Nixon was furious; Ellsberg was going around speaking on television and at antiwar rallies promoting unlawful dissent, and the American legal system was cowering. Kissinger told Nixon that the country was in a “revolutionary situation.” In early July, Nixon gave a speech to newspaper and TV executives in front of the columned portico of the National Archives. “When I see those columns, I think of what happened to Greece and Rome,” the president said. “They became subject to the decadence that destroys civilizations. The United States is reaching that period.”
