. what is that rationale now? >> well, eng that they would say that humanitarian assistance and preventing the actual fall of iraq or further gains by the islamists certainly toward baghdad would not be in american interest so that would be a pretty broadly-defined definition of american interests. i think that these encroachment

into kurdish territory have sort of changed the equation very quickly, literally overnight for the united states. they were prepared to allow the situation to stand as it has been for the past couple of weeks while the iraqi government tried to form a new administration that can reach out to minorities there, but having the islamist forces move into kurdistan, which has been relatively peaceful throughout this crisis, i think has changed the situation considerably. >> sreenivasan: but was there a tipple point event that they describe considering that the is islamic state group has been on a fairly aggressive march for the last month? >> i think they were fairly confident the kurdish military forces could hold the line in kurdistan and they also didn't think the islamist forces had

indicated they were interested at this point in moving into kurdistan, but the fact that literally tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of iraqis from places that have already been taken over by the militants have poured into kurdistan, and the fact that, all of a sudden this week, the islamists have actually started attacking kurdish towns and cities i think, again, has made them sit up and say, whoa, this -- you know, this cannot stand. again. yo, you have to remember thatins one of the two american fusion centers, the communication centers that the u.s. forces that president obama has sent there to assist the iraqis is located, the other one is in baghdad. islamist forces are now about 40 miles away from there. >> sreenivasan: what's the

debate in the white house now? what's being considered? >> i don't know that there is a strong debate at this point. i think the question is certainly whether or not air strikes could help or harm the situation and if this is the moment that this action that's been so strongly resisted by the administration up until now can actually make a difference without making the situation worse. i think the decision has pretty much been made on the humanitarian aid drops which is a separate operation. there was some effort today to open a corridor to evacuate these people who, as you described, are on the mountain top. as far as i know, that has not worked because the islamists have been shelling that evacuation and these people are stuck there with no food, water and no shelter. >> sreenivasan: would this humanitarian aid be limited to this specific zone? >> that's not clear to me, although that would certainly be

the initial place. you know, the iraqi government has tried to develop some assistance to these people. didn't work out too well. they had crates of water which cracked apart when they hit the ground. you know, the united states has a lot of experience doing this and experience in this particular area doing it. you remember in 1991 there were similar air drops by u.s. forces. this was when the rest of iraq was controlled by saddam hussein. but at that time united states send groups into kurdistan to wall off the area from saddam hussein's forces. i don't think that's been contemplated now. but i think the humanitarian assistance is something that they'll likely do and do fairly soon and it would start in this area. >> sreenivasan: karen deyoung of "the washington post," thank you so much. >> you're welcome.

>> ifill: russia formally banned imports of agricultural products from the u.s. and europe today. even as nato sounded new warnings about moscow's military moves. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner begins our coverage. >> reporter: foreign foods that have lined the shelves of russia's grocery stores will be disappearing. for a year, effective immediately, imports of fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, poultry and dairy are banned from the u.s., european union, australia, canada and norway. all those countries have imposed sanctions penalizing russia, for backing rebels in eastern ukraine. russian prime minister dmitry medvedev said today that moscow is answering in kind. >> ( translated ): all the measures have a solely retaliatory character. we didn't want such a development of events. we sincerely hope that our partners economic pragmatism will prevail over petty political reasons, and they will think, and not try to frighten and limit russia.

>> reporter: notwithstanding the kremlin's defiance, president obama argues russia is hurting. he spoke at a washington news conference last night. >> sanctions are working as intended in putting enormous pressure and strain on the russian economy. the economy has ground to a halt. somewhere between $100 billion and $200 billion of capital flight has taken place. >> reporter: what's more, u.s. officials said today, russia is, in effect, imposing sanctions on its own people, by banning the main sources of imports that account for one-quarter of food consumption in russia and a much higher percentage in the major cities. today, a top u.s. treasury official left open the possibility of more u.s. sanctions if russia does not re- think its actions toward ukraine. but there's little sign of that. instead, nato now estimates 20,000 russian troops have massed near the border and says they could be getting ready to invade under the guise of a humanitarian mission. just this week, in fact, russia

called a session of the u.n. security council to discuss the humanitarian situation in ukraine. nato secretary general anders fogh rasmussen issued a new warning today, as he met with ukrainian leaders in kiev. >> i call on russia to step back from the brink, step back from the border. do not use peacekeeping as an excuse for war-making. >> reporter: poland's prime minister issued a similar warning yesterday, saying the threat of direct russian intervention is certainly greater than it was a few days ago. meanwhile, inside ukraine, government forces have stepped up pressure on the rebels, with intensive new shelling in their stronghold city of donetsk. amid the fighting, a eastern ukrainian native replaced the russian national, aleksander borodai, as leader of the separatists there. >> ifill: and margaret joins me

now. what was the official response of the administration to this new sanction? >> interestingly, they didn't seem terribly phased by this. they expected some retaliatory action. the u.s. on an economic level, they did not consider this particularly damaging to u.s. companies. they do take it as a sign that putin is not backing down, however, politically, but mostly officials i talked to said they thought it was really misguided and self-defeated and they may be whistling at the graveyard as we say, but one of the things that russian citizens got at the end of the cold war and the collapse of the soviet union was the freedom and the travel and having western domestic goods and he could have cranky constituency. >> ifill: how much do our goods there constitute our trade? >> not much. looking the figure up -- first

of all, u.s.-russia trade last year was only, like, $38 billion total, only $11 billion of experts which only $1.2 billion of that is food. the biggest item is poultry and they're called bush legs named for george h.w. bush who negotiated a deal with gorbachev in the '90seto in the form of aid to give them the chicken legs which apparently american consumers don't like as well as they like chicken breasts now and it's grown into this multi-million-dollar business, but actually reading from the quote from the georgia poultry export association, they said, well, we got so tired of the russians jerking us around, it used to be 40% of our poultry exports went to russia, it's only 7% last year. his point was u.s. exporters have diversified so it's not a huge hit.

>> ifill: all along in the sanction debate there has been question about the difference in the u.s. and europe. europe watched this today and did they think, oh, no, we're next? >> they put out a statement that it was $15 billion of exports last year into russia. i talked to a senior official who said, however, even in the last couple of years, the percentage of our trade with russia has been going down in part because russia economically has been hurting. so german exports were down 5%, and then 10%, and they are mostly things like autos that aren't affected by this. but other european countries who are heavily dependent on agriculture exports, it will hurt. >> ifill: somine countries were slow to get on the sanctions bandwagon. buzz this shake them at all? >> that's why i talked particularly to the germans

because merkel was seemingly reluctant and was the one who finally brought people along. the downing of the airliner, i think i said the last time we discussed this, was really a game changer in the minds of the europeans, the downing of the airliner and the way the bodies were treated. u.s. officials said the same thing that they have gotten no indication of weakening e.u. resolve. >> ifill: we saw today that they decided to extend edward snowden's stay for three years and digs along the way. is this another one? >> the sanctions, bans and snowden. i asked a u.s. official if the snowden matter was related. russia signed a memorandum with iran to buy crude, which is

another tweak. president obama and president putin talked by phone last friday and agreed sanctions were counterproductive and need add political solution but there is no sign of backchannel negotiations on either side, i'm told. >> ifill: we're also watching russian troops along the border of ukraine. they're still there, don't seem like they're going anywhere. is it more tense? >> it is, even more so along the border. ukrainian officials who i talked to today who always believed putin may well invade said, look, even the troop levels don't matter as they built the infrastructure, so they have military hospitals, the depots and the weapons, he said they could move in 10,000, 20,000 more troops virtually overnight, certainly within a matter of days. this official also was very concerned that ukrainian forces

are not making the gains we're all reading they are. he said, a week ago we were still picking one, two, or three towns a day. by now there's a stalemate and the separatists are kind of localized in countries and luhansk. the question is how does ukraine actually take the cities and are afraid they will set up an israel-gaza scenario as one described to me where it looks like ukrainians are killing civilians. >> ifill: what about settlement? >> it's looking weak. uu.s. officials say in public or private they get the same kind of reaction from the russian, he said it's like cold war days. and ukrainian officials say there are splits in the ukrainian government which are also getting in the way of this. >> ifill: margaret warner, thank you very much. >> my pleasure, gwen.

>> woodruff: now, a look at how we punish people in the united states, and how that might be changing. jeffrey brown has that story. >> reporter: across the u.s., as inmate populations keep growing. calls to address prison crowding, conditions and other problems continue to be heard. just this week, the justice department issued a scathing report on abuse of teenage inmates at new york's riker's island. it spoke of "a culture of violence" that encouraged beatings and excessive use of solitary confinement. in california, state officials are under federal court orders aimed at reducing severe overcrowding of prisons. and u.s. attorney general eric holder is pushing to shorten prison terms for many non- violent offenders. on the newshour recently, he cited a fundamental unfairness in drug sentencing. >> if you are basing a sentence on something other than the conduct of the person who was involved, and the person's

record, if you're looking, for instance, at factors of what educational level the person has received, what neighborhood the person comes from... >> ifill: to be clear, some states are doing that already. >> ...they are, right. and using that as a predictor, though, of how likely this person, this individual, is going to be a recidivist. i'm not at all certain i'm comfortable with that. >> reporter: the concerns have sparked bi-partisan efforts. in the senate, republican rand paul of kentucky and democratic senator corey booker of new jersey are focused on several issues, including drugs and racial disparities in prison. >> there are still some naysayers, but i think the public at large is saying, well, you know, we're not so sure drugs are right for people, but we are thinking that maybe we should rehabilitate people, that people, particularly kids, deserve a second chance. when they make mistakes, let's get them back into society and working, which makes them less likely to go back into drugs.

>> reporter: still it's unclear if or when congress might take action. so is the ground shifting on criminal justice issues? we look across the spectrum at problems and solutions with: bryan stevenson, a longtime public interest lawyer, and founder the equal justice initiative, an alabama-based non-profit focused on social justice and human rights. pat nolan is the former republican leader of the california state assembly. he's now the director of the center for criminal justice reform at the american conservative union foundation. and bill mccollum is the former attorney general of florida, now a lawyer in private practice. bryan stevenson, as someone working with inmates and looking at the criminal justice system, how would you define the problem that most needs addressing? well, i think it's overincarceration. we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. prison population has grown from 300,000 in the '70s to 2.4 million today and we have been locked into what i call the politics of fear and anger and not made good decisions about

criminal justice, sentencing, prisons, and i think getting out of that is the real challenge. >> brown: pat nolan, you're coming from a conservative perspective. how do you identify the problem? i think we've over-incarcerated. we have people who are very dangerous and need to be separated from the population, but you can overuse a thing and i think we've incarcerated people we're not afraid of, just mad at. >> brown: you mean the wrong people are in jail? >> they need sanction bus they don't need to be locked up, they don't pose a physical threat to the public. >> brown: bill mccollum, what doesn't work and what do you want to keep? >> there are problems with overcrowding and problems with

sentences that are too mandatory. but the biggest problem is the recidivism rate. we return a lot to have the folks to prison again and again. they're conflicted as a felony, and then when they go back out on the streets, we don't provide them with a job they can keep. so we need to address all the problems, not just overcrowding or sentencing, it's a whole combination in the prison system. >> brown: try to make it more concrete. let me start with you bryan stevenson. give us an example of a reform or something happening around the country tha that you would e to see to address some of the problems you see. >> to pick up on what mr. bill mccollum said, i agree with that. most people sent to prison are from low-level, nonviolent offenses and then most we sent

back because we don't have services. we want to eliminate sending people back to prison for technical violations of probation or parole and that's the kind of reform that has really reduced overcrowding in some places. i think ending some of these mandatory sentences for drug crimes and low-level non-violent crimes can have a huge impact. in shifting the funding, we went from $6 billion in prison spending in eight 1980 to $80 bn a today and if we spend more of that money on support and rehabilitation, we can keep people out of prison for a long time. >> brown: want to pick up on that? >> i agree with bryan stevenson and bill mccollum. there are 29 million people in prison for drugs.

if people aren't prepared to be productive when they get out, to hold a job and support themselves and their family, we're risking more problems. the hope program hawaii started, the folks that right before the judge started as a federal prosecutor, he said we take rules seriously and when you break them, we'll hold you accountable. we'll not send you to written six years. 48 hours, you can think over what you've done and come back and you have a chance to get back in drug treatment, stay clean. it resulted in 50% lower crime rate among those going through his court, 68% fewer missed appointments with the probation officer and i think 66% fewer dirty drug tests. so it's saving money, they aren't having to take up beds in prison but it's holding them accountable. we need to follow these guys and make sure they're staying on the straight and narrow and not

doing something bad again. >> brown: bill mccollum, do you have an example you want to give us that addresses the problem you mentioned? >> i served o as the attorney general on the clemency board in florida and i saw our cases come up regularly and despite the fact i agree if you have a simple possession you shouldn't be incarcerated for an extended period of time. most cases were not simple possession of drugs, they were other crimes, not always violent. but if you have a large enough quantity and dealing in drugs you caught to have a mandatory minimum sentence in my opinion. maybe these sentences sometimes are too long but we need to deal and i think it's is a serious problem where the criminals are going to be there even after we address the overcrowding for the minor possession issue and change some of the laws maybe on diverting a few people but cause, the majority i think of the states are not there for the crimes that we're talking about,

they're for more serious matters and we need to address the rehab and what we do twheez prisoners, these return prisoners, repeat offenders. >> brown: just listening, mr. mccolumn, are you worried the idea of reform can do too far? >> yes, i am. i'm worried when i was on the committee in congress and chaired it for a while i know judges oppose any idea of sentencing guidelines that kept their hands tied especially minimum mandatory sentences and we have gone too far with minimum mandatories but there's a place for that, there's a place for jeb bush's 10, 20, life when you have repeat offenders and they commit certain types of fennelies again and again. so i'm worried the move the to release prisoners and reduce sentences to minimum mandatories will take it opposite direction and go too far. >> brown: bryan stevenson, response? >> i'm not so worried about that. we had 300,000 people in prison

in the early 1970s. the violent crime in most places is about where i have to in the '60s when we had a dramatically smaller prison population. i agree we have to focus on people who are threats to public safety, we have to get them out of society and protect the pub public, but we have tens of thousands who are not in that category. if we treat drug dependency as a health problem, i think we can provide better services, keep people out of jails or prisons and not in any way undermine public safety. we've got a lot of space to operate, unfortunately, to reduce our prison population without increas increasing threo public safety. >> where is this as a political matter? the question i asked at the top, has the ground shifted? >> yeah, it's been very interesting. in the last several years, many conservative leaders across the

country are working to implement policies to get the most public safety per dollar. we have been stingy with other parts of government and have quite frankly turned a blind eye to corrections and instead saying are we getting enough public safety? so texas led the way by changing the laws so they didn't incarcerate those at the low level of the spectrum, they lowered the amount spent but just didn't put it back in the budget, they put it in the program like bill mccollum talked about, job training, drug treatment, mental health care. sith saved the money and the lives of the low-level offenders and put it into things or into rehabilitation. the key thing is they've saved over $3 billion and the crime rate is the lowest it's been since 1968. >> brown: and bill mccollum, just in our last minute here, do you see the political ground shifting and where is the public in all of this?

>> well, i think the public sees the crime rate down now and it's swinging more towards looseness and letting more people out and doing more diversion and drug treatment. that's not all bad. i'm worried they not go too far. punishment is part of the system we have of deterrence. that's how you deter crime. so even if you don't have a violent crime, there are crimes out there that need to get certainty in the punishment and we need to have them in prison. i just think we have to be careful when we talk about them not to put too many in that category. small drug offenders, possession, yes, that could be diverted, major crimes in theft and criminal behavior and other cases major drug traffickers, no. >> brown: big subject to be continued. bryan stevenson, pat nolan, bill mccollum, thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: tomorrow marks the

40th anniversary of the end of richard nixon's presidency, an occasion to look back at a man, and a moment, that changed the country. >> therefore, i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. >> woodruff: on the evening of august 8th 1974 from the oval office president richard nixon announced his resignation. this after a two-year-long saga that became known as the watergate scandal. on june 17th 1972, five men who had been hired by the committee to re-elect the president were arrested trying to bug the offices of the democratic national committee in the watergate complex. it was one part of a large clandestine effort to ensure nixon's re-election. that fall he won by a landslide, beating senator george mcgovern by nearly 18 million votes. but investigations into the watergate break-in continued eventually tying the white house

to the burglary. in february 1973, a senate committee began to look into the president's connection to the watergate break-in and the subsequent cover-up. that may, the special panel began hearings which lasted nine months. some members of president nixon's own administration testified against him, including former white house counsel john dean who said there had been a coverup, one he had discussed with the president. >> i began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and if the cancer was not removed, the president himself would be killed by it. >> woodruff: and former white house aide, alexander butterfield, confirmed the existence of audio tapes on which the president had recorded all telephone calls and conversations in the oval office since 1971. >> were you aware of any devices installed in the executive

office building office of the president?" >> yes sir. >> woodruff: after the hearings, democrats, commentators and even members of his own party called for the president to resign. but he resisted, with comments like this at a news conference in march of '74. >> it perhaps would be an act of courage to resign. i should also point out, however, that while it might be an act of courage to run away from a job that you were elected to do, it also takes courage to stand and fight for what you believe is right, and that is what i intend to do. >> woodruff: the president also refused to turn over the oval office tapes, until on july 24th, the supreme court ordered their release. three days later, the house judiciary committee voted along bipartisan lines to approve articles of impeachment, charging the president with obstruction of justice and abuse of power. he continued to proclaim his innocence, until a group of republican congressional leaders told him he could not survive votes in either house, at which time, he finally decided to step

down: >> sometimes i have succeeded and sometimes i have failed. >> woodruff: the next day- richard nixon departed the white house, becoming the only american president to resign the office. and we take this moment to look back at someone who had a profound effect on our nation. joining us for that is: beverly gage, professor of 20th century american history at yale university. presidential historian timothy naftali, former director of the richard nixon presidential library and museum. now head of the taminent library and robert f. wagner archives at new york university. pat buchanan, who served as a senior advisor in the nixon white house, and author of the book "the greatest comeback: how richard nixon rose from defeat to create the new majority." and luke nichter, co-author, with douglas brinkley, of the

"the nixon tapes," a compilation of key conversations recorded by the president's secret white house taping system. and we welcome you all to the "newshour". pat buchanan as someone who knew richard nixon very well, why do you think it's important that we look back at him and his presidency? >> well, certainly, when you mention the watergate scandal, it was the biggest scandal in the american political history that brought down his presidency. bill clinton was impeached but he survived that. nixon's presidency is extraordinary because when you look at his first term and second term, i think you would find him most consequential of presidents. arms control of the soviet union, ended the draft, desegregated the south, had enacted 18-year-old vote, e.p.a., osha, the cancer institute. so he was an enormously

consequential president and it's my and others' view that he stood down and i think in his second term he would have been a near greatest +*79 but i think his second term was a failure. >> pat buchanan raises the point. we're still trying to digest this 40 years later. >> ten years ago, i started working on the tapes and i know it now that when you add all the watergate and abuse of government power we call it material on tapes, it's only about 5 to 7% of the total tapes, yet these 5 to 7% have created almost 100% of our impression of the man and his presidency. >> woodruff: but when you look at this, there's still a fascination with richard nixon.

why is that? >> we still have 700 to 800 hours of tapes that have not been released so we're already drowning in tapes and we still have a lot more to learn. i teach 18 to 20-year-olds who, for them, richard nixon is an ancient as the american civil war. they don't even have a great living memory of 9/11. they want to learn something other than watergate. >> woodruff: beverly gage, you talked to us about he was a part of a series of things that happened in this country in the late '60s and '70s. expand on that. >> you have to see watergate as a series of crises in the american government and watergate is one of the most dramatic of them but it comes in the context of a huge struggle in vietnam, over seek riover vietnam, over the ways the intelligence establishment had been treating anti-war protesters at home, it comes in the midst of real turmoil, certainly of civil rights in the united states, a breakdown in

some ways of democracy at the democratic national convention and, so, watergate became of sort of a place where all of these contests came together and where i think played out in watergate. in addition to playing out, to produce richard nixon himself. >> woodruff: timothy naftali, is that one reason we remain so fascinated by him? >> we remain fascinate by him because on the one hand he was brilliant. he was also a political icon in this country for 50 years and, at the same time, he remains the only president to resign. those two years from the moment that the break-in occurred at the watergate until the time he resigned, richard nixon fought with the truth and, ultimately, the american people and all three branches of government learned he had been lying all along. by overstepping his bounds, richard nixon tested our constitutional structure.

what happened 40 years ago this week was that the u.s. constitutional structure showed that it could last and was flexible enough to deal with the president who had exceeded his constitutional bounds. as beverly intimated, this really was the high point of the imperial presidency. from this point on, congress and the supreme court would be taking measurers, putting them in place to reduce to some extent executive authority. richard nixon is shakespearean because he was so full of power, so full of darkness, so full of ambition that he tested our constitutional structure and reshaped it in a way that i'm sure he regretted, but in a way that's been helpful to all americans. >> woodruff: shakespearean, pat buchanan? >> they're taking wiretaps and

things and all that was cord up. the question is excellent. why is there such a fascination? richard nixon was a national figure in 1947. i don't know what grade i was in. he was in the whole mccarthy truman era. he loses to j.f.k., loses in california, says goodbye i'm out of politics, manages the greatest comeback in american political history. because of the frankly indecisiveness in watergate not to step up and say our guys did it, i didn't know about it. the prime minister said he's got to be a good butcher and he was not a good butcher. >> woodruff: pat, you've reduced watergate just to a break-in and the coverup to the

break-in. watergate turned out to be abused of power well documented by the case. only 202 hours but those are startling and dramatic and very troubling 202 hours. the president applied to the domestic realm the kinds of activities that we associate with foreign covert action. he tinted mind doing whatever -- he didn't mind doing whatever was necessary to hurt his political enemy. >> "washington post" hero, mark felt in charge of jobs for hoover, a corrupt phish agent, stealing secrets out of the grand jury, turning them over to reporters the fruits of his crimes to bring down a president. this was a tougher ray. i was offered the headship of the plumbers and i went over and

looked at these cowboys and said i don't think i want to do this job, but some stupid idiot went into ginsburg's psychiatry office for what purpose i don't know but nixon didn't know it. >> woodruff: we're not going to resolve so much of this but we'll keep on trying. i am interested, luke nichter, and after listening to 3,000 hours of the tapes, what more did you learn about this man? we think we know everything but you learned more. >> i think what i've come away with, i think, a deeper appreciation for both his good traits and his faults. i say let's give nixon credit where credit is due and let's continue to criticize where we think criticism is due. if it's clear with this discussion that nixon occupies this unique place in our public consciousness, you have to put presidents in boxes. we have the top and bottom third, average, below average. where does nixon fall?

what box do we put him in? can a box even contain him. >> woodruff: that's a good question for somebody like you who looks at contemporary history, beverly gage. >> he fits into a lot of boxes. so if you're going to do your pure numerical rankings of how successful a president was certainly the only president to resign ends up pretty close to the bottom but there's a whole series of revisionist discussions about nixon, was he actually a liberal, that by today's political standards, the man who founded the e.p.a. -- >> woodruff: a republican who founded the e.p.a., women's equal employment, started the war on cancer, you could go on. >> exactly, and many people now are actually looking back to nixon with this romantic blend of moderate republican. >> woodruff: so pat buchanan, help us understand. today we think of reps in one way. he was a different kind of republican. >> he was an eisenhower era republican.

the conservative movement to which i belong began in the late '50s. nixon was already an international figure then. i looked upon him as a pragmatist who was not into government, he came out of poverty. i'm sure he didn't think the new deal was going down the road to socialism. i listened to the tapes the other night and had had scurrilous comments about jewish folks and (indiscernible). i was with him with israel in the yom kippur war. you put it together and you get a picture of someone who's a powerful, masterful figure. >> woodruff: how did he change this country? i mean, it can be argued that the way we view government, government itself changed as a result of richard nixon.

>> well, one thing is that no president tapes anymore. the other thing that's quite different that i've told richard nixon, president own their papers, so the actual documentation of the presidency has changed dramatically because of the nixon era. but i also think that richard rich forced a lot of americans to think about what they want their president to do. you know, the reason why richard nixon, i believe, would not have resigned had it not been for the tapes is that we americans prefer our presidents to be right. we'll disagree with them, but at a certain point, the president is our bald eagle. we need presidents that are better than average, and richard nixon tested that and made a lot of people in congress in the supreme court, in the press and in the public think about what should the limits be on any man who occupies -- and some day i

hope a woman -- who occupies the white house? for that, richard nixon will be forever remembered. >> woodruff: luke nichter, what would you add to that? >> i'd add that not just the nixon presidency but really the long 1960s fundamentally reordered the relationship between the government and the governed. young people wanted to go to journalism as a result and people have become more cynical of their political leaders. some ways it's better, it's created greater transparency but ultimately changed the country in so many ways e. . >> woodruff: i want to turn to beverly gage. did we permanently become more cynical result of watergate and the nixon presidency? do we give him the credit or discredit for that? >> i think we did. i would add two things to what's already been said, one is that

we also have the look at watergate not really as ending with the resignation but having a series of consequences afterwards, particularly through the intelligence community began to have a whole series of studies of government secrecy and those fundamentally changed in the '70s. the second thing i would add is i do think it changed americans attitudes towards government and their expectations of government in a funny way. if you had been here in 1974 on this day and said what's going to happen to the republican party? you would have said they're finished! but in a funny way this suspicion of government benefited -- >> there was a good feeling in america. you had lyndon johnson and nixon and johnson was broken by the same cultural, political, moral revolution, civil rights, anti-war, all the rest of ut, urban rights, all the things that came out of the '60s that

permanently brought down nixon and johnson permanently divided america. not only that, that division has grown and the counterculture is dominant now. these are the seeds of the wars we're fighting today. you can see the goldwater battle today. i don't know that the republican party can come back the because it has permanently lost a significant slice of the country. >> woodruff: we are raising subjects we could go on about and will have other opportunities to come back. thank you all very much. we thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. it was widely reported this evening that the u.s. military has began air dropping humanitarian aid to yazidis

fleeing islamic state fighters and president obama is also considering air strikes. secretary of state john kerry returnedto afghanistan in an urgent bid to end the deadlock over who won the presidential election. and russia formally banned imports of agricultural products from the u.s. and europe, even as nato warned moscow not to send troops into ukraine. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, making the decision to put down your pet is never easy, but a kansas bio- science firm is offering dog and cat owners a little comfort in the form of an organ donation. now, tissue taken from a euthanized animal can be used in research focused on advancing the treatment of canine and feline diabetes. the practice also helps to preserve the lives of research animals. read more about the program, from our partners at kansas city public tv, on our science page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight.

on friday, judy talks with the president of somalia about the recent uptick in terrorist attacks by the islamic militants of al shabab. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line, and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks among others. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

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