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."

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