When One Stood Alone

About the Book

Richard M. Nixon rode into the presidency in 1968 on a promise to end the Vietnam War. He soon learned that he would be no more successful in extracting America from the mire of Vietnam than was his discredited predecessor, Lyndon Baines Johnson. What made things even worse was Nixon’s perception that the press was both hostile and unfair to him and as a result dwelled exclusively on the negatives of his war policy. Nixon became obsessed with the notion that biased reporting on Vietnam combined with the favorable publicity garnered by the anti-war movement’s massive protest demonstrations and resistance to the military draft, was eclipsing and even obscuring his more positive accomplishments. It was a bitter irony to Nixon that he wasn’t receiving the acclaim that a Democratic president would have received for similarly impressive accomplishments in thawing Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union and achieving a measure of rapprochement with Communist China. When administration insiders and former supporters of the War, such as Daniel Ellsberg, leaked sensitive data to the press which placed the Administration’s war efforts in an unflattering light (e.g. the secret bombing of Cambodia and the Pentagon Papers), Nixon’s paranoia took over and soon would run amuck. Nixon had surrounded himself in the White House with a loyal ban of sycophants who keenly understood the intricacies of Nixon’s thought process. They believed that one of their functions was to insulate him from the more sober and balanced voices of his Administration, who were more likely to counsel moderation than to act on Nixon’s more bizarre impulses. When Nixon demanded that leaks to the media be halted at all costs and insisted that better intelligence be obtained as to the plans of his enemies; who were the electronic and print media, the Democrats and the Eastern intellectual establishment, his coterie of top aides and advisors marched in lock-step to carry out his orders. Nixon’s chief lieutenants were his Chief of Staff, H.R. (Bob) Haldeman, his Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, John Ehrlichman, and his Attorney General, John N. Mitchell. They were later joined in the effort by special counsel, Charles Colson, and White House Counsel, John Dean. Beginning in 1969, Nixon and his White House aides devised their own secret internal intelligence operation and implemented a massive program of spying and political sabotage against their opponents. Top Democrats were the main, though not exclusive, target. Many of the activities engaged in by the White House intelligence arm were highly illegal, such as burglary, unauthorized wiretaps and surreptitious mail openings. The effort came crashing down on June 17, 1972, when five operatives working for the Committee to Re-elect the President, chaired by John N. Mitchell, were arrested while burglarizing the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. Within days, G. Gordon Liddy, Chief Counsel to the Re-Election Committee, and White House operative, E. Howard Hunt, were also under arrest as co-conspirators. This book recounts how the Watergate arrests immediately triggered a massive cover-up inside the White House, reaching into the Oval Office, as the President and his minions desperately sought to prevent anyone higher up the political ladder than the original seven defendants from being implicated in the conspiracy. Thus, began a second wave of criminality as the cover-up conspirators led by the President of the United States brought the full weight of the presidency to bear against those who might otherwise be disposed to tell the authorities what they knew. Perjury was suborned by Nixon’s top aides; hush money was paid to witnesses to bribe them into silence; evidence was destroyed or doctored; and pressure was brought to bear against the FBI investigators to keep the Whi

About the Author

The author, Donald J. Farinacci, J.D., a Vietnam era veteran, is a partner with the New York City law firm, Fischbein Badillo Wagner Harding LLP. As a young lawyer in the early 1970’s, he received an insider’s view of the workings of government when he served first as assistant counsel to the New York State Commission to Evaluate the Drug Laws and then as Counsel to the New York State Senate Committee on Crime and Correction. This blending of actual experience in government, with the lessons of Watergate, during an intensely formative period of his legal career, instilled in the author a life-long fascination with the machinations of Watergate and its larger implications for the soul of America and the survival of America’s unique democratic system. At the time of Watergate, the author had little courtroom experience. Now, however, after a thirty-two year career in private law practice, both in and out of court, Mr. Farinacci’s admiration for courage in the courtroom has reached its zenith. His interest in the improvement of the judicial system has led him to seek opportunities for participation in judicial and legal reform. Specifically, he served on the Nassau County Bar Association ad hoc committee on legal reform, which led to his appointment as Chair of the Association’s standing Committee on the Profession and the Courts. He has also chaired the Surrogate’s Court Committee and is an active member of the Association’s Military Law Committee. Mr. Farinacci is married, has three children and two grandchildren, and lives on Long Island.