History Buff's Guide to the Presidents (32 page)

Five times Eugene Debs ran as the Socialist Party presidential candidate. His highest vote tally was more than 910,000, which he attained in 1920 while in prison.

4
. JIMMY HOFFA (JURY TAMPERING, FRAUD, CONSPIRACY)

PRESIDENT: RICHARD M. NIXON

CLEMENCY: COMMUTATION, DECEMBER 23, 1971

Since 1957, when he was the chief counsel for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Robert Kennedy had been gunning for James Riddle “Jimmy” Hoffa. The head of the Teamsters had long been known as a corrupt and belligerent individual. He was also tangentially connected to the mafia, but Kennedy could never get a conviction.

As both men began to rise to prominence, they developed a passionate and sincere loathing for each other. The hatred only intensified when Kennedy became attorney general in 1961 and made the Teamsters Union one of his primary targets of inquiry. In 1964, while investigating Hoffa for embezzlement of union funds, Bobby secured a conviction on jury tampering, resulting in an eight-year sentence. Additional convictions of fraud and conspiracy lengthened the punishment to thirteen years.

Long before he stepped into the Lewisburg Federal Prison in Pennsylvania, Hoffa had been a supporter of Richard Nixon, who shared Hoffa’s animosity toward the Kennedys. After four years of incarceration, the godfather of truckers received a commutation of his sentence from first-term President Nixon, who released him right before Christmas in 1971.

In his memoirs, Nixon never once mentioned Hoffa. But he did highlight with great pride an event that occurred not long after Hoffa’s release. During the 1972 presidential campaign, the board of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters voted overwhelmingly to endorse the Republican for reelection—the only major labor organization to do so. Thrilled by winning over the traditionally Democratic union, Nixon invited the whole board to his home in San Clemente, a meeting he later called “one of the most important watershed meetings in American politics in this century.”
¹¹⁰

Richard Nixon and Jimmy Hoffa started their careers the same way—working as stock boys in a grocery store.

5
. RICHARD M. NIXON (OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE)

PRESIDENT: GERALD FORD

CLEMENCY: FULL PARDON, SEPTEMBER 8, 1974

“We are not a vengeful people,” said Gerald Ford. He was correct for the most part. Not long after the Second World War, many Americans were driving German automobiles and purchasing Japanese electronics. Nixon’s visit to China tamed fears of the communist dragon almost overnight. But Ford forgot the fundamental ingredient required for any change of heart—timing is everything.
¹¹¹

“I wasn’t prepared for the allegations that the Nixon pardon prompted,” admitted the unelected president, but he might have known it was too soon. Only a month had passed since Nixon’s resignation. No charges had been filed against him. There was no pending court date. Furthermore, Ford decided to give his old boss total absolution for the entirety of Nixon’s tenure in the White House, “for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.” In announcing the pardon, Ford paraphrased Harry Truman, Abraham Lincoln, and the book of James, but none of it rang true.
¹¹²

President Ford tries to explain to the House Judiciary Subcommittee exactly why he chose to give former president Nixon a full and absolute pardon. The subcommittee, and much of the nation, viewed the pardon as an act of favoritism rather than forgiveness.

Immediately Ford’s approval rating took a twenty-two-point dive. His own
PRESS SECRETARY
, Jerald terHorst, resigned in protest. The Senate quickly passed a resolution to stop any further pardons concerning W
ATERGATE
. “You’re crazy,” said Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill to an apologetic Ford. “I’m telling you right now this will cost you the election. I hope it’s not part of any deal.”
¹¹³

There was no deal. The former House minority leader simply believed that clemency would spare a depressed Nixon from further anguish and allow the country to move forward. Right away it was clear that he had guessed wrong. What may have hurt him most was Nixon’s unwillingness to admit some amount of wrongdoing. Even Ford was offended by the lack of remorse. “I was taking one hell of a risk,” Ford said, “and he didn’t seem responsive at all.”
¹¹⁴

Ford’s fellow Republicans were most distressed, wondering why he could not save this little time bomb for some time after the midterm elections, a mere eight weeks away. It was all for naught for the GOP. They lost four seats in the Senate and took a forty-eight-seat beating in the House. Two years later, Ford was elected out of office as well.
¹¹⁵

After Ford’s pardon of Nixon, several legislators backed a proposed amendment that would mandate congressional approval for all future pardons. The author of the amendment was U.S. Senator and future vice president Walter Mondale.

6
. VIETNAM DRAFT RESISTERS (VIOLATION OF THE SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT)

PRESIDENT: JAMES CARTER

CLEMENCY: CONDITIONAL PARDON, JANUARY 21, 1977

In their first presidential debate, incumbent Gerald Ford and Democratic hopeful Jimmy Carter were asked how they would handle more than one hundred thousand draft resisters of the Vietnam conflict, many of whom had fled the country. “I think we gave them a good opportunity,” said the defensive president. “I don’t think we should go any further.”
¹¹⁶

Ford already had a resolution in place, whereby clemency would be given to anyone who would turn himself in, work two years of community service, and sign a loyalty oath to the United States. About one in six resisters took the offer, leaving more than ninety thousand in limbo.
¹¹⁷

Carter responded that he endorsed an immediate pardon for all violators, adding that the poor were disproportionately punished in the United States while “the big shots who are rich, who are influential, very seldom go to jail,” a thinly veiled reference to the Nixon pardon. In reality, most who had fled conscription were white and middle class, many of whom had voting parents who were eager to see their sons return with a clean record.
¹¹⁸

Upon winning the presidency, Carter honored his promise of a pardon. In his first executive order, he granted full clemency to anyone who had violated the Selective Service Act between August 4, 1964, and March 28, 1973, provided they had not committed a violent crime in the process. Conspicuously absent from the pardon were those already in the military who had deserted or gone temporarily AWOL during the course of the war, a group that consisted of some five hundred thousand individuals. His administration reviewed those dissenters on a case-by-case basis and rejected the majority of applicants.
¹¹⁹

During his four years in office, President Carter was relatively prolific in granting clemency. Among those who received executive commutations were Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, bank robber Patti Hearst, and Harry Truman’s would-be assassin Oscar Collazo.

7
. W. MARK FELT (ILLEGAL SEARCH AND SEIZURE)

PRESIDENT: RONALD REAGAN

CLEMENCY: FULL PARDON, MARCH 26, 1981

It rarely troubled Ronald Reagan to know only the basics. Briefs were to be no more than a page and a half, doubled-spaced. Details were left to his inner circle, whom he trusted implicitly. Consequently, he had no real reason to doubt his key advisers, particularly White House Counsel Ed Meese, when they recommended a full and absolute pardon for former associate FBI director and convicted federal criminal W. Mark Felt. After gathering some cursory information, Reagan determined that Felt deserved clemency and was in fact a hero.

The president’s praise was based on the information that Felt, along with fellow FBI agent Edward S. Miller, had authorized illegal breakins and wiretaps of suspected Vietnam protesters and their families in the early 1970s. Under the Carter administration, the two men had been charged and fined for violating the Fourth Amendment (unwarranted search and seizure) along with several other privacy laws. In his pardon statement, Reagan noted, “thousands of draft evaders and others who violated the Selective Service laws were unconditionally pardoned by my predecessor. America was generous to those who refused to serve their country in the Vietnam War. We can be no less generous to two men who acted on high principle to bring an end to the terrorism that was threatening our nation.”
¹²⁰

Regardless that their “high principle” went against the U.S. Constitution and their domestic espionage unearthed absolutely nothing, Felt and Miller were nonetheless exonerated. Richard Nixon, who was in office when Felt committed the crime, sent him a congratulatory bottle of champagne with a note that read, “Justice ultimately prevails.” Those more familiar with the specifics of the trial roundly criticized Reagan for his abrupt clemency and high praise.
¹²¹

Unbeknownst to all of them, Felt was “Deep Throat,” the legendary informant who had leaked details of the W
ATERGATE
cover-up to journalist Bob Woodward. Not until 2005 did Felt reveal his role in bringing down an entire administration. By that time Nixon and Reagan, had both passed away and would never learn how the fully pardoned Felt had indeed become somewhat of an American hero, albeit to many Democrats.

One of W. Mark Felt’s character witnesses in his 1980 trial, and a contributor to his defense fund, was Richard Nixon.

8
. CASPAR WEINBERGER (PERJURY, FRAUD, CONSPIRACY)

PRESIDENT: GEORGE H. W. BUSH

CLEMENCY: FULL PARDON, DECEMBER 24, 1992

George H. W. Bush was not prone to exaggeration, which made the language of his pardon of Caspar Weinberger appear all the more unusual in its embellishments. According to Bush, Reagan’s former secretary of defense was “a true American Patriot,” a hero of the Second World War, a flawless family man who engineered the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. Also according to the pardon, Weinberger’s buildup of nuclear warhead stockpiles and the failed Star Wars program had given the United States “a new birth of freedom.” In addition, Weinberger was a victim, “tormented” by what Bush incorrectly called “the most thoroughly investigated matter of its kind in our history.”
¹²²

Contrary to Bush’s assertion, I
RAN
-C
ONTRA
had not been fully investigated. Weinberger had been convicted because he did not disclose to congressional investigators that he had kept notes during several key meetings involving the arms-for-hostages deal. At the time of the pardon, the former secretary had also been charged with lying to independent counsel about I
RAN
-C
ONTRA
.
¹²³

Almost in passing, Bush’s pardon also included five other individuals who were heavily involved in transferring weapons to Iran and money to the Contra insurgents in Nicaragua, including former N
ATIONAL
S
ECURITY
A
DVISER
Robert “Bud” McFarlane. The president commended them all for their participation, stating, “The common denominator of their motivation—whether their actions were right or wrong—was patriotism.” Most Americans did not believe him. A Gallup Poll indicated that only 27 percent of the public approved of the pardons.
¹²⁴

Caspar Weinberger has something in common with Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, and Rosa Parks—they are all recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

9
. MARC RICH (TAX EVASION, ILLEGAL ARMS TRADING)

PRESIDENT: WILLIAM CLINTON

CLEMENCY: FULL PARDON, JANUARY 20, 2001

He issued no pardons or commutations in his first two years. Had he not been reelected, Bill Clinton would have had only 56 acts of clemency to his name, well below average among his contemporaries. Into his final year, his total rested at 178, miniscule compared to Reagan’s 393, Carter’s 534, and Eisenhower’s 1,110.