Protecting the Constitution and Curbing Presidential Powers
On July 5, 1973, North Carolina Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr. wrote a constituent, stating “I will always be grateful to you for your complimentary remarks concerning the manner in which the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities is endeavoring to perform its duty to ascertain the truth in respect to the charges relating to the Watergate affair and its various ramifications.” The Watergate hearings represented the final and certainly the most far-reaching actions of the “country lawyer” from Morganton, North Carolina; when his term ended in January 1975, “Senator Sam” retired.
Sam Ervin Challenges the Nixon White House
Sam Ervin was a conservative Democrat who held a Jeffersonian passion for the U.S. Constitution and is referred to as the, “last of the Founding Fathers.” Aspects of his passion involved opposition to Civil Rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, school busing, and desegregation – although he eventually changed and embraced a “color blind” society. His love of the Constitution and the privacy rights of Americans regarding government surveillance of suspected “enemies” of freedom, however, never changed.
The Ervin hearings of May 1973, frequently called the Watergate Committee, were a clear demonstration of Senator Ervin’s quest to expose significant criminality, including a cover-up that led to the White House Oval Office, associated with the presidency of Richard M. Nixon. Sam Ervin took down an administration that saw itself above the law, rationalizing Constitutional side-steps by hiding behind dubious claims of national security and executive privilege.
Privacy Issues and the Army’s Enemies List
Before there was Watergate there was a secret domestic surveillance program conducted first by the U.S. Army and then transferred to the Nixon Justice Department. It was a time of intense social reaction to the Vietnam War, to events like the Kent State massacre and the president’s escalation of U.S. bombing beyond Vietnam’s borders into Cambodia. Presidential lackeys, men like William H. Rehnquist (later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court), publically supported First Amendment violations in the name of national security.
The Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities
Dust from Ervin’s army hearings barely settled when events conspired that would ultimately bring down a president. On June 17, 1972, the so-called White House “Plumbers” were caught breaking into the Watergate office of the Democratic National Headquarters.
The cover-up began almost immediately. Those directly involved received large cash payments to ensure their silence and the promise of lucrative jobs. Two courageous journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post fed their readers salient stories gleaned from tips and from leaks. By the spring 1973, Senator Ervin seemed the most logical choice to chair the select committee conceived by Majority Leader Mike Mansfield to hold hearings on the expanding scandal.
The Nixon Tapes and Start of the White House Siege Mentality
At a time many eyes in the nation were glued to their televisions, watching the hearings and awaiting Ervin’s “one-two” punch, President Nixon fought back, refusing to submit tapes disclosing Oval Office conversations, on the basis of national security and executive privilege. Existence of the tapes had been disclosed during committee hearings. The taped conversations were eventually released after a judicial battle.
Erwin had nothing to lose. In the Senate, his reputation was solid. Personally, he had no further political ambitions having decided to retire when his term expired in 1975. The White House, however, dispatched henchmen to North Carolina vainly attempting to find a shred of scandal that could be used against Ervin.
Ervin, who loved to pepper his speeches and comments with biblical allusions, was a strict Presbyterian and took his religion seriously. Nixon’s conservative lackeys, however, found nothing to embarrass the Senator.
Special Prosecutors and Impeachment
Watergate was still not “open and shut.” When did Nixon first learn of the DNC break-in? Where did the money come from to cover-up the crime? Who was part of the conspiracy and what was the ultimate motive? As Ervin’s committee sought to find answers, Richard Nixon played hardball, shutting the doors even to members of his own party.
Legacy of Sam Ervin’s Senate Hearings
Sam Ervin’s hearings, well planned for maximum impact, provided the blueprint for the Justice Department’s special prosecutor and for other Congressional committees. In the end, the Nixon White House made a mockery of separation of powers, engaged in illegal actions, and permitted the chief executive an element of autocratic leverage incompatible with Constitutional restraints.
Ervin’s last official act was to guide the Privacy Act through the Senate. The Act, “represented the fulfillment of Ervin’s long attempt to protect individuals from excessive government snooping,” according to historian Karl E. Campbell.
When Sam Ervin died in April 1985, he could not have foreseen an era when the privacy rights of American citizens would be gravely tested through new technologies tied to the internet. One wonders what his reactions would be to the new Imperial Presidency that ostensibly monitors all telephone calls, e-mails, and computer transactions in the name of national security.
References:
- Karl E. Campbell, Senator Sam Ervin, Last Of The Founding Fathers (University of North Carolina Press, 2007)
- Same J. Ervin, Jr., Humor of a Country Lawyer (University of North Carolina Press, 1983) Chapter 14
- Same Ervin, Letter dated July 5, 1973
- Barry Sussman, The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate (Catapulter books, 2010)
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