This 1999 book looks at the various crises faced by the five presidents who served following the Nixon resignation caused by Watergate. Woodward demonstrates how the legacy of Waterate has causesd a weakening of the office of the presidency, making it more difficult for succeeding presidents to respond to crises.
Gerald Ford faced two major problems during his presidency. The Nixon pardon is the most obvious one. Ford hoped to put Watergate behind him and the country by pardoning Nixon, but the pardon had the opposite effect. Journalists continued to press Ford about whether there had been a deal wherein Ford would issue a pardon in exchange for Nixon's resignation. For example, during his first press conference after the pardonm, 15 out of 21 qyuestions were about Nixon or the pardon.
The other scandal of the Ford administration was little-known at the time. It involved the outright insubordination of Ford's Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger, when Schlesinger refused to carry out Ford's order to send U.S. aircraft to evacuate as many South Vietnamese as possible, during the fall of Saigon in 1975. This bnreakdown in the military chain of command was, Woodward believes, "perhaps the worst and most significant scandal of the Ford presidency".
The first crisis of the Carter administration unfolded soon after he took office, after the Washington Post learned that the CIA had been making payments and other favors to King Hussein of Jordan. The favors included providing prostitutes. President Carter became irate when this was published, a posture totally at odds with his stated policy of honesty and openness.
A second crisis was the expsoure of Carter's management style, which consisted of coldness and abrasiveness toward his subordinates. It is said that Carter was following Admiral Rickover's approach of never complimenting a subordinate. Speaking of hs old boss Rickover, Carter has stated that "The absence of a comment was his compliment". Woodward concludes that Carter "was not only removed from the capital city but alienated from it. Watergate had helped produce the most unlkely president: a loner."
Then there was the Bert Lance scandal, involving shady dealings in Lance's banking past. Woodward concludes here that Carter had "ostentatiously sought high ethical and legal standards but was quick to seek an exeption for a friend".
Next came the Hamilton Jordan mess, involving allegations that he had used cocaine at a New York night club. A special proscutor was appointd to look into the allegations, and six months of investigation concluded the allegations were not true.
Then there was firing of HEW Secretary Joe Caifano. Carter said one thing in public and another in private about this sordid affair. Wooward concludes that "Carter regualarly broke his most basic promise when he campaigned for the prsidency. He did not always tell the truth."
The major crisis of the Reagan administration was the Iran-Contra scandal. A special prosecutor was appointed and spent over three years invedtigating and prosecuting the wrongdoers.
Georgem H. W. Bush had problems regarding his handling of the Gulf War. Woodward's inside account describes how Bush secretly wanted the war, and feared an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait before the war started. He kept his concerns hidden from the public, however, and Woodward concludes that "Bush did not trust the Congress or the media to sort out or explain his dilemma and responsibility without sensationalizing it. Watergate had made a sober account of the truth by the president almost impossible."
With Clinton the scandal was, of course, the Monica Lewinsky affair which Clinton tried to cover up.
Summing up, Woodward says that there are "two fundamental lessons of Watergate. First, if there is questionable activity, release the facts, whatever they are, as early and completely as possible. Second, do not allow outside inquiries, whether conducted by prosecutors, congressman or reporters, to harden into a permanent state of suspicion and warfare."
Woodward concludes that Reagan did the best of the five presidents in taking this approach. Reagan appointed a new Chief of Staff, Howard Baker, and instructed Baker to get to the bottom of the Iran-Contra fiasco. Reagan made it crystal clear to his entire staff that everyone was to cooperate fully with Baker. The result was that Reagan was able to serve out his second term with no threat of impeachment.
Clinton's response to his crisis was the worst, in that he repeatedly tried to avoid telling the truth. Had he come out immediately and confessed to what he'd done, the pubic would have been far more forgiving. The worst thing is for the truth to come out in litle dribs and drabs, keeping the matter in the news for months on end.
In my mind a companion book to "Shadow" would be Arthur Schlessinger's "The Imperial Presidency". Schlessinger chronicles how the power of the presidency, especially in war-making, has increased throughout the years. The book, published in 1973 when the Watergate investigation was all over the news, makes the case that Nixon's power grab was a logical conclusion of the movement toward an all-powerful presidency, something the Founders never contemplated.
Schlessinger says that "Watergate was potentially the best thing to have happened to the presidency in a long time", because it demonstrated to future presidents that when they place themselves above the law, there wil be serious consequences. Schlessinger says that "corruption appears to visit the White House in 50-year cycles". Hence, Watergate provided immunization against presidential wrongdoing till 2023. He was off by only seven yearss, as the election of Donald Trump in 2016 marked the end of the limited presidency.
So who is right? Woodward, who claims that Watergate's weakening of the presidency was a bad thing, or Schelessinger, who says it was a good thing? I have to side with Schlessinger here. Woodward does not make a convincing case that the crises which arose in the five presidencies following Watergate were caused, or exacerbated by, Watergate. He does, however, make a strong case that there is much to learn from Watergate about the proper way for a president to respond to those crises.
Woodward's problem is that his reporter's eye for detail prevents him from seeing the historical perspective that the historian can offer. Woodward is so consumed with the need to describe the trees, that he cannot see the forest. The fact is, as Schlessinger convincingly demonstrates, that the presidency had become too strong, with the checks and balances envisioned by our Founders having largely fallen by the wayside. Watergate helped restore those checks and balances, with Congress reasserting its oversight role, uncovering evidence of the CIA's use of assassination and other covert ops which far exceeded the proper CIA role of gathering intelligance, and enacting legislation limiting the president's powers to wage war without consulting with Congress.
