James Reston, Jr., took leave from teaching during the summer of 1973 to witness the Senate Watergate Committee hearings as he worked with his coauthor on what became the first full-length book to advocate for Richard Nixon's impeachment.
During the following summer, he returned to Washington, DC, to witness the final act of the impeachment drama, attending the Watergate trials, Supreme Court deliberations over executive privilege, and House Judiciary Committee hearings to consider and eventually vote on articles of impeachment.
When he arrived in Washington, he decided to keep a diary. His new book, “The Impeachment Diary,” is his contemporaneous account of those heady, uncertain times: when a president, having been investigated by a special counsel and Congress, was called to account for acts contrary to his oath and office, and fundamental questions about the Constitution were engaged.
