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The President in turn seemed at ease solely with such automatic yes men and relatively anonymous associates, but apparently confided fully not even in them. Yet he shared powerful prejudices with them, most dangerously a siege mentality in which so many other vague classifications of Americans —liberals, antiwar radicals, academic intellectuals, Eastern sophisticates, the press—were seen as enemies, akin to unfriendly foreign powers. They were to be subverted, subjected to surveillance and eavesdropping, and "screwed" by agencies of Government. Nixon's re-election campaign became a crusade in which any means were seen as justified to keep all those fearful foes out of power. National security was equated with Nixon security.
But how could so many attorneys, trained in concepts of justice and the rule of law, become involved? Orville H. Schell Jr., president of the New York City Bar Association, blames this on a tendency of many lawyers today to forgo their critical independence and to serve as in-house counsels for corporations, foundations and Government. Their powerful clients thus become their bosses; the lawyer's aim is to please, not to advise that what the boss wants done may be wrong. One law school dean is less charitable in faulting such a broad trend. He blames Nixon for hiring "legal midgets—underclass lawyers. That's why he was so surprised by the really classy guys like Cox, Richardson and Ruckelshaus."
Yet it is the legal profession that has, however belatedly and at first by a narrow edge, finally become most aroused about the transgressions against law and the Constitution that make up the dismal scandal. While the profession has moved forcefully through such men as Sirica, Cox and Richardson to acquit itself, it is still on trial, and whether justice will finally prevail is still in doubt.
No Single Outcome Can Please Everyone
"We don't have a victory of good; we just have an exposure of evil," observes Professor Kurland. "Nothing has been triumphant but cynicism." Stanford Law Professor Anthony Amsterdam worries whether justice can possibly be done when the criminal evidence has been held up for so long by those who might be guilty. "It is as if in a bank robbery all evidence were given to the robber to hold for two years before trial."
Certainly, if justice is not seen as prevailing by most Americans in the many trials still to emerge from the affair, a deepening cynicism and a rootless everybody-does-it syndrome of irresponsibility for individual acts may be Watergate's more lasting legacy. Whatever the outcome—most crucially including the fairness and thoroughness with which the President's political fate is resolved—millions of Americans will still consider the result wrong. Watergate thus is bound to leave a lingering bitterness among at least a minority of Americans.
Yet the nation may well be poised on a fateful fulcrum that will either tip predominant sentiment toward a new faith in its fundamental institutions—including Congress, the Constitution and the courts—or send it into a trough of public despair and anomie. The direction will depend to a large degree upon how many members of Congress, Government