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Nixon suffered the further indignity of hearing his Vice President, Spiro T. Agnew, attest to his boss's integrity —thereby calling attention to the fact that it was in question. For several weeks, Agnew's aides had spread the word that the Vice President was "appalled" by Nixon's handling of the Watergate scandal. But Agnew last week read a 90-second prepared statement saying that he wanted it known that "I have full confidence in the integrity of President Nixon and in his determination and ability to resolve the Watergate matter to the full satisfaction of the American people."
Across the U.S., concern about Watergate, long so surprisingly minimal, was clearly growing. Many Nixon adherents were still dismissing it as "just politics" or claiming that "everyone does it—they just got caught." Nixon critics claimed that Watergate only demonstrated what they had always felt about "Tricky Dick." Yet vast numbers in the middle, from which Nixon had hoped to build a permanent Republican New Majority, were becoming aroused. The conservative Detroit News also showed how opinion was shifting. On April 19, the News declared: "Smelly as the Watergate incident is, it would be a mistake to make it into a major scandal." Last week the News asked, "Is it overplayed?" and answered no. Watergate now indicated "a pattern of spying, lying, bribery and payoffs that derogate the entire political system and are unworthy of a great democracy." Even Conservative Columnist William F. Buckley Jr. suggested last week that if Nixon is found guilty of obstructing justice in the case, he ought to be censured by the Congress. Buckley, although he likes Agnew, conceded that impeachment of Nixon would be unfair to all those who would not accept the Vice President as their leader.
Nixon may yet recover from Watergate's most serious implications if he quickly and personally acts to dismiss anyone in whom he has lost confidence because of the affair. Such aides are now a clear liability to him. He need not wait for indictments, assuming he now knows who was involved. If he does not, he has been astonishingly negligent. As Mississippi Democratic Senator John Stennis noted last week, Nixon has survived other crises, and may yet be able to "tough it out."
Yet Nixon cannot readily shake the damage done to his own reputation by so many people operating so improperly in his name. Unlike most Washington scandals in the past, Watergate is not a case of a few officials trying to steal public money or use their influence for private gain. Most of the clandestine activities were undertaken in a blatantly amoral atmosphere for the sole purpose of helping to re-elect Richard Nixon or of concealing that effort by subverting the judicial process. These were all Nixon's men. His presidency, and his place in history, are contaminated by them.