For nearly four decades, Richard Ben-Veniste has been one of Washington’s most dependable liberals, playing a key role in momentous events from the Watergate prosecution of Richard Nixon to the 9/11 Commission, of which he was a member and where he made claims that the Bush administration hadn’t sufficiently acted on threats made before the September 2001 attacks.
Ben-Veniste came to Washington from New York in 1973, and news clips have reinforced his image of perpetual boyhood. So it may come as a shock to colleagues that he’s now 66 and is releasing his memoirs, The Emperor’s New Clothes: Exposing the Truth From Watergate to 9/11.
Ben-Veniste has never been known for being subtle or bland. About his now being close to the age that Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski was when he retired, he says, “Sixty-six is the new 50.”
Here are some of his characterizations of his foes:
● Nixon counsel John Dean: “young, blond, bespectacled twerp.”
● Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani: “very capable and ambitious.”
● Nixon aides H.R.Haldeman and John Ehrlichman: “German shepherds.”
● Richard Nixon: “Had Nixon destroyed the tapes . . . he would have been able to serve out his term of office. . . . [He] miscalculated at every important fork in the road.”
● Former New York senator Alfonse D’Amato had a “less than punctilious regard for the ethical strictures attendant to public office.”
● Conservative attorney and former solicitor general Ted Olson “would not deign to communicate with the minority.”
● The Supreme Court decision to let the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case go forward: “loopy.”
● Bill Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky was a “titanic disaster,” and his falling into a perjury trap when questioned about it “showed the dark side of Clinton’s vaunted self-confidence.”
● Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr: “a modern-day Captain Ahab.”
● Former senator and 9/11 Commission member Max Cleland: “[S]uffering the psychological effects of losing his Senate seat amid the scurrilous claims that he was insufficiently patriotic . . . Max showed signs of falling into serious depression.”
● Ben-Veniste calls Clinton national-security adviser Sandy Berger’s smuggling of classified documents from the National Archives—to which he pleaded guilty, paying a $50,000 fine—“bizarre.” Of Berger himself, he writes: “A brilliant career had self-destructed—and for what? Copies of documents that were unremarkable.”
This article first appeared in the May 2009 issue of The Washingtonian. For more articles from that issue, click here.
Monica Affair a “Titanic Disaster”
Richard Ben-Veniste talks about Washington and some of his foes.
For nearly four decades, Richard Ben-Veniste has been one of Washington’s most dependable liberals, playing a key role in momentous events from the Watergate prosecution of Richard Nixon to the 9/11 Commission, of which he was a member and where he made claims that the Bush administration hadn’t sufficiently acted on threats made before the September 2001 attacks.
Ben-Veniste came to Washington from New York in 1973, and news clips have reinforced his image of perpetual boyhood. So it may come as a shock to colleagues that he’s now 66 and is releasing his memoirs, The Emperor’s New Clothes: Exposing the Truth From Watergate to 9/11.
Ben-Veniste has never been known for being subtle or bland. About his now being close to the age that Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski was when he retired, he says, “Sixty-six is the new 50.”
Here are some of his characterizations of his foes:
● Nixon counsel John Dean: “young, blond, bespectacled twerp.”
● Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani: “very capable and ambitious.”
● Nixon aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman: “German shepherds.”
● Richard Nixon: “Had Nixon destroyed the tapes . . . he would have been able to serve out his term of office. . . . [He] miscalculated at every important fork in the road.”
● Former New York senator Alfonse D’Amato had a “less than punctilious regard for the ethical strictures attendant to public office.”
● Conservative attorney and former solicitor general Ted Olson “would not deign to communicate with the minority.”
● The Supreme Court decision to let the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case go forward: “loopy.”
● Bill Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky was a “titanic disaster,” and his falling into a perjury trap when questioned about it “showed the dark side of Clinton’s vaunted self-confidence.”
● Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr: “a modern-day Captain Ahab.”
● Former senator and 9/11 Commission member Max Cleland: “[S]uffering the psychological effects of losing his Senate seat amid the scurrilous claims that he was insufficiently patriotic . . . Max showed signs of falling into serious depression.”
● Ben-Veniste calls Clinton national-security adviser Sandy Berger’s smuggling of classified documents from the National Archives—to which he pleaded guilty, paying a $50,000 fine—“bizarre.” Of Berger himself, he writes: “A brilliant career had self-destructed—and for what? Copies of documents that were unremarkable.”
This article first appeared in the May 2009 issue of The Washingtonian. For more articles from that issue, click here.
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