The last time the title "The Future of the GOP" was used for a Firing Line show, it

was 1967 and the guest was former Vice President Richard M. Nixon. This time around, the guest is the man who resigned from President Nixon's Administration rather than fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox (cf. Firing Line #S114). We begin cautiously: WFB: "Are you free to discuss those of Mr. Nixon's characteristics that affect his Administration, either adversely or favorably?" ER: "Yes." WFB: "Beginning with the latter, let's say." ER; "Well, suppose we get a little more specific; we'd find out just how free I was. I think that insofar as I can shed any light on how we've come to where we are and what this may mean for the future, I'd like to try to do that." And so he does, citing, for example, an unrelated case in which the special prosecutor had asked for certain documents. "We had obviously read the documents; they were in our hands. And there was nothing in them that was incriminating, and yet I was instructed by the White House not to make them available to the special prosecutor as well as to stand on executive privilege in the civil action."