Watergate: S & D

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)