This book began with an illuminating question posed and debated by the staff and fellows of Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History: What does the history of impeachment reveal about its potential? They deserve credit for the idea behind this project, and then for employing their expertise in answering the obvious ensuing question: Whom would you ask? This book is more proof that the creativity of the whole exceeds the sum of its individual parts, demonstrating anew the wisdom of the university’s leadership in forging a center where the best young scholars of presidential history—American history on the largest scale—can gather and grow.
Jeffrey Engel thanks Peter Baker, Lindsey Chervinsky, Ben Engel, Elaine Carté Engel, Josh Engel, Marshall Carté Engel, Brian Franklin, Alan Lowe, Daniel Margolies, and Molly Turpin for their assistance in honing the book’s introduction, first chapter, and conclusion. Dan Orlovsky generously ensured time to write at an unexpected time. Too many ideas within belong to Kate Carté Engel to separate or identify, the result of her twenty years’ effort to instruct a historian of the present about America’s real past.
Jon Meacham is grateful to David O. Stewart, who generously read a draft of the chapter and offered excellent counsel, and to Lamar Alexander, who supplied a copy of Edmund Ross’s memoir of the impeachment. Thanks as well to Annette Gordon-Reed, Evan Thomas, and Eric Foner.
From Timothy Naftali: The Nixon section of this book would not have been possible without the assistance of many people. I would like to thank archivist and librarian John Jacob of the Washington and Lee University School of Law for his tireless help with M. Caldwell Butler’s materials, which provided me with digital access to the former congressman’s invaluable audio diary from the impeachment process and digital copies of other key materials; archivists Desiree Butterfield-Nagy and Paige Lilly, who were superb guides to former congressman William S. Cohen’s extensive impeachment-related collection at the University of Maine; former congressman Thomas F. Railsback and archivist Bill Cook, who gave critical assistance with the Railsback papers at Western Illinois University; archivist and former colleague David A. Olson at the Columbia Center for Oral History; archivist and former colleague Ira Pemstein at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, who processed the William Timmons collection at the federal Nixon Library; and archivists and former colleagues Carla Braswell, Meghan Lee-Parker, Ryan Pettigrew, and Jason Schultz at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. I also benefited from Sarah Riva’s superb research assistance with former congressman Raymond H. Thornton, Jr.’s, papers at the University of Arkansas and research assistance from Meghan Hooper at the Nixon Library. I am also grateful to Francis O’Brien, Lou Cannon, Elizabeth Drew, and Thomas Railsback for talking with me about this project; to Nixon Library director Mike Ellzey for his commitment to the library’s Watergate gallery and to keeping the evidence that supports it on the library’s website; to Gail Ross, for her help as agent and lawyer; to our editor, Molly Turpin, for her patience; to Juan Spade for kindly listening and making the opening better; to Jackie Applebaum and Stephen Sheanin for hosting us in the Hills; to Mindy Farmer for lending me a book and her wisdom; to Zachary Karabell and Nicole Alger for letting me write near a pool; and to my mum for wanting me to text her whenever I am on a research trip. Finally, I would like to thank those who did the most to introduce me and many others to the people behind the impeachment of Richard Nixon—former colleagues Paul Musgrave and Michael Koncewicz, who assisted with the Nixon Library’s video oral history project; archivists and former colleagues John Powers, Sahr Conway-Lanz, and Cary McStay, who successively supervised the awesome team at the Nixon White House tapes project at the Nixon Presidential Materials Project and then at the federal Nixon Library; and Evan A. Davis, Michael Conway, and Maureen Barden, who led the push to record the recollections of John Doar and members of the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment staff for posterity.
From Peter Baker: Very few people emerge from an impeachment battle better off than when they went in, but count me among them. Susan Glasser and I were brought together covering the Bill Clinton scandal in 1998–99 at The Washington Post, where she was my remarkable editor, and we have since been joined by our fabulous son, Theo. They have been the best and most supportive family anyone could ask for, along with Ted and Martha Baker; Linda and Keith Sinrod; Karin Baker and Katie Nolan; Steve, Lynn, Laura, Jeff, Jennifer, and Diana Glasser; Emily Allen; Will and Ben Allen Glasser; and Matthieu, Alex, and Oliver Fulchiron.
Thanks, too, to the rest of our impeachment corps at The Post from way back in the day, especially John Harris, Susan Schmidt, Juliet Eilperin, Karen DeYoung, and Bill Hamilton. I’m lucky to still work with Bill, one of the absolute best in the business, at The New York Times, where we thrive under the leadership of A. G. Sulzberger, Dean Baquet, Joseph Kahn, Matt Purdy, and Elisabeth Bumiller. Many thanks to my amazingly talented partners on the White House beat for their forbearance and friendship: Michael Shear, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Maggie Haberman, Mark Landler, and Katie Rogers. And as always to Raphael Sagalyn, agent, adviser, and friend.