Watergate: S & D

search egil "evil" krogh, martha mitchell, haldeman referring to nixon as "the p", rose mary woods and the missing 18-and-a-half minutes, [expletive deleted], ratfucking, robert bork selling out the constitution

Weirdest Watergate ephemera I've come across: "Born Again", a Christian comic book adaption of Coulsen's memoirs.

search: Bernstein; destroy: Woodward.

Bernard Barker, a Watergate Burglar, Dies at 92

By SUSAN JO KELLER

Bernard L. Barker, one of the burglars whose 1972 break-in at the Watergate building in Washington led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, died Friday. He was 92.

His stepdaughter, Kelly Andrad, told The Associated Press that Mr. Barker, who had lung cancer and heart problems, died Friday morning at his suburban Miami home after being taken to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center the night before.

Mr. Barker, a Cuban-born American, was recruited for undercover operations during the Nixon administration by E. Howard Hunt Jr. The ties between the two went back to Mr. Hunt’s days in the Central Intelligence Agency and the planning of the 1961 invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.

In 1971, Mr. Barker took part in a break-in at the Los Angeles office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who disclosed the Pentagon papers to the press.

Then on June 17, 1972, Mr. Barker was found crouching under a desk at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building. Three other men caught with him also had ties to the Bay of Pigs operation. A fifth, James W. McCord Jr., was security chief for Nixon’s re-election campaign.

In May 1973, Mr. Barker told the Senate Watergate committee that his aim in the Watergate break-in had been to find proof that the Democratic Party had received financial support from the government of Cuba and thus speed the “liberation” of Cuba.

Mr. Barker pleaded guilty in January 1973 to seven charges of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping. Later, however, he asked Judge John J. Sirica to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea and stand trial. Judge Sirica denied that request and on Nov. 19, 1973, sentenced Mr. Barker to a prison term of 18 months to six years.

In January 1974, Mr. Barker was freed from prison to appeal that decision. On July 11, 1975, Judge Sirica told Mr. Barker and the other three Cuban-Americans involved in the Watergate break-in that he was reducing their sentences to time served.

After his release from prison, Mr. Barker, a former real estate agent, went to work for the City of Miami as a sanitation inspector as part of a federally financed jobs program. He later worked as a city building inspector but took early retirement at the age of 64 rather than fight charges that he had been loafing on the job.

In repeated interviews, Mr. Barker expressed no regrets about his role in the two break-ins, saying he believed he had been acting in the interests of national security. But in 1976, he did tell a reporter: “Washington’s a place to keep away from. Cubans don’t do very well up there.”

Reprinted from Saturday’s late editions.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

I hear variations on that quote once a day.

D: "oh, nixon did what they all did -- he just got caught!" etc etc

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

http://clearriver.org/jefflingblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/HB17.jpg

I didn't realize at the time it would be the apex of the American state.

the Eisenhower guy looks cute in that one.

that's Ed Cox, Tricia's husband. David Eisenhower never looked cute.

need to check this out on July trip:

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/01/135039409/at-nixon-library-a-raw-look-at-a-disgraced-leader

Morbius, by 'apex' did you mean that in punishing high corruption for once, this was as good as the USA ever got?

in my lifetime, certainly.

I would have thought Morbius would be apalled by Ford's pardon.

I suspect Nixon was ultimately punished more for approval ratings that were cratering than for the high corruption. If the public had decided Watergate wasn't that big a deal, I'm sure Goldwater and the rest of them would have stood their ground and the impending impeachment would never have reached the stage it did (which I think was a recommendation to proceed with impeachment hearings...I'd have to double-check). I'm not defending Nixon, believe me; I'm just saying I'm not ready to ascribe noble principals to the Republicans who bailed on him (or, to be truthful, to the Democrats who were swarming either). It's politics; most everyone was acting out of self-interest.

uh, I was appalled by Ford's pardon. That was a month later.

Sure, the pols acted out of self-interest. It's the public deciding that Watergate was big a deal that was the triumph. HOWEVER, there actually was a throng of principled liberal Democrats in Congress at the time, a nearly extinct species now. And I could see the modern Rethuglican army urging Dick to fight on.

I brought up Ford only because you answered yes to the previous poster about high corruption being punished; you could make the argument that Nixon wasn't punished. (I wouldn't--losing the presidency and spending the rest of his life as a pariah was ample punishment.)

He was NOT a pariah: he was actively consulted by Reagan and Bush I, and Clinton made public that he sought his counsel re Russia. His books were best sellers. He should have gone to jail.

Moreover, sending him in jail would have prevented him from giving cynical, malicious counsel. He actually advised Reagan not to talk to Gorby (Reagan ignored him), then blasted Bush I in the early nineties for not talking to the Soviets enough. As the Monica Crowley books showed, this thug only cared about public recognition, as when he wet his pants thinking about what Clinton's public embrace would mean for his fucking "credibility."

Hunter S. Thompson:

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

These are harsh words for a man only recently canonized by President Clinton and my old friend George McGovern -- but I have written worse things about Nixon, many times, and the record will show that I kicked him repeatedly long before he went down. I beat him like a mad dog with mange every time I got a chance, and I am proud of it. He was scum.

Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man -- evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him -- except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.

Alfred & HST otm

and that's why I am going to clown at his grave

Of course he was a pariah; if I remember the first Crowley book correctly, he was alway mad at sitting presidents for giving him the brush-off. And when he was consulted, it was more of a symbolic gesture; no one really took him seriously. Anyway, he was a pariah in a much bigger sense, in that he spent the rest of his life trying to restore some semblance of public standing. And I'm not at all saying that that was unfair; he fully deserved his pariah status. But I don't think it's accurate to say he was this guy who was right in the middle of things. (If you're measuring his pariah or non-pariah status against the fact that you believe he should have gone before a firing squad, then yeah, he got off easy.)

Really kinda think if Watergate happened right now, they would just file it under Unstrippable National Security Powers of the President During Wartime and say STFU.

If you want me to criticize Nixon's persecutors, the House Judiciary Com'tee failed to pass the article of impeachment on the invasion of Cambodia, which was even a bigger crime than Watergate.

Cambodia was worse, agreed.

One point on which we part company is the idea that Nixon was evil. Sorry, don't believe that, no more than I believe George W. was/is evil. You could spend a month cataloguing Nixon's faults, and yes, he had much blood on his hands. As to the former--the small-mindedness, the paranoia, the manipulativeness, etc.--I recognize them as human failings, some of which I share. He had an inordinate number of them, an almost perfect storm, but I recognize the person there. In terms of the latter--the thousands upon thousands of deaths in Vietnam that he could have foreshortened--to me that's a complicated mixture of Nixon's personality, the institution of the presidency, the American character, the male character, etc., etc. If I'm not mistaken, Morbius, you describe almost every post-war president as evil. If you believe that, fine. I don't. Sorry to be obvious (naive, I'm sure say, my Kay Corleone to your Michael), but to me evil is Hitler and Manson and the like.

I consider Nixon's men sabotaging the Paris peace talks in '68 an act of depravity, and the manner in which Nixon's terrible prose and slipshod public statements unwittingly made clear his indifference to the lives he destroyed because he wanted or wanted to stay in power -- that's evil. Sorry, clemenza, but "evil" needn't be represented by Hitler and Manson.

very Oliver Stone of you, clemenza

I've read all the major Nixon biographies, and one of his "books." I've a pretty good understanding of the man, and it doesn't blind me to the casualness with which he resorted to malice -- a man whose first instincts were always to stab you in the back the second your back was turned. Let's not allow his psychological problems blind us to his pathology.

And when he was consulted, it was more of a symbolic gesture; no one really took him seriously.

This is incorrect.

I'll let you guys set the bar on what constitutes evil. Make sure you set it carefully, safely out of reach of anything you've ever done yourself.

his indifference to the lives he destroyed because he wanted or wanted to stay in power

Yes, Nixon was unique among politicians in this regard.

This is incorrect.

According to you. I'll skim Crowley's book again; if I'm wrong, I'll come back and say so.

I don't know what kind of standard you've set, man. Are you suggesting that my own venality prevents me from judging Nixon? Really? Seriously? I judge a man by his actions, and Nixon's are well-documented.

According to you. I'll skim Crowley's book again; if I'm wrong, I'll come back and say so

Who do you think suggested Alexander Haig and Richard Allen to Reagan? Reagan's people actually brought Nixon to the Residence in the middle of the night in 1986 on the eve of Reagan's Iceland summit.

Crowley was a hack herself who could barely acknowledge her idol's culpability in Watergate.

What I'm suggesting is that things you're calling evil are very human failings. Nixon was incredibly small-minded; so am I sometimes. He was incredibly manipulative; so am I sometimes. And before he entered politics, he was a guy with a family, just back from the war. I don't think the presidency transforms you from there to a state of evil.

I think the other point I'm making is something along the lines of the boy who cried wolf. When Morbius daily refers to virtually every president as evil, including the sitting one, his outrage over Nixon becomes harder to take seriously. It's a version of right-wing radio; the outrage machine loses credibility at a certain point of saturation.

I'll let you guys set the bar on what constitutes evil. Make sure you set it carefully, safely out of reach of anything you've ever done yourself.

scuse me, off to napalm the Bronx

Sigh.

The Nixon-Kissinger historical record in Greece, Chile, Laos, Cyprus, the Ellsberg burglary -- not just their sneers and chuckles and terrible jokes, but the ease with which they separate motive from consequences as only sociopaths can -- amply proves that this person's acts were not "human failings."

and as I've said, all modern US presidents are evil, just as all Mafia dons are. There are degrees, of course.

I don't at all think Obama is at Nixon levels yet or has shown Nixonian intentions.

As discussed in our poll, those post-WWII presidents are a vile bunch.

Then I'll go back to the way I phrased it originally: "If you believe that, fine. I don't." I do realize I have a minority viewpoint here. But I also think it's a valid one. And I suspect I've listened to, read about, and thought about Nixon as much as you guys have.

(Another point on which we disagree; I don't think evil has gradiations.)

At least I have Neil Young on my side...

sure it has gradations, that's why I held my nose and voted for Bill Bradley over Gore in the 2000 primary.

Of course evil has gradations: that's why, as you pointed out, he could love his grandchildren and speak intelligently about Hegel.

I've been skimming the Crowley book, and while I can't find exactly what I'm looking for, it was likely a passage like this that prompted my comments upthread:

"Nixon relished the idea that Clinton might defer to him on international affairs and permit him greater latitude than either Regan or Bush had. Clinton might grant more weight to his opinions and advice and perhaps even act on them."

Now, you say she's a hack (simultaneously saying "as the Monica Crowley books showed"...)--I remember liking the first book, but maybe you're right, I don't know. But she's probably primarily guilty of being a mouthpiece for Nixon, in which case those the preceding quote would be reflective of how Nixon perceived Regan and Bush's treatment of him. My sense is that when they conferred with Nixon, it was more because he was a potential nuisance to be pacified, Johnson's thing about having someone inside the tent rather than out. I don't view carryover in appointments as especially significant; that's a standard Washington thing, where new administrations overlook everything except who can step in on day one and have some idea of what's supposed to be done.

Bill Bradley less evil than Al Gore? I don't know, they're both pretty scary guys...We disagree. There's evil, which is innate, and there's bad behaviour, bad decisions, momentary insanity, etc. That's the way I see it, anyway.

Omit "those," and "Reagan" for "Regan."

Actually, skip to the 8:10 mark here: Nixon/Hopkins ruminates on evil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0t-pLLD2k

If I'm not mistaken, Morbius, you describe almost every post-war president as evil. If you believe that, fine. I don't. Sorry to be obvious (naive, I'm sure say, my Kay Corleone to your Michael), but to me evil is Hitler and Manson and the like.

while i'm sure most of us would rather attend a dinner party with nixon than manson, what exactly makes manson more evil? manson was a fringe cult leader and an obvious nutjob; nixon was given a position of incredible responsibility and power, and misused it horribly, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of people.

I think the other point I'm making is something along the lines of the boy who cried wolf. When Morbius daily refers to virtually every president as evil, including the sitting one, his outrage over Nixon becomes harder to take seriously. It's a version of right-wing radio; the outrage machine loses credibility at a certain point of saturation.

it's pretty hard to argue against the idea that every post-war president has ordered acts that could be pretty unambiguously described as evil. i'm personally not that concerned whether or not any of them personally is 'evil' -- in fact, the post-war president i admire most as a president, LBJ, was arguably the worst human being among them. on the other hand, not holding leaders responsible for what they do, or making excuses for them because they seem like nice people, is a slippery slope.

the reason ppl argue against the 'imperial presidency' is precisely because everyone's 'human failings' are inflated by power. comparing the likes of taft, harding and coolidge to the post-war presidents is pretty instructive.

And people have made the same argument against Truman, George W. Bush, Johnson, etc. As I say, I think you can disagree on this point. To me, Hitler and Manson and evil in its truest form springs from hatred. When presidents initiate and/or okay some of the horrible things that have taken place under their watch, I don't see hatred as a motivating factor. To me, the Obama who's presiding over three wars right now is more or less the same Obama who was doing community organizing and raising his family anonymously 15 years ago; I don't believe you become evil when you step into the presidency. I think there's a myriad of factors that have been behind the wars of the past 50 years. Some, like oil and money and political power, are not very noble; sometimes, whether you agree or not, I think they're trying to do what they see as right from the vantage point of the presidency. I don't see hatred as one of those factors. And I realize that, if you're living in Vietnam or Iraq or wherever, and you've been on the receiving end of that myriad of factors, it's a moot point. I understand that.

Or if you've been infinitely detained &/or are being tortured daily by 'the free-est nation on earth'.

Trust me on this one point: I'm not arguing that Nixon wasn't evil because he was a nice person. Nice is the last thing I'd describe him as (notwithstanding that he did have a major sentimental streak in him).

hey it's just the system that's waterboarding me, one guy can't change it. xp

I don't believe you become evil when you step into the presidency.

No; under present conditions, you generally do when you set your sights on it.

ie "the Obama who's presiding over three wars right now is more or less the same Obama who was doing community organizing" -- no way to know.

but the stealth question of this thread is: Who's driving me to the Nixon Library?

damn, alf's bringin the ruckus itt

Boy, I'll tell you: I'd love to see some of the people on this board unleashed on the presidency. When you're convinced that your every pronouncement is the gospel truth, and you make incivility your life's work on a relatively small scale such as this--no, I'm not talking about everybody--well, I'd love to see that writ large. So when Morbius says I'm off to napalm the Bronx, that's a non sequitur; you aren't, because you can't. The question is, how would you behave as president? That's what none of us knows, and why I'm a little hesitant to start setting the bar on evil.

You HAVE to bomb people to be president. So, you know, if elected, I will not serve.

I believe my every pronouncement is the gospel truth FOR ME, WHEN I MAKE IT.

plus if anyone tried to implement truly leftist values as president, assassination would be efficiently arranged.

you guys can go on and on about how bad the soviet union was, but boy i'll tell you, i'd like to see some of you guys in stalin's place, what would YOU have done?

Don't forget Hitler; you need to get to work on an outrageous Hitler analogy pronto.

Hitler loved his dog.

Good enough. Hitler loved his dog, Obama loves his dog, gradiations of evil...it's all starting to come together for me.

btw, this:

Boy, I'll tell you: I'd love to see some of the people on this board unleashed on the presidency. When you're convinced that your every pronouncement is the gospel truth, and you make incivility your life's work on a relatively small scale such as this--no, I'm not talking about everybody--well, I'd love to see that writ large.

is precisely why people object to the inflated powers of the modern presidency. nixon minus those powers is just a jerk; nixon with those powers is a dangerous man. but that doesn't excuse nixon -- he set out to expand those powers once in office, after all.

That's fair. We're arguing in circles a bit here--as I've tried to make clear, I'm really and truly not trying to excuse Nixon. We just view what lay behind his actions differently. You guys see evil; I see lots of reasons, but evil's not one of them.

And just like I'd love to see what a few people here would be like as president, I'd equally love to see what Nixon would have been like on a message board like this. I imagine he would been something to behold.

Time to get back to Il Posto. I'll leave you with some he's-good-bad-but-he's-not-evil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOdP_VvPKHU

When you're convinced that your every pronouncement is the gospel truth, and you make incivility your life's work on a relatively small scale such as this--no, I'm not talking about everybody--well, I'd love to see that writ large

You have -- in the career of Richard Milhouse Nixon.

clemenza, we share a lot of musical tastes (and views on said tastes) but politically we never do. You belive in this Vital Center of Moderation that (a) has never worked, esp in the modern presidency, when it's the bullies and actors on both sides who've been most effective (b) has never really existed.

I mean, you've said many times you're an Obama apologist, and to an extent you're right: there's a lot to apologize for.

btw unnice people are often the most sentimental.

search: the Safeway in the complex, where I shopped the summer I lived in Foggy Bottom

destroy: the tapes

as I've tried to make clear, I'm really and truly not trying to excuse Nixon. We just view what lay behind his actions differently. You guys see evil; I see lots of reasons, but evil's not one of them.

that's fair. i think i'm basically just iffy on this idea of evil being something inherent in one's personality. the impression i get of hitler from albert speer's memoirs is that he was a sociopath, a jerk, and a bore -- but not the earthly incarnation of satan. to me, evil lies in what people do, not what they are.

nixon, like every other person, was infinitely complex. that's why, to a certain extent, i think it's ultimately futile to speculate about why he did what he did. there's no doubt at all in my mind that he thought he was doing the right thing -- but for me, that doesn't mitigate anything he did.

i do, btw, think it's still possible to be president and not be complicit in atrocious acts, though it'd admittedly require a statesman of lincoln's stature at this point.

That's cuz the US generally minded its own fucking business til the 1890s

I like the title of Tom Wicker's Nixon book: One of Us. That's how I view Nixon. Then again, Syberberg called his Hitler film [i]Our Hitler[i], so maybe there's a parallel there. It's very complex...but J.D. makes some good points in the previous post.

He IS a fascinating creature, particularly in his striving to be what he was not: classy and beloved. But wickedly fascinating.

i do, btw, think it's still possible to be president and not be complicit in atrocious acts

Things you believe in despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

The question is, how would you behave as president? That's what none of us knows, and why I'm a little hesitant to start setting the bar on evil.

End the fucking wars. Cut the defense budget. Give the working-class and middle-class a fucking break for once.

Also, take over Mars.

yep. and the problem isn't that there's no conceivable candidate who would do that -- there are plenty. it's that neither party would nominate (and support) someone who was seriously likely to do those things.

End the fucking wars. Cut the defense budget. Give the working-class and middle-class a fucking break for once.

Ideally, sure. But I'll be honest, Adam--take away the profanity, and to me that's one step away from Miss South Carolina wishing for world peace.

This'll be a waste of time, and will be answered by a one-sentence dismissal by somebody--and doesn't belong on a Watergate thread besides--but, as briefly as possible, here's why I think Obama doesn't end the wars. 40% of the country will be with Obama no matter what; 30-35% are going to attack him no matter what. That leaves everyone else, and I think you could probably start chopping them up into little groups too. Somewhere in there, I think there's 10-15% of the electorate who had an unspoken deal with Obama: we'll vote for you, but please don't do stuff that's going to remind us that you're black, and no sudden movements, please, because sudden movements will remind us that you're black. Yes, I know--post-racial world, Obama's just the president, not the black president, etc., etc. I don't believe that, and I doubt that Obama does either. On top of that, you can throw in the usual Democratic skittishness when it comes to appearing weak on foreign policy, something that's defined the party since Reagan.

So, I believe, he does the crassly political thing and keeps two wars going, and, tentatively, sort of half-starts a new one. He does this because he has it in his mind that everything will unravel if he doesn't--he'll lose that 10-15% who've been keeping his approval ratings somewhere close to 50%, and from there, no legislation and no re-election. That's not a defense of the wars, and maybe I'm completely wrong; I'm just trying to explain my interpretation of what's happening.

When it comes to the detention and surveillance stuff, that I don't understand. And it's been a major disappointment. I don't go on the political thread and talk about it, because a) there are lots of people who do that already, and b) since those people rarely, if ever, acknowledge anything good about Obama's performance in office, I play the same game and don't acknowledge the negative.

Colson is one of the most disgusting humans to ever walk the face of the earth imho

you guys can go on and on about how bad the soviet union was, but boy i'll tell you, i'd like to see some of you guys in stalin's place, what would YOU have done?

not a stupid question actually

anyway oughtn't you to "set the bar for evil" somewhere you actually occasionally cross, because otherwise it's pretty obvious you're cheating

that said nixon was some medieval shit

Yeah I was thinking that the Stalin comparison actually raised some ~interesting questions~

man though can i just say--regarding sam waterston's speech about the cia "developing... appetites" in that clip upthread--there's really a level of stone's ridiculous melodramatic inaccurate shakespearian-history approach to America At The Zenith Of Its Cloistered Power that half the time i totally love. except obviously shakespeare would have just written the yeats poem himself. and not said "this country stands at such a juncture" at the end like a stupid dope.

i'd like to see some of you guys in stalin's place, what would YOU have done?

It seems to me that national power has a perverse logic of its own that makes it impossible to identify and maintain 'national interests' without sacrificing human lives and happiness in their name. Put all that power in one person's hand's and they must either grapple with that perversity and frequently lose out to its strict internal logic (as Obama usually does), or they will happily fall into step with it, commit its atrocities without conscience, and sleep like an innocent child (as Stalin did).

In Stalin's place, most of us would have failed, if failure is defined as allowing the nation to sink into impotence and irrelevance, as the price we'd pay for keeping some scraps of our own integrity. Stalin obv wasn't like that.

P.S. Nixon was a lot closer to Stalin in this regard than to any ilxor.

That's another reason why I don't think Nixon rises to the level of evil: the idea that evil has no conscience and no guilt. I realize that for most people, Nixon easily passes that test, too--no conscience, no guilt. I think he did harbor lots of guilt over his career, however, and even though he kept it hidden from view almost always--to do otherwise would be to give in to all the people he hated--it would manifest itself occasionally. I'm sure most everyone's seen the footage of him at Pat's funeral. I don't think I've ever seen a public figure so devastated, and I have to believe that a lot of that was tied into guilt over what he put his wife through--and that, I believe, was an extension of his guilt over what he put the country through. I also think you can see it in part one of the Frost interviews, towards the end when the camera zooms in slowly as he kind-of sorta apologizes for Watergate. His words tell one story--lots of legalisms and qualifiers--and his face tells another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkcZAB4_wd4&feature=related

enjoyed laughing at him at Pat's funeral tbh

One day I'll write my own version of "Campaigner"--I'll call it "Poster" or something like that--and the key line will be, "Even Dr. Morbius has got soul."

That's another reason why I don't think Nixon rises to the level of evil: the idea that evil has no conscience and no guilt

I dunno about that -- evil has many faces. Literature is replete with them. So is life.

Also: Nixon's famous I-gave-them-a-sword line isn't even close to an admission of guilt. The Watergate crimes weren't THEMSELVES illegal and vile acts against the Constitution and hence the body politic: they were opportunities for Nixon's enemies to stab him.

(according to Nixon)

Sincere question for Alfred: how is it that you brush aside Reagan's inability to utter the word AIDs (much less do anything about it) until 50,000 deaths had occurred as a generational blind spot, but Nixon's reckless mindset on Vietnam, which he shared with most politicians of his generation (I realize not all, especially as Vietnam worsened)--America doesn't lose wars and all that--is something different? I don't see one as any more inherently evil than the other.

This is a whole separate thread, but I've never believed that even the most complex characters from literature, films, or wherever can ever be as complex as actual human beings.

you brush aside Reagan's inability to utter the word AIDs ... until 50,000 deaths had occurred as a generational blind spot

I must have missed it when Alfred did this. Are you sure this is an accurate characterization of his position?

I've barely discussed Nixon's Vietnam record, so your question relies on a false binary. And I've never brushed off Reagan's AIDS record. But whatever Reagan's many failings as president, he didn't descend to Nixon's vindictiveness.

on the other hand, Reagan's almost sociopathic distance from people and events he set in motion made him a much better president than Nixon, who never fundamentally understood the office.

It was in the presidents poll: when I brought up Reagan and AIDs, you sort of shrugged and said that you couldn't expect anyone of his generation, at that particular point in time, do react any differently. As Casey Stengel would say, I'll look it up.

I narrow down Nixon's supposed evilness to Vietnam because I don't know where else it would reside. Unless you think all the dirty tricks and red-baiting qualifies as evil.

And even though I find Nixon infinitely more interesting than Reagan, I'm certainly not going to argue against the idea that Reagan's presidency was more successful--that'd be silly. Nixon was, as I saw Bernstein say once, less suited temperamentally to hold the office than any man ever--not even close. Reagan had the perfect temperament. Kind of like the guy in there now, I'd say.

Here's the passage I had in mind, from an earlier politic thread:

Ehhh. I'm gay and don't think it's as reprehensible as you claim, considering that it took the death of Rock Hudson to mobilize any sort of mass public interest in the disease as an epidemic. Reagan was as blinkered as Walter Mondale would have been; nothing in that generation's DNA suggests they would have been comfortable discussing condoms, gay sex, blood transfusions, etc (that's why congressman and senators around when Roe v Wade was upheld get a pass from me; do you think FDR's second generation of New Dealers were prepared to discuss a woman's right to an abortion?).

To be fair, a little later in the thread you did say "Which is not to exonerate him." You do seem more willing to look beneath the surface of Reagan's actions (or inaction, as it were) than you are with Nixon. And, as I did at the time, I disagree totally about Mondale; I say he would have done a much better job of handling the first few years of AIDs.

t was in the presidents poll: when I brought up Reagan and AIDS, you sort of shrugged and said that you couldn't expect anyone of his generation, at that particular point in time, do react any differently.

I still believe this, but it doesn't exonerate Reagan either.

Basically, at its core, I don't think Nixon's handling of Vietnam was any less generational than Reagan's handling of AIDs. And, yes, with Nixon, his own personal failings compounded the problem.

You do seem more willing to look beneath the surface of Reagan's actions (or inaction, as it were) than you are with Nixon.

Did you mean "less willing"? I'll assume so. At any rate, not at all! I've probably read more about Reagan than any other modern president, with the possible exception of Nixon. In the case of Dick, he had a long record of malicious behavior, which Reagan simply didn't have and was incapable of (a long record of stupidity and callowness though).

But I trust you're not assuming my categorizing means I don't find Nixon an awesome character and worth endless study.

No, I did mean "more"--i.e., you'll attempt to explain mitigating factors when it comes to Reagan, whereas you won't with Nixon.

Anyway, we can probably bring this to a close. We seem to all agree that Nixon was fascinating. We also all agree he did horrible things. Everyone except me views him as evil. I stop short of that.

crossposted on Pakula thread re All the President's Men (the film):

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/3148

Bernstein: "What I took away from watching the movie six years ago was that most of the good work was done at night. I think, and there are certain exceptions, that you get the truth at night and lies during the day."
cracking line that.

i watched all 30 parts of thi slast year. fascinating stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzRM3l5TwRU

August 9, 1974: And then, you destroy yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfNjpHAMy2E

That he never once mentions Pat but chooses to languish in his habitual self-pity makes this a particularly gruesome watch.

It's the most public descent into abject self-pity that I can think of--almost stream-of-consciousness when he starts talking about him mother and father. (His mother, anyway--he'd been using the line about his father being the poorest lemon grower forever.) But I do think those two or three lines that begin with "Always remember" are improbably poetic.

Anyway, the whole speech runs eight or nine minutes--are you sure he doesn't mention Pat somewhere?

I checked the full text of the speech, and if search is to be trusted he doesn't. He acknowledges his family a couple of times in his resignation speech, but doesn't mention Pat by name.

I haven't seen the whole thing so it's possible. He wasn't particularly interested in mentioning Pat. In the Pat chapter of a history of modern First Ladies I browsed through at the library a couple of months ago (wish I could remember its title), we learn that while president Dick, stepping off Air Force One, walked right past an open-armed Pat and greeted local dignitaries. According to the author, he had never seen such a look of desolation on a woman's face.

Pretty sure her look of desolation on wedding day was worse

http://thenewnixon.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/richard_nixon_new_dad.jpg

He treated his wife miserably. I don't know much about presidential wives before Jackie O, but I figure Pat was the template for that awful scene that gets replayed over and over now of the wife standing by stone-faced as the husband publicly admits to whatever transgression he's committed (captured very well by Joan Allen in the Stone film).

How pathetic that the one president who needed wifely interaction preferred the warmth of Brezhnev and Chou En-Lai.

I believe that's the first time ever the phrase "the warmth of Brezhnev" was typed or uttered.

the quiet humor of Chernenko.

The Pillsbury Dough Boy cuddliness of Haldeman and Liddy.

xp Well, he was pretty funny in the "Two Tribes" video...

the mirth of Mao

The lilting timbre of Kissinger.

the wife standing by stone-faced as the husband publicly admits to whatever transgression

No, she sat stonily by in the Checkers speech while he protested his innocence. (The cutaways to her in the chair are WTF)

Charles Colson, dead as a tree stump.

I was at a screening of All the President's Men last week. One of the funniest bits in the film is Jack Warden's exasperation when Redford asks him who Charles Colson is: "The most powerful man in the country is Richard Nixon--you've heard of him, right?"

always find it amazing how he was cracking gags and swearing and such just minutes before giving his final televised broadcast from the WH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9l37RTZcJ0

search also John Dean's "lying, vengeful testimony" (as Hunter Thompson called it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmD00OmakM0

Nixon ordered it, Ron Rosenbaum sez.

after reading the older column he links to i kinda think rosenbaum's probably OTM on this one.

Don't think I watched any of this, although I have vague memories of it airing:

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTg2MjYzNzI4MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTc1MjA2Nw@@._V1._SY317_CR6,0,214,317_.jpg

It's just out on DVD. Twelve hours long--Berlin Alexanderplatz for wild gossipy political horserace fiends like me. Pricey, though, so I'll wait it out a bit.

Strange, the image seems to come and go.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075597/

it's pretty soapy, tho Robards is great.

40th anniv of break-in imminent!

There and back, and back again.

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/103940/watergate-richard-nixon

Both sides agree!

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302288/blast-past-michael-potemra?toggle=y#comment-bar

It was the NRO thing that alerted me to its re-release.

The movie ends with a Watergate-style major turning point, and the final shot is of an American flag briskly waving: as if to assure the 1977 TV audience that America is a great country that will always prevail over its evil Nixons, and that everything’s going to be just fine now that a really decent guy like Jimmy Carter is president.

I can think of one or two (or more) people on the political thread who'd be fine substituting Bush and Obama into that formulation.

not a particularly close parallel.

The WaPo had a party at the Watergate the other night, I kid you not. Oh, the irony of 2012 vs 1972 Bob Woodward.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/11/watergate-remembered-four-decades-later-at-washington-post-party.html

except that bush was worse than nixon and obama worse than carter! xpost

don't make me go to who might be worse than Nixon....

I think W:BCD might play a lot worse for me today after exposure to all the years of Oval Office tapes. There's no topping 'em, especially with broadcast-friendly dialogue.

i'm sure this must have been in American papers but The Independent in the UK is doing an 'Untold Story' thing by WoodStein just in time for the 40th anniversary

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/special-report-watergate--the-untold-story-7844900.html

anyone ever rifle through the online Nixon tapes? i had no idea there was so much of it on the net
http://whitehousetapes.net/transcript/nixon/i-want-brookings-institute-safe-cleaned-out

Nixon's whole bit on those about how everyone is too much of a 'nice guy' and needs to be more of a 'son of a bitch like me for a change' really is pretty vomit inducing.

Woodstein were on Face the Nation on the weekend, talking about a shared byline they had in the Post last week (first in 30+ years). Haven't read the piece, but I gather the gist of it is that Watergate was much worse than anything that's ever been reported; that virtually from day one, a full-scale criminal operation was being conducted inside the White House. (Please resist dragging Obama into this.)

None of the info was new; what made it notable was Woodstein cobbling the info into a chronological narrative. I was surprised Woodward had it in him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/woodward-and-bernstein-40-years-after-watergate-nixon-was-far-worse-than-we-thought/2012/06/08/gJQAlsi0NV_story.html

It's a measure of the enormity of the fallout from Watergate that the suffix "-gate" is by now well-understood to denote a scandal, not only in the USA, but almost worldwide, even in several different languages.

I did kind of suspect that, Alfred--even in the movie, they make it pretty clear that bad stuff started very early.

i remember in school being surprised that it was the name of an actual building. i thought it was a metaphor from the beginning! as in some kind of dam or lock that had finally broken open.

It occurs to me that even before I get to Wrigley or Fenway (if I ever do), I ought to spend a night in the Watergate...Guessing it ain't cheap.

is it a hotel? i thought it was an apt/office bldg

All three, I believe.

http://www.thewatergatehotel.com/

Correct. I think the five buildings each have different owners by now. Residental units mostly condos, but some are for rent.

In what may be the most ironic coincidence ever, the first burglary ever reported to police in the Watergate complex, in 1969, was of the residential unit owned by, of all people, Rose Mary Woods

(Nixon's secretary, who would later claim to have accidentally erased that infamous 18 1/2 minutes of a tape crucial to the investigation. Recent forensic examination of the tape shows it was erased in several sections separately.)

I can't think of anyone else whose most famous photo (by far) is in this pose:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzesz4a6/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/RoseMaryWoodsStretch.jpg

clemenza, I suggest that rather than reserve a room you park across the street in a Gordon Liddy mustache and sit there for hours.

Those Plumbers were a sleazy bunch all right, former College Republican leaders. The ratfuckers hit all the Democrat campaigns in '72 except McGovern's, bcz they wanted him to get the nomination.

Here's where I recommend Thomas Mallon's new novel.

recommendation accepted. ding!

Happy 40th to the gang!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsx7TZ-r4b4

Psyched!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/arts/television/robert-redford-to-produce-a-documentary-about-watergate.html

Afaics, the major legacy of this scandal was a determination on the part of the power elite never to allow the media to be independent enough to pursue a story like this, if the elite prefer the story should not be pursued. An independent press is far too much of a danger to those who hold power to allow it to flourish for any reason.

backing up to the Nixon pardon i recommend Barry Werth's short book 31 Days about the Ford transition. anyone reading this thread will eat it up

hell yes Nixon should have gone to jail; the next 25 years might've turned out differently but hey that's water(gate) under the bridge

Yes -- great book.

31 Days sounds great.

i'm no nixon apologist but i gotta say, this is the most devastating end of a long wikipedia article i've ever come across:

Nixon believed that putting distance between himself and other people was necessary for him as he advanced in his political career and became president. Even Bebe Rebozo, by some accounts his closest friend, did not call him by his first name. Nixon stated of this, "Even with close friends. I don't believe in letting your hair down, confiding this and that and the other thing—saying, 'Gee, I couldn't sleep' ... I believe you should keep your troubles to yourself. That's just the way I am. Some people are different. Some people think it's good therapy to sit with a close friend and, you know, just spill your guts ... (and) reveal their inner psyche—whether they were breast-fed or bottle-fed. Not me. No way."(263) When told that most Americans, even at the end of his career, did not feel they knew him, Nixon replied, "Yeah, it's true. And it's not necessary for them to know."(263)

After Richardson and Ruckelshaus refused to carry out Nixon’s order, the White House sent a car to the Justice Department to fetch Bork.

He met the car outside the department and found Nixon lawyers Leonard Garment and Fred Buzhardt in the passenger seats. Bork says he joked that he felt like he was being taken for a ride, as in a scene from a gangster movie, but that no one else laughed.

Shortly after he sent Cox a two-paragraph letter, he was taken in to see Nixon. Bork says the resignation and firings should have been called “The Saturday Night Involuntary Manslaughter” because Nixon didn’t plan the episode, but blundered into it.

It was in that conversation that Bork says Nixon for the first and only time offered up the next Supreme Court seat.

More excerpts from the Bork memoir.

The War Powers Resolution, passed by Congress over the veto of Nixon in November 1973, expanded congressional control over the limits of presidential authority in the use of force abroad. Had the president asked for my advice, I would have suggested that instead of vetoing the Resolution, and thus giving it the dignity of a statute, Nixon should have returned the bill to Congress with a note saying he thanked them for their essay on his constitutional powers and, when he found time in his busy schedule, he would send them an essay of his own on his understanding of his constitutional powers. This would have treated the War Powers Resolution with the frivolous gesture it deserved.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltvvfjiYw71qdbxx9.gif

More goodies, freshly unconvered.

The disruption of Johnson’s peace talks then enabled Nixon to hang on for a narrow victory over Democrat Hubert Humphrey. However, as the new President was taking steps in 1969 to extend the war another four-plus years, he sensed the threat from the wiretap file and ordered two of his top aides, chief of staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, to locate it. But they couldn’t find the file.

We now know that was because President Johnson, who privately had called Nixon’s Vietnam actions “treason,” had ordered the file removed from the White House by his national security aide Walt Rostow.

Rostow labeled the file “The ‘X’ Envelope” and kept it in his possession, although having left government, he had no legal right to possess the highly classified documents, many of which were stamped “Top Secret.” Johnson had instructed Rostow to retain the papers as long as he, Johnson, was alive and then afterwards to decide what to do with them.

Nixon, however, had no idea that Johnson and Rostow had taken the missing file or, indeed, who might possess it. Normally, national security documents are passed from the outgoing President to the incoming President to maintain continuity in government.

But Haldeman and Kissinger had come up empty in their search. They were only able to recreate the file’s contents, which included incriminating conversations between Nixon’s emissaries and South Vietnamese officials regarding Nixon’s promise to get them a better deal if they helped him torpedo Johnson’s peace talks.

Man.

What Rostow didn’t know was that there was a third – and more direct – connection between the missing file and Watergate. Nixon’s fear about the file surfacing as a follow-up to the Pentagon Papers was Nixon’s motive for creating Hunt’s burglary team in the first place.

Rostow apparently struggled with what to do with the file for the next month as the Watergate scandal expanded. On June 25, 1973, fired White House counsel John Dean delivered his blockbuster Senate testimony, claiming that Nixon got involved in the cover-up within days of the June 1972 burglary at the Democratic National Committee. Dean also asserted that Watergate was just part of a years-long program of political espionage directed by Nixon’s White House.

The very next day, as headlines of Dean’s testimony filled the nation’s newspapers, Rostow reached his conclusion about what to do with “The ‘X’ Envelope.” In longhand, he wrote a “Top Secret” note which read, “To be opened by the Director, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, not earlier than fifty (50) years from this date June 26, 1973.”

In other words, Rostow intended this missing link of American history to stay missing for another half century.

holy crap

I have been thinking about this all morning

Nixon’s fear about the file surfacing as a follow-up to the Pentagon Papers was Nixon’s motive for creating Hunt’s burglary team in the first place.

crazy that this turned out to be true, I remember this being speculated upon in Arrogance of Power, I think...?

I checked out one of Parry's books.

Most reporters have given short shrift to the Chennault material. The recent book by those TIME suckups on the ex-presidents inadvertently did more to raise the specter of those signals sent from Texas to the White House during the Nixon years.

which book, Alfred?

I'm thinking Lost History looks like my kinda wheelhouse

http://www.amazon.com/Fooling-America-Washington-Manufacture-Conventional/dp/0688109276

It reminds me of Mark Hertsgaard's On Bended Knee, a superb account of press genuflection before St. Ronnie.

oh that's the new one, right?

hmm

OKAY FINE I'LL GET IT

The BBC picks up the story. Nothing from US newspapers?

I haven't seen a peep from anyone. I want to say 'unbelievable' but it's so totally, depressingly believable.

Yeah, totally. It's like Robert Parry pointed out in the Alternet link Alfred posted, no major US news organization has any interest in embarrassing itself further at this point.

think i first read about this in hitchens' kissinger book. as usual, history turns out to be more sordid and disgusting than any conspiracy theory.

kinda can't help regretting that LBJ didn't follow through with his 'surprise! i'm running again!' plan; four more years of LBJ at his worst couldn't have been worse than four years of nixon.

Hersh's Kissinger book first advanced it but to see it confirmed...

hard to imagine two more vicious bastards than Nixon and LBJ trying to kneecap each other

man throw Walt Rostow on the fucking dung heap too and set it on fire.

anyone see the Robert Redford-narrated doc All the President’s Men Revisited?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OttPE1PCQA

Jeb Magruder dead

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeb-stuart-magruder-jailed-for-watergate-role-dies-at-79/

I saw 'Bud' Krogh on a panel at the National Archives this morning.

One by one, our old friends are gone. Death--natural or not--prison, deported.

Who's left?

shocked to find Big Bob Haldeman died 21 years back at 67.

Kissinger, Dean, and Liddy come to mind (as being alive), although beyond telling Nixon whatever he wanted to hear, I don't think Kissinger had direct Watergate involvement. Maybe I'm forgetting something. Alexander Butterfield's still alive too.

I'm surprised Kissinger didn't show up at Baba Wawa's farewell so she could fellate him AGAIN

Pat and Bob died within six months of each other. After that, Nixon wasn't long for this world.

Did a bit of reading on Magruder yesterday, found out he got his start in '62 working for Rumsfeld, and then he worked for Goldwater in '63. Would love to have seen Pete Frame take on the two American political parties.

http://blog.familyofrock.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/clip2.jpg

anniversary party album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxfZt4vbg4I

Beat me to it. Not just a regular anniversary; 40th.

love that album

lasting legacy from Watergate is in Dick:

"no president will ever lie to us again"

Probably a little blurry:

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/august91974_zpsdca30fbf.jpg

Oops, wrong chart--that's for the week ending August 3, 1974. The correct chart would be towards the end of this issue.

None of (his war crimes) brought down Nixon. However weary the country was with Vietnam, it was regarded as standard policy, however misguided. Only when Nixon attacked a powerful target did his political career collapse.

Unlike antiwar dissidents, the Democratic Party had serious mainstream pull. It was one thing to spy on the Black Panthers and the Yippies; it was quite another to wiretap people connected to corporate and private wealth....

Still, imagine how Nixon would enjoy Obama's NSA and drone wars.

He'd be right at home, along with the rest of us.

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2014/08/downfall-ii-oval-delirium.html

what brought him down were the tapes

...about ratfucking the Dems

(and covering up)

Perlstein on the 40th anniversary of The Pardon:

First Woodward, then Bernstein, came to conclude there had been no deal, and that this was instead an extraordinarily noble act: Ford “realized intuitively that the country had to get beyond Nixon.” After Ford died in 2006, Peggy Noonan went even further. She said Ford “threw himself on a grenade to protect the country from shame.”

They’re wrong. For political elites took away a dangerous lesson from the Ford pardon — our true shame: All it takes is the incantation of magic words like “stability” and “confidence” and “consensus” in order to inure yourself from accountability for just about any malfeasance.

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/08/watergates_most_lasting_sin_gerald_ford_richard_nixon_and_the_pardon_that_made_us_all_cynics/

I can't remember if it was Mad Magazine or Nixon enemy Paul Conrad who had the best cartoon about the pardoning: President Huntz Hall Ford cheerfully staring into the "things to do your first day as president" list: 1. Pardon Nixon. 2. Don't bomb the Russians

Swear to god, about half the time I vent to someone at work about something, my principal will make casual reference to what I was venting about within a day or two. I need to get a team of plumbers up and running.

That pardon was probably one of the five or ten most important events of the last 1/2 century (in America). Incalculable, nation-altering effect when a criminal President is let off the hook like that.

Since moving back to OC I've bee re-reading Nixonland irregularly. The creation of the silent majority is some evil genius masterminding.

Anybody remember the way Bill Clinton would reference, in a croaky voice, people "who work hard and play by the rules"? Pretty sure I got to hear that more than once, and Hillary brought the phrase back for an encore last year in a speech in Iowa I believe.

His way of trying to re-define the Silent Majority to include those messed over by corporate ruthlessness, without necessarily letting in the P O O R (except for the "deserving" poor, who have to be saints to qualify). So, a slightly progressive redefinition, but probably too compromised to matter.

Is there a recommended bio on Roger Ailes that's heavy on his Nixon years? He's like the villain out of Tomorrow Never Dies.

It's not a biography at all, but I think Joe McGinniss's The Selling of the President 1968 is primarily about Ailes.

Damnit, I actually have this book but haven't read it yet. OK then...

This Salon piece should interest you:

http://www.salon.com/2011/01/21/roger_ailes_fehrman/

2-hour Watergate doc on ABC tonight. Timing!

ooh thx

Woodward & Bernstein revisit their pre-hack years

Huh, guess my brother-in-law was born the day before the break-in

Bill O’Reilly, who was fired from Fox News in April after several harassment allegations came to light, will appear in the special, according to ABC.

oh... never mind.

http://ew.com/tv/2017/05/31/abc-watergate-documentary/

"balance"!

I suspect Nixon was ultimately punished more for approval ratings that were cratering than for the high corruption. If the public had decided Watergate wasn't that big a deal, I'm sure Goldwater and the rest of them would have stood their ground and the impending impeachment would never have reached the stage it did (which I think was a recommendation to proceed with impeachment hearings...I'd have to double-check). I'm not defending Nixon, believe me; I'm just saying I'm not ready to ascribe noble principals to the Republicans who bailed on him (or, to be truthful, to the Democrats who were swarming either). It's politics; most everyone was acting out of self-interest.
― clemenza, Saturday, April 2, 2011 11:35 AM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

curious if anyone has any favorite watergate documentaries. dunno if i'll bother w/ the abc one but would be interested in a good one with lots of original footage.

the clemenza post seems right to me -- but what's astonishing, from this late date, is how sincerely outraged the public got over something as complicated and unsexy as watergate. feels like a high-water mark for democracy that we'll never get close to again.

there haven't been a huge number, and i don't remember watching more than one or two. BBC did one a lot of ppl seemed to like, but the YT quality is poor. xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRCih5rUiVQ

It was all very new, esp w/ the tapes, to hear the president curse, say "Get the money," etc. And now...

quoted it because it's basically the theme of the trump thread, how much will people care and how complacent is the GOP willing to be

There was Foster Wiley's 'Watergate Plus 30: Shadow of History', which I saw when it came out in 2003 but can't remember much of xp

https://i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww56/harrylime49/vlcsnap-2010-12-22-17h01m51s189.png

The PBS American Experience installment on Nixon that aired in late 1990 had a fair amount of contemporary Watergate footage, iirc.

I watched that BBC one the summer it came out, it's great.

I recently (ahem) rescreened All The Presidents Men for the first time since I saw it as a teen who then knew nothing about Watergate. The movie was baffling to me the first time round, and this time round, I a) appreciated it as one of the all-time great detective stories and b) admired how unforgiving it is re: expecting the audience to know what Watergate was, what Nixon did, etc. That final scene before the credits roll - the meaning and irony of it were completely lost on me the first time I saw it.

well, remember, it was released less than4 years after the break-in.

“That axiomatic Hollywood principle, action is character, takes a strange turn in [Alan J. Pakula’s] All the President’s Men [1976],” writes Mark Feeney in an excerpt from Nixon at the Movies: A Book About Belief now up at Slate. “The Woodward and Bernstein we get to see—so dutiful, so serious—are Butch and Sundance gelded. It wasn’t as if Woodward and Bernstein and the Post were out to get the president and his men (the party line of Nixon apologists). They don’t bring down the government out of any animus. They don’t even do it because it’s fun. (The only person in All the President’s Men who ever seems to be enjoying himself is Jason Robards’s Ben Bradlee.) They bring down the government because it’s a great story, and getting great stories is their job. . . . What’s so charismatic about journalism here isn’t its practitioners (Bradlee once again excepted); it’s the idea of journalism.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/conspiracy_thrillers/2017/06/all_the_president_s_men_made_woodward_and_bernstein_the_stuff_of_journalistic.html

That Feeney boom is terrific, by the way

Book

Jaworski report released

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/us-archivists-release-watergate-report-that-could-be-possible-road-map-for-mueller/2018/10/31/841cc938-dbb5-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html

RIP Ruck

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-27/william-ruckelshaus-nixon-nemesis-who-headed-epa-dies-at-87

egil 'bud' krogh dead

https://www.seattlepi.com/local/politics/article/Egil-Krogh-Seattle-lawyer-leader-of-Nixon-14990183.php

nobody left but liddy and dean

does Diane Sawyer count?

it was a guess really but it had a certain poetry so i went with it

alive!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Segretti

https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/roger-stone-richard-nixon-tattoo.jpg

Magruder testifies that money was given to Liddy in good faith to use as security at campaign rallies for Nixon surrogates and the RNC convention.

— Watergate Day Of - 1973 (@WatergateDayOf) January 23, 2020

embedded tweets are good again

(ps they were always good)

The crazy rat bastard finally popped his clogs

G. Gordon Liddy has died at 90. His bungling of Watergate break-in triggered a crisis that led to President Nixon's resignation. https://t.co/UM81k5hv5v

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 30, 2021

Somewhat fatalistically, I'm starting in on the Graff book.

HBO ‘Plumbers’ tv show; five episodes, starts March

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXTmH6C4LHY