A Good Month For Nixon, Calley and Shirley Temple Black

THIS YEAR'S September was a disappointment to those who have admired previous efforts. The usual components were there--30 days, decent weather--but the month lacked its usual panache.

It could not compete, for example, with last September, a month everyone enjoyed. September 1973 offered the Senate Watergate Hearings, which all summer and into the fall featured former Nixon aides implicating all over each other.

September 1974 was a month that very few could enjoy. It was squalid--full of craziness without class. As worthless a month, in fact, as any in recent memory. The evidence:

September 8: Evel Knievel tries to clear Idaho's Snake River Canyon in a homemade rocket. He fails, parachutes to safety, and earns a guaranteed $6 million.

Gerald Ford pardons Richard Nixon for any federal crimes he committed or may have committed from January 20, 1969 to August 9, 1974. Ford's new press secretary, J.F. ter Horst, quits in protest. Nixon says he is grateful and regrets any mistakes he might have made while trying in good conscience to unravel the Watergate scandal.

September 9: Ford postones his announcement of an amnesty plan for deserters and draft dodgers. His interim press secretary, John Hushen, is asked whether that means Ford thought Nixon's pardon was more important than amnesty. "That's a conclusion you can draw..." he replies.

September 10: Hushen is asked if Ford plans to grant pardons to other Watergate figures. "I am authorized to say that the entire matter is under study," he says.

September 11: Ford travels to Pinehurst, N.C. to attend the induction of the first 13 members of the World Golf Hall of Fame. He calls the 13 golfers the "kind of idols who are good and wholesome for Americans." He plays golf with Arnold Palmer and Gary Player.

September 12: The Senate unanimously confirms Shirley Temple Black as the new American ambassador to Ghana.

The Chilean military junta celebrates its first anniversary, stronger than ever.

September 15: Ford plays golf with Melvin Laird, former Republican congressman Jack Westland, and his friend Darius "Deke" Keatch, president of Trucker Oil Trade, Inc. He attends church. Later he greets the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

September 16: Ford tells a press conference that there was "very persuasive evidence" that Nixon committed impeachable crimes. But he defends his "full, free and absolute" pardon of Nixon, saying it will heal America's wounds. He announces a plan of conditional amnesty for deserters and draft dodgers, requiring most to perform alternate service for two years--"earned re-entry," he calls it. He says that CIA subversion of the Allende government was in Chile's best interest, "and certainly in our best interest." He indicates such activity will continue in other countries.

September 17: Elliot L. Richardson '41, Harvard's most ambitious overseer, tells a Boston press conference that pardoning Nixon was fair and compassionate, adding sagely: "Our system of justice does not demand that a man who resigns as president serve time."

In Los Angeles, Nixon's lawyers tell a federal court that he is too sick to give a deposition in a Charlotte, N.C. suit for which he was subpoenaed. He also enjoys, they say, executive privilege.

September 19: It is learned in San Clemente that Washington Redskins coach George Allen--who is not a quitter--has called Nixon twice since his resignation to wish him well.

Alan Greenspan, Ford's chief economic advisor, tells a Washington audience full of blue--collar workers: "Everybody is hurt by inflation. If you really wanted to examine, percentage-wise, who was hurt most on their income, it was Wall Street brokers. I mean, their incomes have gone down the most, so if you want to be statistical, I mean, look, let's face what the facts are." He is booed.

September 20: Shirely Temple Black is sworn in as American ambassador to Ghana in a State Department ceremony. Henry A. Kissinger '50 kisses her.

September 21: The New York Times politely reveals that "like hundreds of other young men in the country," Steven Ford, the President's "handsome, sandy-haired 18-year-old" violated the law by registering late for the draft. He waited until his father was president. "OOPS--HE FORGOT" was the Herald-American caption.

September 22: Nelson Rockefeller tells the Senate Judiciary Committee that he paid no federal income tax in 1970. He earned $2.5 million that year (but paid $7 million in capital gains taxes.) Newspapers bury the story deep in their reports on his testimony.

September 23: Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 promises not to run for president in 1976. That leaves the Democrats with Jackson, Bentsen, Mondale, Muskie, McGovern. And of course Humphrey.

September 24: Ford delivers a tough law-and-order speech to the International Association of Chiefs of Police. There is too much crime, he says: "It can no longer be ignored. It can no longer be rationalized away. The time has come to act." Hardened criminals must understand that "swift and prolonged imprisonment will inevitably follow each offense."

The same day, a House Judiciary Sub-committee receives Ford's response to its request for more information on why he pardoned Nixon. Ford sends chairman William Hungate (D-Mo,) his September 8 pardon message, a packet of press statements, and a brief cover letter telling the congressman to put the issue behind them.

Rockefeller tells the Senate Judiciary Committee that Nixon's acceptance of the pardon was an admission of guilt. But he defends Ford for granting it.

September 25: A federal judge, citing intense pre-trial publicity and various irregularities, frees mass murderer William Calley. The army blocks the release by announcing it will appeal.

In Washington, a federal judge agrees to delay by one day--until October 2--the sentencing of California lieutenant governor Ed Reinecke. Reinecke was convicted in July of lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee during its investigation of the ITT-Republican National Convention scandal. The California constitution prohibits convicted felons from holding elective office, but Reinecke insists he is not convicted until he is sentenced. He is still lieutenant governor.

The California Supreme Court accepts Nixon's resignation from the state bar, thereby ending the bar association's investigation of his Watergate conduct.

September 29: Time magazine reports that Nixon offered to relinguish his pardon if it would help Ford weather the storm of public outcry. Thanks anyway, Ford said. It will blow over.

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The Watergate cover-up trial begins today in Washington. Pray for October.