The Nixon Dilemma

The Scenario: During the early stages of your reelection candidate, someone well down the hierarchy of your staff has engineered an illegal burglary of the opposing party's offices. You did not know in advance that this had been planned nor did you authorize it. How do you handle this potentially embarrassing incident?

You tell all the participants to cooperate fully with authorities. You tell all of your underlings who were involved in this activity that they will have to accept responsibility for their actions. You make it clear that you did not approve this stupid stunt in advance, and that you in no way condone it. If any of the participants threaten to expose embarrassing secrets from other operations they have conducted for you, you tell them you will not be blackmailed, and that if they choose to reveal those secrets, you will deal with their extortion and disloyalty with all the wrath the law allows.

You dismiss the matter with a wink and a smile. "Boys will be boys; good people get carried away in the service of a noble cause." Tell your arrested subordinates secretly that you will take care of them. Arrange for them to have private-sector "consulting" jobs that can be performed and compensated even during prison sentences.

You summon your top aides and plot a comprehensive cover-up of the entire matter, making sure all meetings are confidential. You make no records of the meetings. If automatic processes create recordings of the meetings, you destroy the recordings. Then you choose a fall guy, and sacrifice him to protect everyone else. You make sure the fall guy is well rewarded so he will not abandon his role.

You tell all your involved subordinates to deny any involvement with your organization or your inner circle, promising pardons to anyone facing prison terms. Advise them to delay court proceedings as long as possible, because you will grant these pardons at one minute to midnight, just before you leave office. You make pardons conditioned on a percentage of the inevitable tell-all book deals.

You plot an illegal cover-up of the activities, including to lying to federal agencies, and engaging in conduct that can only be interpreted as Obstruction of Justice. You pay hush money and make sure there is a paper trail to your organization so your accused subordinates know who is taking care of them. And you make sure you have created tape recordings of the entire cover-up planning process so they can be available to investigators and historians.

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Copyright © 1998 by Richard Warren Field

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