One definition of the perfect crime is a crime the authorities are afraid to prosecute. Richard Nixon knew he had committed the worst crime in American political history—a crime that arguably cost more than twenty thousand American soldiers their lives by extending the war. And he also knew it was the perfect crime. Richard Nixon knew what Lyndon Johnson, Clark Clifford, and Dean Rusk would decide to do when faced with no good choice. Nothing. For the good of the country.
