watergate matter because i did not think he fully realized all the facts and the implications of those facts for the people at the white house as well as himself. >> you had the president's counsel, people forget he was the president's lawyer. you can't have anything worse happen to you than your own lawyer turning against you. >> 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. i also told him that it was important that this cancer be removed immediately because it was growing more deadly every day. >> john dean's testimony was on for four days. it was mesmerizing. people were missing airplanes. people were standing around furniture stores that sold tv sets watching if the plate glass windows the television. >> i told him that cash that had been at the white house had been funneled back to the re-election committee for the purpose of paying the seven individuals to remain silent.

>> and dean wasn't pulling any punches. >> so had been a recipient of wiretap investigation and haldeman had also received some information through straun. >> and i said to myself, wow, everything john dean is saying to that committee i hope they know it is true. >> the counsel was retained at that time. >> what date was that? >> that was on the 25th as i recall. >> we absolutely believed what he was saying and the more evidence we got the more it confirmed what he was saying. >> meeting of march 21st. as i have indicated, my purpose in requesting this meeting particularly with the president, was that i felt it necessary that i give him a full report of all the facts that i knew and explained to him what i believed to be the implications of those facts. >> we had white house logs of meetings, so when he said i met with the president on march 21st, we could look at the log and see, well, he certainly did.

>> how do you expect us to resolve the truth in this matter when you state one story, and you've testified here and made yourself subject to cross-examination, and the president states another story and he does not appear before this committee? can you give us any information as to how we might resolve this? >> mr. chairman, i think this. i strongly believe that the truth always emerges. i don't know if it will be during these hearings. i don't know if it will be through the processes of history, but the truth will out someday. >> it's very hard to think about the president not being believed and john dean being believed, so if it came down to he said/he said, the president was going to win. >> president nixon and his counsel john dean now appear to be at odds over the watergate

scandal. >> one nixon aide knew how to prove who was lying, but no one had asked him. >> while in the barbershop i'm watching the hearings. this was every place. this is the morning of monday the 16th of july. i was really quite relaxed until i got that phone call. we're going to want you to come up here and testify, the senator wants you to testify at 2:00. so i said, well, you can just tell him i'm not coming. so on the tube i see this guy go in behind the senators and whisper in irvin's ear, and it's those big bushy eyebrows of his went, you could see them going up and down. and he wasn't pleased. you could tell that. and he tells this young man something, and the guy leaves. predictably right away the phone

rings, and he said i just told the senator what you said and he said if you're not in his office at 1:00, he will have federal marshals pick you up on the street. that's exactly what he said. >> carl stern is outside the senate caucus room. maybe he can tell us more about mr. butterfield and what he is expected to tell this committee. >> there's a lot of speculation. obviously something was cooking as far as what he was going to say because we were deviating from the schedule. >> we believe his testimony will have to do with white house procedures. >> that room was chock full of people, boyfriends with girls standing on their shoulders, people in the window ledges up there, cameras all over the place. >> i'd like to change the usual routine of questioning and ask minority counsel to begin the questioning, mr. butterfield. >> the old caucus room was packed full of famous names and

celebrities and what tnot, you know, kind of a circus atmosphere. >> i understand you previously were employed by the white house? is that correct? >> that's correct. >> during what period of time were you employed by the white house? >> i would like to preface my e remarks, if i may mr. thompson. >> i'm sorry. go right ahead. >> although i do not have a statement as such, i would simply like to remind the committee membership that whereas i appear voluntarily this afternoon, i appear with only some three hours notice. >> i wanted them to know i was enjoying a haircut just at 11:00 today. >> mr. butterfield are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the oval office of the president? >> i tried to think is that direct? yeah, that's direct. that's a very direct question. i'm not trying to sound dramatic here, but i knew then that the

jig was up. >> i was aware of listening devices, yes, sir. >> i was under the assumption that this tape recording system was still deep, dark secret over at the white house. that secret was well kept. when you stop and think, rosemary woods his secretary never knew about the tapes. henry kissinger never knew about the cases. >> i called bradley at home at 9:00 on a saturday night and said nixon taped himself. what should we do? and ben said i wouldn't bust one on it, and it's kind of a b-plus story. okay, the boss says b-plus. i won't work on it. i took sunday off, and monday they called butterfield, and i remember ben came by and knocked on my desk and said, okay, it's better than a b-plus. >> from that point on, of course, it's a fight for the tapes because they answer the

questions. am i telling the truth? is the president telling the truth? and what else happened? the prosecutors immediately subpoena the tapes. the senate subpoenas them, so nixon is early advised to destroy the tapes. today is the day you're going to get motivated... get stronger... get closer. start listening today to the world's largest selection of audiobooks on audible. and now, get more. for just $14.95 a month, you'll get a credit a month good for any audiobook, plus two audible originals exclusive titles you can't find anywhere else.

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the discovery of the nixon tapes would ignite a new battleground in the watergate

drama. >> nixon's attorney general had appointed a special prosecutor, archibald cox to investigate watergate. the special prosecutor demanded that nixon hand over eight of the tapes. >> eight specific tapes of conversations either in the president's office or on his telephone. >> nixon not only refused but on a saturday night in october 1973 he also ordered his attorney general to fire the special prosecutor. the attorney general was appalled. he said no and resigned. then the president told one of his assistants to call the deputy attorney general. >> when i picked the phone up, it was al haig, he said he wanted me to fire cox. i said i'm not going to do it. >> refused to obey a presidential order to fire the special watergate prosecutor. >> first the attorney general to his great credit just saying i'm not going to do that and then to resign and then the next person who was the deputy attorney

general, one of the great people in the nixon administration, one of the most ethical men i've ever known, he too was not willing to do it. >> so the deputy attorney general ruckleshouse also resigned. >> there will be an announcement of the white house. >> does it have to do with the resignation of the attorney general? >> it might. >> al haig said your commander in chief is ordering you to do this. i don't know whether that added to the discussion. he said, well, who else was around. i said bob bork was here, he was the number three guy in the department. bork was the last one eligible to do it. >> the commander in chief finally found someone willing to carry out his orders. bork fired cox. >> i have asked all the personnel in the department to stay and help keep the department going in this exstored ne extraordinarily difficult time. >> the president's motive was to

remove the possibility of a constitutional confrontation. >> richard nixon violated the law. he compromised the office, and he violated the compact that we thought we had with him. >> before he did all this, he must have considered the probable reaction in congress, including the possibility of impeachment. >> there were some of us who felt that the imperial presidency was getting out of hand. the saturday night massacre was the signal to the american people that the president was putting himself above the rule of law, and they demanded action. and the public outcry to the saturday night massacre was so significant. >> just the insanity of the saturday night massacre, like who does that. how could you think you could get away with that? it's just not stable. >> people in high office tend to want to arrogate power to themselves, and they tend to want to keep it.

power still tends to corrupt. >> presidents by the nature of the job are just unlikely to ever shed any of the executive power that their predecessors have accrued to the office. every president since jimmy carter has expanded the powers of the presidency. and when president obama ran for office, he had as part of his pitch as a candidate, what was wrong with the expanded executive power that was asserted by the george w. bush administration, especially on national security issues, things like torture and rendition and secret prisons and all that stuff after 9/11. he hasn't given any of that power back now that he is president. >> tonight i would like to give my answer to those who have suggested that i resign. i have no intention whatever of walking away from the job i was elected to do. >> after four months of legal squabbling, the presidential tape recordings were finally

delivered today to chief judge john sirika. you won't hear them until all the discrepancies are accounted for, and today that situation grew worse, not better. >> much worse. nixon had handed over the tapes, but there was a catch. >> i was in the white house. things were fairly quiet, and i got a call to go to ron ziegler's office. we go up to ron's office thinking it's something routine, and ziegler is clearing his throat a lot and is kind of rattling his coffee cup, ask that -- and that's when we learned about the gap in the tapes. we had been told just about three days earlier that the worst is behind us, and suddenly there was an 18.5 minute gap in the tapes and all hell broke loose. >> the conversation in question took place just three days after the watergate burglars were caught and the watergate prosecutor thought it was important. >> we know that the 18.5 minute gap was a conversation about watergate because it was with haldeman and the president and

haldeman was a meticulous note taker, and he took notes. >> the president's personal secretary, rosemary woods was recalled to explain how she accidentally erased 18 minutes of an h.r. haldeman conversation with the president three days after the watergate break-in. >> it didn't happen by accident. it would have been our first suspicion. i was the lawyer who questioned rosemary woods about the 18.5 minute gap. >> another reenactment? >> i don't want to comment. >> mostly i'm called the mini skirted bitch. that was my name. pictures of me were always head to toe. my male colleagues are shoulder up. that's just how it was and rosemary woods represents really the majority of women at that time. you could be a nurse. you could be a teacher, you could be a secretary, or you could be a housewife. those were your choices. i was a very early professional, and there we were head to head

combat basically. >> ms. woods said it was a mistake, a record button hit accidentally while she took a phone call. >> she described that she had pushed the wrong button. instead of pushing stop, she had pushed record. she also had to keep her foot on the pedal. >> mrs. woods use ds the machine to show how it happened. >> when i asked her to demonstrate she pushed the button, kept her foot on, and she supposedly reached back about six feet to get the telephone, and her foot came off the pedal just with the mere movement, and there was just no way it was believable. >> the white house contention that it was accidentally erased will give more ammunition to the president's critics. >> to hear something that was so obviously untrue, it changed a lot of the american public's view of the whole situation. >> reporter: rosemary woods would stand by her story. bob woodward would later write the 18.5 minute gap became a symbol for nixon's entire

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>> reporter: watergate was becoming a bloody mess. nixon was a wounded president. all the president's men was a very violent movie. it was violent in a different sense. you didn't see anybody shot or blown up or poisoned but people were out to kill each other. >> get out your notebook, there's more. >> and the weapons were telephones, typewriters and

pens. >> your lives are in danger. >> so as a result, we would accentuate the volume in all those instruments. >> i love the scene when redford playing the part of bob woodward sees carl reworking his story. >> how's it going? what are you doing? >> polishing it. >> what's wrong with it? >> nothing, nothing, it's good. >> then what are you doing with it? >> i'm just helping. it's a little fuzzy. >> may i have it? >> i don't think you're saying what you mean. >> i know exactly what i mean. >> not here. i can't tell from this whether hunt works for coleson or coleson works for hunt. >> can i have it, please? >> i'm not looking for a fight. >> i'm not looking for a fight either. >> just aware of the fact you've only been here nine months. >> having known both of them, that was so true. that's what goes on in newsroom. >> i don't mind what you did.

i mind the way you did it. >> the thing about bernstein that i think you captured so well was his assuredness about how right he was, you know. at the same time totally intuitive, totally instinctive where he had to push woodward, and you're rewriting me because you're a better writer and you do it without even thinking how bruised it's going to be. >> woodward was, if the right word is, didactic. he would go a, b, c, d in his investigative work, and bernstein would go a, b, c, h. >> it was right at its peak. >> there's always been some chick cannery in american politics. you're always going to have some underhanded dealings. nothing comparable to this. >> ended up that woodward and bernstein ushered in a new era of journalism.

>> marcus, everyone asks the question, could "the post" do a story like watergate or do watergate now? >> you know, in today's world that story would catch fire much faster. the men -- the minute the break-in occurred, you know, you would tweet it. both sides would seize on it. it's an election campaign. it would be, you know, they would be using it immediately as fodder for their both sides in the battle. everybody would chase. i mean, there would be bloggers, and as a result it would be much harder to do what you did probably because there would be such -- they would clamp down much faster. >> it's a great question how watergate might unfold in the current news environment. you could look at the sort of glass half full argument and say, my goodness, with all these people on twitter and all these reporters, you know, and the 24

hour news cycle, if a big story began to emerge, it would never be two lonely guys pursuing it because the entire pack of the cyber universe would bay like wolves after the white house until it happened. >> they used to say a reporter was only as good as his phone numbers. we can hunt and stalk sources so many different ways. the toolbox that i have available to me as a reporter, digital voice recording, e-mail, social media, we can truth tell them in realtime when they say something, we can be googling what they're saying. playing back to them, we have access to all known thought one click away. ability to surround and ferret out source in a way that woodward and bernstein only dreamed of. >> the internet is a tool, just like a typewriter is a tool, telephone is a tool. at the end of the day, journalism requires incredibly

dogged persistence on the part of journalists who are seeking the truth. >> we worked over here. >> i'm here, you're there. >> you're here and i'm here. >> yeah. >> and it was the noise of typewriters, and it was the smoke of people who smoked. >> people smoking. >> 38 years ago. >> why do things have to change? >> that's right. >> every day bob and i would go have a cup of coffee together in the morning in a little vending machine room off the newsroom. >> it sure is quiet in here. and on this particular day, not that long after the break-in, i put a dime in the coffee machine, which is what it cost then, and i literally felt this chill go down my neck, i mean literally. it made my hair stick up, i think, and i turned to woodward and i said, oh, my god this president is going to be impeached, and woodward looked at me, and he said, oh, my god, you're right. you're right -omar, look. [ thunder rumbles ]

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i would like to add a personal word with regard to an issue that has been of great concern to all americans over the past year. i refer, of course, to the investigations of the so-called watergate affair. i believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. one year of watergate is enough. >> but as hard as nixon tried, watergate would not go away. >> the meeting will come to order, the committee on the

judiciary is authorized and directed to investigate fully and completely whether sufficient grounds exist to impeach richard m. nixon, president of the united states of america. >> it took the american people to force congress into action. this was not like what happened with president clinton where a special prosecutor said you should do an impeachment. there were those of us in congress who wanted to take action, but the powers that be refused. it was only when the american people broke down that wall of resistance and said you've got to do what you can do under the constitution to rein in the imperial president. >> the american people were losing patience, and the congressional committee was furious. they knew they had only scratched the surface. there were thousands of hours of recordings, but nixon was refusing to release any of them. >> president nixon today defied subpoenas demanding that he produce tapes and papers in his

possession and the country moved closer to a clash between the white house and the congress and the courts, which will be unprecedented in american history. >> it became clear he wasn't going to produce them voluntarily. but there's a reason why he's drawing the line. he's taking all this flak, there must be some damaging things on there. i was concerned, we were concerned that he might dispose of the tapes, that in and of itself could be a criminal offense. the burning of the tapes, destroying of the tapes. >> nixon never thought the tapes that he was making secretly would ever surface publicly. they would always be for his private use. >> it was never designed that they would come out, so there's a kind of spontaneity and free flow of people talking about their authentic conclusions, and it's horrifying. >> mr. president, you've made it perfectly clear you don't intend to release those tapes. >> perfectly clear? >> perfectly clear. >> it would be up to the supreme

court to make the decision. on july 24th, 1974, the court issued its ruling. >> good morning, the supreme court has just ruled on the tapes controversy. it is the unanimous decision, 8-0, justice rehnquist took no part in the decision ordering the president of the united states to turn over the tapes. >> the court voted unanimously, unanimously to require the tapes to be released. some of those members of the court had been appointed by richard nixon himself. you had the court system acting in a nonpartisan way, in a credible way regardless of politics. >> imagine that in politicized supreme court that we've had in our recent history. >> while nixon tried to put on the pretend act that operations were going on as normal, they

weren't. they were disintegrating every day. >> three days after the supreme court ruling, the house of representatives took the step most dreaded by the president, impeachment. nixon's fate now rested in the hands of the committee. >> today i am an inquisitor. an hyperbole would not be fictional and not overstate the solemnness that i feel right now. my faith in the constitution is whole, it is complete. it is total, and i am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the demolution, the subversion, the destruction of the constitution. mr. conyers, i. >> some republicans who voted for the impeachment, some democrats who voted for impeachment, they were putting their political lives on the line, and all of us were putting our rep tauutations on the line.

we voted on the impeachment. it was one of the most sober and solemn moments in my life and i think in the life of everybody in that committee. everybody understood the stakes for the country. that's what this was all about, and it was above party. it was what was good for america and what our democracy required. mr. railsback. >> i. >> it was the republicans that ultimately provided a real measure putting country ahead of party. >> nixon held his ground, insisted he knew nothing of the cover-up, but among the thousands of hours of tapes one conversation recorded shortly after the break-in would destroy what was left of his credibility and his presidency.

>> on the investigation, you know, the democratic break-in thing, we're about to enter a problem area because the fbi is not under control, and their they have -- their investigation is now leading into some productive areas. >> what finally catches him is when the tapes are released, the smoking gun tape puts the lie to that statement that he had no advanced knowledge. >> on the tape you hear nixon telling haldeman to direct the cia to stop an fbi investigation. >> without going into details, don't lie to them to the extent to say there were no involvement, but just say this is sort of -- and they they call the fbi and don't go any further into this case, period. >> those words clearly led to an obstruction of justice. >> and i was always amazed at the president's nonchalance. he didn't seem to care.

i wanted to say to him, my god, man, do you know what you just said? do you know those tapes are rolling? >> after the smoking gun tape came out, the president lost all support, republican as well as democrat. republicans went to him and said you have to resign. we cannot support you anymore. >> it was republicans finally who made sure that nixon had to leave office. barry goldwater marching down to the white house. >> so we sat there in the oval room and the president acted like he just played golf and just had a hole in one. you'd never think this guy's tail was in a crack. >> nixon said how many votes if i'm impeached in the house, how many votes in the senate? about 20. and goldwater said very few and not mine. >> the 37th president of the united states was facing the ultimate disgrace. for a man who craved power, the

question was would nixon continue to fight? to fight? hi there. this is a commercial about insurance.

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brett kavanaugh is now officially a supreme court justice. sworn in tonight after the senate confirmed him in a bitterly fought 50-48 vote. the public swearing in will happen monday night. protesters vowed to keep up the fight over kavanaugh converging on the supreme court in a show of strength. and president trump took aim at the lone republican no vote on kavanaugh saying alaskan voters will never forgive senator lisa murkowski. now back to "all the president's men" revisited. i don't remember exactly where i was or what i was doing the night nixon resigned, but i remember the feeling, relief.

>> hey, you're better looking than i am. why don't you stay here. blonds they say photograph better than brunettes. >> we're standing by now for president richard millhouse nixon, 37th president of the united states. >> have you got an extra camera in case the lights go out? is that nbc? get these lights properly -- my eyes always have -- when you get past 60, that's enough. >> in just a moment now the president of the united states will begin his speech, perhaps hiss last speech from the white house. >> good evening. >> we watched it sitting on the floor eating bolonga sandwiches and having a sense of unreality, quite frankly. >> from the discussions i have had with congressional and other

leaders, i have concluded that because of the watergate matter, i might not have the support of the congress that i would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the nation require. >> i was just awe struck at the whole thing, no gloating, very little sense of self. it was really about the magnificence of what had occurred in terms of the right thing. >> therefore, i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. the vice president will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office. >> our first reaction really was okay, he's not president anymore. he's just a citizen. now we can indict him. honestly, that is what we thought.

>> the morning he resigned i remember i walked down the street and bought a bottle of scotch. >> earlier today, the east room of the white house was the scene of an emotional meeting between the president, his cabinet and the aides who have stayed with him during all of these years of mr. nixon's tenure in the white house. >> you have this president who is bitterly resentful of what had happened to him in his political career, overlaid with a shakespearean level of paranoia, and he was willing to engage in extraordinary acts to preserve his power. >> all presidents are human beings. i assume they all have faults and flaws. i assume they will make mistakes. i assume that once they're caught in their mistakes because of who they are and the kind of people they are, they will try to cover up those mistakes. >> i was in the east room of the white house when he made that

very bittersweet, very poignant speech with his family gathered around him. >> i look around here, and i see so many in this staff that, you know, i should have been by your offices and shaking hands and i'd love to have talked to you and found out how to run the world. everybody wants to tell the president what to do, and, boy he needs to be told many times, but i just haven't had the time. >> he's not looking into the camera. he's kind of staring off and going into this stream of consciousness about his mother, who was a saint. >> i guess all of you would say this about your mother. my mother was a saint. >> and that's the most honest speech i've ever heard any politician give, and i'm standing there, a much thinner, younger version of myself,

crying. >> we think that when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer a defeat that all is ended. >> it was really sad, really sad, and i don't think any president has been more wrongly persecuted than nixon ever. i just -- i think he was a saint. >> always remember others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself. >> ultimately, what comes through on the tapes and what comes through in nixon's actions is his hate, his vengeful hate, and in that last farewell, he gives that self-revealing line

that hate will destroy you. >> that this hate, this all encompassing desire to get the opposition to wiretap, to spy, to destroy, to sabotage the ugliness of warfare was brought to american politics by richard nixon and the day he resigned he kind of seemed to get it, seemed to say, yeah, i destroyed myself. >> there were no tanks in the street. there were no armed men around the white house. we had this exceptionally peaceful transition of power, very traumatic time in our lives. the presidency was secured by the decency of gerald ford and

by the extraordinary strength of the constitutional law that defines what the presidency is. >> there was this relief that somehow the system had worked, and then there were in the aftermath a lot of reforms that were put in place. the media changed. investigative journalism had been an incidental situation pre-watergate. post-watergate it almost becomes a standard. presidents before watergate had been really by most reporters been given a presumption of innocen innocence. in the aftermath they're almost presumed guilty. it really dramatically changes the relationship of the news media with the president. >> the system had worked including the role of the press,

but really the idea that the system had worked in this amazing way, that a criminal president had been forced to leave office, the principle that nobody in this country is above the law including the president of the united states. >> for nixon and the nation, one question remained unanswered. would the president now be hauled into court? they baptized me in mud and christened me on rock, so i got tougher. they fostered a love of learning, so i got smarter. taught me to appreciate the finer things in life, so i became more civilized and refined. thank you, freedom and adventure, for giving me this rugged, civilized, wandering soul.

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watergate break-in, that third rate burglary was not an anomaly, that nixon's administration was involved in a whole range of questionable activities. >> breaking and entering, wire tapping, destruction of government documents, forgery of state department documents and letters, secret slush funds, plans to audit tax returns for political retaliation. conspiracy to obstruct justice, all of this by the law and order administration of richard nixon. it sounds bad when you put it like that, huh? >> in the end some 40 people fled guilty to watergate-related crimes, john ehrlichman, bob haldeman, john dean and 16 others went to jail. >> to this day i'm not quite sure when i entered the conspiracy to obstruct justice. that's one of the things i'm actually trying to figure out. when did i cross the line? when did i enter the illegal conspiracy? no question i went across it. >> there was a real major breakdown in personal integrity as well as organizational integrity on the part of us that

were given those assignments. >> i'm not quite sure exactly where i'm going to be for the next few months, but that's -- i'm going to miss you all. >> it also requires you to ask the ethical questions. is this right? is it respectful? is it responsible? is it fair? we didn't ask any of those questions, and we should have started with is it legal. we were so caught up in trying to serve the president's needs or desires that we did not ask those questions. >> i gerald r. ford do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto richard nixon for all offenses against the united states. >> president ford's pardon of richard nixon stunned the nation. nixon's legal problems were now over. >> when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. >> by definition? >> exactly. >> the former president was still not accepting responsibility. three years after resigning,

nixon was paid to participate in an historic interview with the british television journalist david frost. at the very end, the inevitable question came up. >> do you feel that you ever obstructed justice or were part of a conspiracy to obstruct justice? >> he would not -- he wouldn't really admit anything, not even mistakes or whatever. he was really stonewalling completely, and he was beginning to look like the haunted nixon of the actual watergate hearings rather than the californian ex-president. and so finally i said to him why don't you go further in the word mistake. >> what word would you express? >> and that was a real gob smacking moment. >> my goodness. i threw aside my clipboard, and i said, well, i think there are three things you ought to say. the first is that, in fact, that

you did go to the very verge of criminality, and secondly that you let down your oath of office, and thirdly, i put the american people through two years of needless agony, and i apologize for that, and i think that people need to hear it, and i think unless you say it, you're going to be haunted for the rest of your life. >> you're wanting me to say that i am participated in an illegal cover-up? no. >> the key to nixon really is his dislocated relationship with truth. >> if true greatest words ever written in journalism. >> what is the truth? what is the truth? what really happened? >> you guys are probably pretty

tired, right? you should be. go on home. get a nice hot bath. rest up. 15 minutes, then get your asses back in gear. you're under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there. nothing's riding on this except the first amendment of the constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country, not that any of that matters. >> arguably maybe the best movie on reporting made. what i didn't expect was the echo of the movie to last that long. to this day i keep hearing about it. >> one thing about watergate, it was going to change the culture of washington. it did no such thing. of course this kind of thing is going to happen again, and it's going to happen in a much, much bigger scale. >> whether you talk about fdr or whether you talk about nixon or whether you talk about kennedy or whether you talk about

clinton, we have presidents that seem to be in politics for the right reason but presidents that also have a fatal flaw. richard nixon's fatal flaw brought him down. >> people in high office tend to not want to lay themselves open to their enemies and acknowledge embarrassing things or mistakes that they made. they tend to want to lie when they feel like they can get away with it. all those things have been around long before watergate and still are around. >> it was an age old story of an abuse of power and forgetting that you're accountable to the people that put you there, and there will be more, and we'll survive. >> what pulses through the nixon story is the question why? when he was elected, the goodwill of the nation and the world, it was his.

that's the sadness of the nixon presidency of what could have been. >> woodward and bernstein are among the most famous journalists of our age. their names will always be soeshts associated with the downfall of a president. 40 years later it's a moment to ask what the greatest political scandal in modern history means to us. >> it's an evolutionary tale, and we've evolved, and we're older. bob and i brought very different baggage to the story, and it meshed. >> so this was when you were 29, 30 years old. you'll never see a story this good again? >> well, who knows, you know. who knows. >> it's the tale to maybe inspire a whole new generation. maybe. a generation who are now learning about watergate for the very first time.

♪ ♪ i had a huge crush on him. >> he had this amazing voice. >> very gregarious, i think the passion he had for people came through. >> he was the guy the whole town woke up to, morning