UC Irvine

This dissertation is a history of the Republicans who said no to President Richard Nixon's unethical or illegal orders. While many are familiar with the Republicans who opposed the 37th President during the latter stages of the Watergate scandal, there are lesser known stories of individuals within the administration who risked their careers to prevent abuses of power. Before much of the nation learned about the details of the White House's misdeeds, there were officials within the IRS, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) , and the Justice Department who stood up to Nixon. From George Shultz and Johnnie Walters's refusal to audit political enemies to the officials within the OMB (Kenneth Dam, William Morrill, and Paul H. O'Neill) who blocked the President's plan to cut government research funds to universities, civil servants played a role in preventing Nixon from expanding the power of the presidency.

Using the Nixon tapes, personal papers, oral histories, memoirs, and White House staff records, this dissertation focuses on the cultural divisions between the President and the moderate Republicans within his administration. Although Nixon tried repeatedly to use the federal government to punish his enemies, many of his plans were stopped by moderates who placed a high value on a culture of apolitical civil service over the President's culture of loyalty. My research shows that Nixon's attempt to expand the punitive powers of the state often aligned him with the more conservative members of his staff and pitted him against solution-oriented moderates across the federal government.

These instances of resistance show that opposition to Nixon was much more than just another ultra-partisan battle between the Democrats and the Republicans. Rejecting Nixon's power grab was not just based on political interests; it was sometimes driven by individuals within his administration. Nixon's downfall was ultimately an extension of the nonpartisan stands that moderate Republicans took to protect the federal government from the President's attempts to institutionalize abuses of power.