Question for the people who were around during Watergate

[lizzieforkerry]

How far into it did you begin to believe it was more than a regular break in? Before the internet was it just in the paper one day that Nixon was behind it or did it build for awhile?

[unblock]

1. when they got redford and hoffman to star, i figured it was pretty big.

[Chili]

42. LOLOL!

I watched it the other night. It took MONTHS for the Post to be taken seriously. Ben Bradlee kept being asked, "why are you guys so obsessed with this story? It's going nowhere." In the face of ridicule from the White House, and from the rest of the mainstream media, he stuck by "the boys" - Woodstein, LOL - and refused to let it go.

That's how stories are broken.

There are no Ben Bradlee's any more.

[fearnobush]

71. Any chance Olbermann could be shadowing in that role today?

[Donailin]

49. FOFL!

[EMunster]

2. Watergate Timeline

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/chronology.htm

[JoanneNH]

47. I wish I could remember Tom Brokaw's exact quote....

But I was watching a special on Tom Brokaw's career and he spoke about Watergate. He said that when the news first broke about Watergate, there was very little coverage in the media. Tom Brokaw then said that once there was positive evidence of what had occurred, all hell broke loose. I remember thinking about this election when I was listening to him. If there is some kind of positive proof of fraud that is uncovered in Ohio, hopefully all hell will break loose again. I'm hoping for a "Christmas miracle"! (I was around during Watergate but unfortunately I wasn't paying attention. It took a "W" in the White House to wake me up.)

[trayfoot]

3. Well......

It was in the news - all the allegations - but, I don't think it really started to sink in until the televised hearings. As a young teacher, I was working that summer with the AFL-CIO during negotiations with ASR. I had a hotel room, fully equipped with office equipment and a television. When I wasn't typing or running things off, I watched the hearings. It was quite educational, and it was very much a "downer" for an innocent who had very idealistic thoughts about government and our leaders. It was very hard to believe that people would actually do these kinds of things - that a president was actually "crooked".

[asjr]

16. I felt the same way. I could not believe that our president

could be crooked. I was in denial for a long time and made excuses for Nixon. I was just plain stupid. But today is much worse. There are still some idealistic young people who will not believe Shrub can be as corrupt and mean-spirited as he is. They, like me, will learn the hard way. The trouble now is that he has been elevated to one step below God by some.

[Kali]

29. Beleive me there are people who

are STILL in denial about him.

[Warpy]

33. The Boston alternative press was all over it

even before the actual election, before Woodward and Bernstein got someone in the inner circle to blab anonymously, and long before the mainstream press reported it as anything but petty crime by ordinary thieves.

Anybody who lived in Boston and read The Phoenix and The Real Paper caught on to the fact that something about the whole deal smelled rather bad, and it was a great releif when Woodward and Bernstein picked the story up.

Of course, there are people out there in Middle America who still think Nixon was railroaded by the press, and haven't kept up with the tapes that have been released that indicate that he knew about it, approved it beforehand, and participated actively for the coverup. In too many ways, the Clinton witch hunt was payback for what a lot of diehard pubbies who got their start on the Nixon team saw as unfair.

Aint they something?

[understandinglife]

4. It took an extended period before most folk...

...believed any of it and, even after 'the tapes' were announced (oh how I remember stopping by the side of the road on my way back to our apt. in G'town from NIH and just could not believe what I had heard on the radio) many folk were in denial that:

1. anyone could have been so stupid to tape the stuff;

2. that they did not destroy the damn tapes; and,

3. that they had been SO STUPID TO TAPE THE STUFF!!!!

Lesson -- arrogance and greed are not sustainable.

Peace.

"When Did Bush Know?"

[shakerbaker]

5. It took a while

as I recall for things to progress. I think it was a tip to the Washington Post for the notorious Deep Throat that got things going.The Watergate hearings went on for quite some time.John Dean was the first to spill the beans on Nixon as I recall.There were phone recordings of Nixon discussing it with halerman and Erlichman.

[EMunster]

6. Better Timeline

I was about 13 when it broke. It started as a local story and stayed that way. People on the White House wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. (Later in my life I was a reporter, and did some White House. They call it the feed because you're very dependent on the White House for your information; beat reporters don't have to be that slavish; White House reporters have to be worried about offending the WH all the time, thus reluctant to rock the boat). Only when it really looked like the pieces were coming together did they go front page with it. Ironically, Dan Rather was the one to break it big time -- of course after those lowly beat reporters, Woodward and Bernstein did all the foot work.

http://watergate.info/

[LiberalFighter]

7. I don't exactly remember when... my memory consists of buying

a calendar that had the number of days left in Nixon's term.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. It was a rather gradual development, but after awhile it was apparent

that something was very, very fishy. At first it was just a burglary. But it soon turned out that one of the burglars was a GOP operative. Then a couple of months later, a $25K check for the Nixon campaign turned up in one of the burglars' checking accounts. The FBI got involved, and it discovered that there was a pattern of GOP spying and dirty tricks. The Washington Post was reporting on the matter from the beginning, and in those days it wasn't controlled by the GOP, so there was extensive media coverage -- unlike now. If you weren't a hard-core Nixonite you eventually became convinced that there was something very stinky going on. Here's a timeline:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/chronology.htm

[Wordie]

9. I remember seeing it buried in the back of the paper and feeling there

was something suspicious about it, and telling all my friends.

[aquart]

10. Long, slooooooooooow build.

And we were totally dependent on the newspapers. Fortunately, the WP and NYT got into a pissing match, once it finally got going.

Even so, Nixon might have gotten away with it, if it weren't for the tapes.

[DianeG5385]

11. I was in serious denial, to the day he resigned.

I was a young republican, but more than that interested and impressed by his opening to China. The Vietnam war worked against that as I saw it every night on TV. I was fortunate to grow up in a family that argued politics at the dinner table. Dad; Puke. Mom; yellow Dog Dem. They are so alike in their need to argue til the last dog dies to win their point. On 11/3/04 my dad had the nerve to call my sis and say "Our man won" she said, don't you DARE say that to Diane and to this date he hasn't even though we have had some "fun" political discussions! I think this keeps him thinking and ticking at 84. Even though our politics are polarized, there is no better person than my Dad.

[kitchen girl]

12. The hearings were during the summer of 1973.

But it had been in the news for quite a while before that - maybe a year or so. It was the summer after my freshman year of high school, and I remember my best friend and I would make a big pot of spaghetti and meatballs about once a week and sit and watch the hearings and eat spaghetti. I'm thinking it was probably late 72 when people started feeling like Nixon was behind it - at least in my family and circle of friends.

It was another year, though, before Nixon resigned. Summer of 1974. August, I think. I was at the county fair with my boyfriend watching the Hurricane Hell Drivers, and they stopped the show and broadcast his resignation speech. It was totally silent...just the crackly PA system and the cows mooing in the livestock barn...

[Griffy]

13. Thanks for the perspective... must pace myself...

Im protesting in DC tomorrow, with camera of course..

[queeg]

14. Break--In

I am not sure if we ever found out what they were looking for in Elsbergs office, The whole Watergate thing was coverups of coverups, and that Nixon was so paranoid. Think of it like whitewater, we never really understood what happened in white water, like we never really understood the beginnings of Watergate. it was all the BS that came after that took down Nixon and his cadre. <br>It really didnt help either that Spiro Agnew resigned in the middle of the whole thing under tax problems.<br>and as far as building, remember that it took more than 2 years for the thing to get to the point that Nixon resigned. It was Watergate and Viet Cong for 72-73 and 74 and when Ford came in and the paris peace talks were over, it was POW's and Whip Inflation Now (WIN) buttons.. If you want some real fun go to a library with The washington post on film and read the front pages for july-sept of 74.

[newyawker99]

54. Hi queeg!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[punpirate]

15. Given that Nixon had a reputation...

... for lying that went back to the beginning of his political life, I figured that CREEP and/or Nixon was behind it from the start.

It took a very long time to build. Remember that the break-in occurred during the campaign, in May, 1972, and Nixon did not resign until August, 1974--over two years. It took a long time for prosecutors and the Congress to finally act--and that was after regular weekly-to-daily reporting by the Washington Post and the NY Times. But, when Congressional hearings began, it started to unravel fast, during the spring and summer of 1974, as witness after witness admitted involvement of the White House.

Remember, too, that Nixon was not popular with Congress. Almost from the time he entered the White House, he began to consolidate power in the Executive; he'd alienated Congress by his use of executive orders to reorganize government and to embargo funding passed by Congress. For those reasons and more, they were inclined to impeach him.

That's not the case today. Party loyalty reigns supreme in this Congress, even to the point of a willingness to subvert their own body to further this President's aims.

Cheers.

[SheilaT]

17. I was an adult, living in the DC area at the time.

My understanding is that for a very long time only the Washington Post was running the stories. There were a couple of tiny articles about the initial break in on June 17, 1972, and then not much of anything until well after the election. Things really got interesting in December when on the 8th of that month a United Airlines plane crashed in Chicago, killing 43 passengers and crew (plus two more on the ground), one of whom was Dorothy Hunt, the wife of Howard Hunt. Her purse contained over $10,000 in cash, which was widely assumed to be payoff money connected to the Watergate burglary.

In essence, the story built and built and built. If you can take the time, go to a library that has bound issues of Time or Newsweek and start reading them. The issue that came out after June 17th will have a paragraph about the Watergate break in. Then there's not much else until the plane crash. Then there will be something nearly every week until the hearings began, and then it's almost unrelenting until the resignation.

Reading a weekly magazine like that sequentially (to do the Watergate project will take you a couple of months) is phenomenally educational. I used to read old Life magazines, starting with the first issue in November of 1936, and I got up to June of 1945. It's as if I remember those years, even though it's before i was born.

[Maccagirl]

24. The Dorothy Hunt angle is fascinating

I have heard all kinds of figures regarding the amount of money found on her. I also heard that the bills were in sequential order and widely believed to have been given to her by the head of the Republican National Committee, Bob Dole. I'll have to go to snopes to see if this has been debunked.

[SheilaT]

40. Because I worked at

National Airport at the time, and because airline employees tend to be weirdly obsessed with plane crashes, and because the flight originated in DC, I remember it pretty clearly. When all that money was found, it was beyond clear that the whole Watergate thing went far beyond a simple break-in. And this was six months before the televised hearings.

I'm not familiar with stories about Bob Dole having given her the money -- and I don't think he was ever involved in Watergate on the cover-up side. In fact, he may well have been among the Republican leadership who told Nixon it was time to resign in August, 1974.

[bobbieinok]

64. wasn't a major network woman news reporter on that plane too??

the rumor that she had some info

[Oak2004]

72. I witnessed that plane crash, from a distance

but until right now I never associated the crash with the pace picking up in the Watergate investigation. Possibly this is because I was far more concerned about what that crash did to the neighborhood where my family had a business (the destruction was, well, I still don't have words for it).

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

18. I knew that it was no ordinary break in when it was first reported.

You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Nixon's crew was behind it.

It took a while for people's interest to build, but I was raised by a real Nixon hater, my father hated that man from the time he ran his Congressional campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas.

I sometime wish my Dad was still here. He believed that Richard Milhous Nixon was evil personified. I'd love to know what he would think about Bushco. I have a pretty good idea though.

[Liberty Belle]

19. There were daily stories, for weeks or months.

Even in my hometown newspaper in a conservative military town, but more on the TV news, especially CBS, God Bless 'em.

[KaliTracy]

20. thanks for the quick recollections

i was around, but only 8. And of course, it wasn't in our American History Class when we were in High School!

[Kali]

25. interesting name you have there.....

:hi:

[KaliTracy]

37. Hi

:hi:

"Kali" has been my screen/internet name since 1995-96 (??) -- it was really hard for me to think I'd have to change it *grin*

but....*sigh* it's ok... I'm ok now. ;-)

[OldLeftieLawyer]

21. Two things happened that busted Nixon

Judge John Sirica refused to allow one of the Watergate burglars to cop a plea, so he ratted out his fellow assholes, but, before that, Alexander Butterfield very casually mentioned, while testifying before the Ervin committee, that there was an elaborate taping system in the Oval Office.

Without both those things, I doubt Nixon would have been nailed. It was one courageous judge (who was known as "Maximum John" for his harsh sentences), and one White House aide who either knew he was going to torpedo the Nixon presidency or just blurted out some damning information without knowing what he was doing.

[lizzieforkerry]

22. When did you start to realize it was pretty big?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

28. I was a first-year law student,

and I got a chance to go to work for the Ervin committe - for one of the investigators, actually - that summer of 1973.

Everyone knew Nixon was behind it, but there was no "smoking gun."

Then Fred Thompson, who was minority counsel, asked Butterfield if he knew of any listening devices in the Oval Office. To the everlasting credit of the Republicans (the minority), they sent Thompson to ask that question, knowing full well that it could make or break the Nixon tenure.

When Butterfield answered in the affirmative, we all knew history was made.

Then, of course, the battle over the tapes began, and that became a Constitutional issue of executive privilege, which was terrifically exciting (at least for law students).

That was the moment for me, though; we all gasped. I still remember how it all felt.

[bobbieinok]

62. I watched the hearings on TV...was on a local bus with my son, driver

had on radio, and Butterfield mentioned the tapes.....it was a stunning moment

[illflem]

23. I realized something was up before the election

and to this day can't figure out why they took the risk in the first place since Nixon was sure to win anyway. Turned out the cover-up was worse than the crime.

[whistle]

26. As I recall now the actual break-in at the Watergate complex...

...occurred in the spring or early summer of the 1972 presidential election year. The break-in was at the democratic offices and were downplayed by the press as nothing more than a prank. The elections came and Nixon defeated the democratic peace candidate George McGovern, and rather steeply as I recall. The war platform that Nixon ran on was "Peace with Honor". Following his victory in 1972, Nixon accelerated the bombing and expanded the war into Laos and Cambodia.

News stories were pretty sparse on the break-in, but behind the scenes the Washington Post was reporting occasionally about different aspects of the break-in story. Then I think sometime in 1973 the story came out of high level government officials involved in directing the break-in and there was the Daniel Ellsburg story about another break-in at Ellsburg's psychiatrist's office and stealing Ellsburg's medical files. Ellsburg was a whistle blower about war atrocities and secret illegal operations in the Vietnam War and it was pretty transparent that the stealing of his psychiatric files was done to deliberately discredit Ellsburg as an out-of-his-mind psychotic. Then stories began to break and be reported on the nightly network news channels and that's when I began to suspect that the whole Nixon paranoia about enemies lists and the like was really about an administration that had begun to get out of control. Congress democrats began to call for hearings and investigations about all the strange happenings and I then knew that someone in a high position was going to take the fall. I remember being very disturbed that such things happening in American politics and it just burned me up about the arrogance and lies coming out of the White House and from republicans in congress. I watched most of the hearings which lasted several weeks. I think those were going on in the spring of 1974. Nixon was out of control, one by one his top people all hard right republicans were being knocked off one by one. It seemed like the entire bunch were going down. The testimony that convinced me that Nixon was behind it all was John Dean's who was Nixon's attorney or rather p[residential legal counsel, when he talked about a "cancer on the White House" and the secret taping of conversations in the oval office, I knew then that Richard Nixon himself would be removed from office, somehow, someway. That did not happen until August of that year, but so much happened in between. VP Agnus was removed as a criminal and replaced with Gerald Ford. The presidents chief of staff and other top administrative people Haldemann and Erlickmann, both gave incriminating testimonies and as a result were indicted and later put on trial, found guilty and jailed. Dozens of top republican staff were arrested until Nixon finally but defiantly stood alone and he was not going to surrender. I believed at one point that he would have to be publicly arrested and physically removed from the presidency, but before that actually happened, his own top party leaders appealed to Nixon to resign. The son of a bitch still gave defiant but rambling departure speech in the White House and did announce publicly on live TV that he was stepping down and I just gave a private quiet cheer and then tears of relief began to run down from my wet eyes. I was angry, so angry that such a thing would happen by a crooked, deceitful bunch of politicians. Nixon boarded that Air Force helicopter the next day and I watched on TV that parting defiant wave to the crowd and off it flew. I was numb from all the months of tension and looked forward to getting back to a normal life, but as soon as that bastard Gerald Ford was sworn in as President, he issued his now infamous presidential pardon to Nixon, so that, in Ford's words, "the country could be brought back together." I wanted Nixon behind bars for all he did to the country. But that was not to be, I I remember still feeling that justice had somehow been compromised. I knew about Richard Nixon's deceiving ways from my childhood back when he was Eisenhower's VP, because my father and mother talked about his sneaky ways and never trusted him. So when I first read about Watergate, I remember thinking, I would not put it past Nixon that he was behind it all, but could not figure out why. The reason he did all those things was so simple, it was the last thing I was willing to consider and that was, Nixon could not stand to be a loser. So he had to make certain that he would not be one!

[glitch]

61. I see that same quality in *co - it is the fatal flaw that will bring

them down.

"Nixon could not stand to be a loser. So he had to make certain that he would not be one!"

It's because they know it their hearts that they are now, have always been, and will forever be losers.
No matter how many times they 'win' by cheating.
Cheaters are never winners, and they know it.
The very act of cheating ensures the loss, regardless of the outcome.

They will always overplay their hands. I know they did in the 2004 election theft, and am resolved to work toward and wait patiently for their inevitable, humiliating exposure.

[Nothing Without Hope]

27. long slow build and then amazing day-by-day revelations

At its peak, after the long ramp-up, we literally didn't know what kind of mind-blowing revelation to expect in each day's televised hearings. Each day during that time in the process it was a top priority to find out what new stuff had come out -- and there was always new stuff.

The tapes were a deadly mistake apparently born out of hubris. But I do think that even with them, if the Nixon people had controlled all the branches of government plus access to the MSM, as the Bush Cartel does today, there is a good chance that that the Nixon scandal would have been buried. It was really the honest outrage of lawmakers plus judges plus active media coverage, impacting a public that were not accustomed to expecting corruption from the highest levels of their government. The office of President had a very different feel to it then -- now he is seen as just another lying pol, but not then. It was shocking.

The revelations were demoralizing in what they revealed about governmental corruption, but we told each other that "the system worked" and the corruption was exposed and stopped. I don't think that would happen now. And that's REALLY demoralizing.

[Oak2004]

73. We may have to be the force that "impeaches" the current crooks

and I do have faith in the American people that, with a little more organization, and more widespread information, we are capable of the kind of resistance we've seen elsewhere around the world in the name of democracy.

Right now there's not much structure at a local level that could be used to coordinate any resistance. We've got the net, and a few relatively narrow in scope national organizations lining up with us. There are nascent pro-democracy groups just taking form in communities around the country. Give it some time, and keep working. Soon, when we call for action on short notice, it won't be 400 who show up, it will be 400,000 or more.

Also most Americans don't really know what is happening. They don't have the facts we have in front of us. Quite rightly, they'll expect solid proof (more evidence than we have right now) that Bush is subverting democracy, and they'll need to know that all legal remedies for removing him have been exhausted. But once they're sure of these things, I believe there will be an "impeachment" by the people, and George will be taking the early flight back home to Crawford.

If he makes it that far. Pity for him that the rest of the world wants to arrest him for war crimes, else he'd be able to avoid his flight getting permanently diverted to Leavenworth by going into exile.

[jamboi]

30. Very slow development as far as the average person was concerned. nt

[AtLiberty]

31. You must realize that some close to Nixon...

...were kept out of the loop nearly as long as the rest of us. Surreal. Nixon's WH attorney, John Dean, was s-l-o-w catching on, too, and he's no dummy.

Perhaps the best Watergate book is Dean's "Blind Ambition." If at all possible, try to see the TV mini-series based on the book starring Martin Sheen.

[illflem]

32. Don't forget VP Spiro resigning in the middle of it all

Agnew resigned after pleading no contest to a criminal charge of tax evasion, part of a scheme where he allegedly accepted $29,500 in bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland.

That's how we ended up with Minority Leader Ford as the first person to serve as president without ever having been elected to either the presidency or vice presidency.

[RevCheesehead]

34. I was a kid, but I do have vivid memories.

I think I remember hearing about the break-ins, the hearings, and the daily listing of the cast of characters.

But the thing that really got my attention was the tape with the 18-minute gap, where Rosemary Woods (Nixon's secretary) allegedly erased what many believed was the smoking gun.

I remember asking 2 questions: Why would they make tapes in the first place? And why did they need to erase that particular one? Do they have something to hide? It was all very shady.

One of the funniest moments happened in my 5th-grade class. The teacher was telling us a little bit about Watergate, and one repuke kid spoke up, saying "All this Watergate stuff never would have happened if only Martha Mitchell had kept her mouth shut."

At that point, our usually calm teacer went ballistic, and was almost screaming at the guy: "Look, Mister, Martha Mitchell was a true patriot for speaking out when she realized something was wrong. She most definately does NOT have to keep her mouth shut!"

All the kids in class sat there with jaws agape: :wow:
She never got angry before, but she sure lost it that day!

[SheilaT]

41. Wow!

So glad to hear that story of your teacher slapping down the budding Freeper.

That slander about Martha Mitchell was common currency, and her late night phone calls to the media had not real effect on the unraveling of the Nixon Presidency.

I was an adult, and some of the people I worked with were absolutely convinced that Katherine Graham (the publisher) of the Washington Post had some kind of a vendetta against Nixon, which likewise wasn't true. If anything, she traveled in the social circles of the in power elite, an probably would have preferred not to bring anyone down. But she had the integrity to let her editor and reporters do their job.

How different from today.

[lonestarnot]

52. Remember Martha Mitchell taking all the heat.

Women scapegoats are typically used when things go bad... but isn't that just like the repulsive ideology! Poor old Martha..."bigmouth" By God and the republic she opened her mouth and saved Democracy in a dark hour.

[bobbieinok]

65. only 2 women in the whole thing RWoods and Martha...no women's lib

eration at that point in time

[EMunster]

35. Keep in mind that everything that people regularly see a lot of things....

as the "next watergate" thus the suffix -gate that never lives up to the historic fallout of the first. Remember Irangate, memogate, now votergate. Lots of lessons learned from Nixon that following Presidents took to heart. No more recording of anything. Plausible deniability, etc. The Iran-Contra Affair proved very effective in protecting the President, and in the end, everyone else, from what was a blatant crime.

anyway...I would not expect the outcome of this to bring down the president criminally. There's an outside chance that it'll be proved he didn't win the election, and lose his seat that way. But if there was fraud, I'd be surprised his handlers would allow him to know anything traceable about it.

[Lady Sonelle]

36. When it Hit The News

and then the hearings began.

On My antique table is a lacy, elegantly tatted tablecloth. It is quite beautiful. My Grandmama sat, day after day after day, watching the hearings, tatting... tatting that tablecloth. I sat, fascinated by her worn hands, working the thin yarn into these beautiful snowflakes. Haldeman spoke and another row was completed. Ehrlichman Martha Mitchell, Agnew resigning, the snowflakes added up.

The cloth is Mine as a treasured family memento. It is called The Watergate Tablecloth and its history is written in the family archives. In every knot lies the shock of a family which saw the government revealed in a way that NO American ought to have to witness... and yet MUST if Democracy is to be preserved.

I remember.

Lady Sonelle

[livvy]

46. What a neat story! And what a great family treasure! n/t

[DemonFighterLives]

51. That is a great story

Another snowflake dropped. :)

[EFerrari]

38. It took a while but also, that was a different time because

there was a sense that our reps would do the right thing.

Today, there is a sense that our reps are either in on the fraud or in a bunker. So, waking up people to be active on their own behalf adds a dimension to this crisis that wasn't as present during Watergate.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

39. I remember hearing about the break-in when it happened, and I never

Trusted Nixon in the first place, but up until it really hit the news I didn't know if he was involved.

Baby Boomers make up the largest percent of the population of our country. With JFKs assasination, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Coups in other countries...how the heck could any boomer not realize how totally corrupt the Bush Crime Family is???

[bobbieinok]

63. many just got shell-shocked and stayed that way

[two gun sid]

43. What I remember

It built for awhile. I was willing to believe Nixon would have stooped to any level to ensure his reelection but, I hated Nixon with every fiber of my being. Now I realize he was a cheap punk compared to Bush.

[newyawker99]

55. Hi two gun sid!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[tngledwebb]

44. Big slow building story, but hearings made it compelling-

There is a lot to learn from it, on many levels. WaPo and it's reporters may have been different then, or maybe not.

[k8conant]

45. I didn't know for quite a while -- but it fit what I felt about Nixon

I don't even remember hearing much (in Detroit) or even tying in the early convictions (in 1973) with Nixon. I did follow the hearings with Sam Ervin presiding.

Part of Watergate coverage of course was blotted out, I believe, by the charges against Vice President Spiro Agnew and his resignation on October 10, 1973.

I remember the endless talks about the tapes and "where are the missing minutes?".

I was very happy when Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974 (although that in turn blotted out coverage of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus July 20, 1974 - August 14, 1974)

Most of the coverage shows what is still true today: "All the news that fits", that is, space or editorial policy.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

48. We were so eager for him to be brought down BEFORE Watergate

Because we believed he was a lying, evil man, based on his political history and actions in Viet Nam, so when the first reports began to come out about Watergate we were thrilled. But it took a couple years (until the summer of 74) for him to resign. I was a freshman in college, and living with a group of friends in a big old house. We had a party the day Nixon resigned, & watched him twitch and sweat on TV, while we hooted and cheered.

We were patient as these things unfolded back then, but I don't think we can afford to be now.

[DemonFighterLives]

50. Interesting reading here

I guess I was sort of apathetic back then and didn't pay too much attention to the hearings. A Freshman in high school has other things in mind.
I remember a lot of expletive deleted all over the transcripts of the tapes. And the unbelievable contortions that Rosemary Wood had to do to erase those 18 minutes.
As time went on, I read somewhere that the breakin was to remove evidence of the Kennedy assassination. I heard it was coming out and that it would blow Nixon and the rest of the crime family(ies) out of the water.
Ford taking over as the only unelected president has only been superceded by the current regime. Ford also was on the Warren Commission and fits right in with Garrisons thesis that they will be rewarded in some way.
What do some of you other posters think of the ties to Kennedy?

[Peace Patriot]

56. Watergate. Hm-m-m...

I don't know much about Watergate ties to the Kennedy assassination. I hadn't heard they were after Kennedy assassination evidence--but I did pick up somewhere that E. Howard Hunt was in or near Dallas, circa 11/22/63, that he had some Cuban exiles as passengers in his car, and that there were weapons in the trunk.

Is that what you mean--connections between the Watergate burglars and nefarious doings in Dallas?

I, too, had a grandpa who detested Nixon for what he did to Helen Cahagan Douglas in his first congressional campaign in Los Angeles--Nixon painted her as a "red" (i.e., a communist), as I recall my grandpa saying. In those days, you merely had to be in favor of labor unions to be called a "communist." (1950s, McCarthysim era.) My grandpa was very bitter about it.

Bush Inc.'s attack on Max Cleland--TV ads associating this man who lost three limbs in Vietnam, with Osama bin Laden--seems like a repeat from those days. And now they have ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES to make it seem like the voters agree!

The Watergate scandal started slowly, with minor news coverage of the burglary during the election, and took 6 to 8 months after the election to really gain steam, as revelation followed revelation. I myself had no doubt that Nixon operatives were illegally snooping on the Democrats and on antiwar protestors. I was an antiwar protestor myself, and Dan Berrigan once told me that my phone was bugged (when he was on the lam from the FBI, after pouring blood on draft records).

I was all for Nixon's impeachment, more for the bombing of Cambodia than for his stupid burglaries, etc. That a president would be involved in petty as well as huge crimes was not at all unthinkable, or even surpising, to me.

But things have become so bizarre in this country that, in thinking back to Watergate, I'm wondering if that impeachment--and the whole "official story" of Watergate--was all above board. Why did the establishment turn against Nixon with such a vengeance? Cuz he didn't go to Yale (and wasn't Skull & Bones)? Cuz he was just a lowdown piker from Whittier? Was it because he was finally going to bring the slaughterhouse of Vietnam to a close, and they wanted it to go on forever and ever?

I dunno. I'm just wondering...it all just seems a bit too neat, in retrospect, the heroic WaPo reporters vs. the powerful criminals in the White House.

I mean, you had Republicans going after Nixon! Howard Baker et al--not just Democrats. Maybe there WAS a connection to the Kennedy assassination, and THAT was the thing being covered up--that is, covered up by the investigation!

Looking at the Democrats complicity in the Iraq war, and in the Patriot Act, and in everything else Bush Inc. has done, including privatizing our election system--and stealing a SECOND national election--it really makes you wonder about a lot of things.

Now it's true that ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE CONGRESS PEOPLE AND SENATORS, almost all Democrats, voted AGAINST the Iraq war resolution (compared to only ONE vote against the Vietnam war)--and we should never forget that significant increase in antiwar votes--still, the Democratic leadership has utterly failed us, on this and all issues, even on the one that seems like Democratic Party suicide (Republican-owned electronic voting machines).

Why? Is it true, as some say, that both parties combine today to make The War Party?

And perhaps that War Party either had something to hide, back during Watergate (and that's why they joined forces to oust Nixon)(that is, something big like the Kennedy assassination), or some other strong difference with Nixon that interfered with corporate profits, or nuke industry profits, or semi-official drug or gun running (the Paris Peace talks? the Environmental Protection Agency, which Nixon created? the initiative to China? the initiative to the Soviet Union (first US president to visit Soviet Russia)?)

I'm just thinking out loud. I'm not sure what to think of these thoughts, except that, basically, I've lost all trust in any "official story" about just about anything that has happened in the U.S. of A. during my life time.

[DemonFighterLives]

67. Here is a quick google

http://mtracy9.tripod.com/kennedy.html

I would not put anything past these monsters.

[cyn2]

53. As others have said, long slow build...

I remember three things in particular.

I wasn't too involved, but I remember being sick one day that summer of 1973. I was laying on the couch and the hearings were on TV. I still didn't pay much attention, but somehow through my fog when Butterfield started talking about the tapes, the silence in the chamber and the re-questioning at that moment by senators, caught my attention and it became very interesting to me. Needless to say, much had transpired before that to end up in congressional hearings, but I wasn't "tuned in".

That fall of 1973 I was taking a course in American Politics, just after the resignation of John Mitchell the teacher asked how far will this go? I guessed that the scandal would reach the president, no one else thought that was possible.

The day that Elliott Richardson resigned, there was a huge picture of him on the front page of the Philadelphia Bulletin (evening paper which no longer exists) and from then on it seemed the balance had shifted.

[Time for change]

57. For several months the story was almost buried

If my memory serves me right, I was hoping from the beginning that it would lead to impeachment, but maybe that was more hope than insight, since I kind of hated Nixon (although I don't think I ever hated him as much as Bush, and now I even like him compared to Bush).

Then a few months later it came back, and started building. The big break-through was when John Dean started talking. He was absolutely great. That led to a treasure chest of other witnesses.

The other big breakthrough was when Alexander Butterworth came through with the information that the tapes existed. The tapes were the smoking gun.

[Greybnk48]

58. soap operas pre-empted

It took a long time and no one thought it would come to anything. I seem to remember some of my friends in our neighborhood being ticked that the soaps were pre-empted when the hearings began to be televised (only a few stations on the air at the time). Then the CREEPS came out, and it was better than "Days of our LIves." I distinctly remember John DEan's testimony as riveting. Everyone started using his phrase "at this point in time."

You could buy t-shirts and wall plaques with bugs wearing headsets on them--it became a circus.

My dad, a hard-core liberal--despite the hearings and tapes--was flommoxed when Nixon resigned. I think it scared him because he was very relieved that Ford pardoned him despite his dislike for Nixon.

A very wierd time--but sadly this is worse than Nixon.

[bobbieinok]

66. hearings made everyone a news junkie...CNN 24 hour news started from

the withdrawal 'everyone' had after the hearings and the vote were over

[googly]

59. Does anyone know who DEEP THROAT was? Any guesses??

[Imagevision]

76. Deep-throat? I read quite a bit and it was...

Surprisingly George H.W Bush, he simply wanted to speed the timeline of advansing up the ladder...Google Deep Throat & George H. W. Bush -- very interesting piece!

[Chasing Dreams]

60. I turned 15 in Spring 1973, and I followed the Watergate Story

with intense interest. Yes, some things never change. My Republican parents chastised me horribly for devoting so much time to Watergate, and today I'm in trouble with my family for spending time here!:silly:

It is my recollection that the MSM basically assumed the story was over after G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, James McCord, and 4 other co-conspirators were convicted in January, 1973. Yeah right: some Republican renegades had "gone overboard" much like a college prank, and no higher ups were involved. But the MSM bought it.

The major unraveling began after James McCord went public with conspiracy claims in March 1973 with a letter to Judge John Sirica, who presided over the trial. Everything snowballed from there.

We aren't at the that point yet in ElectionGate, but we are close. We need either (1) the Ohio recount to demonstrate the fraudulent activity, or (2) at least one of the co-conspirators to come forward with iron-clad evidence.

[kk897]

68. It's an interesting question, and some fabulous responses

Loved the spagetti story and the table cloth and pulling off the road when it came on the radio, the young law clerk... all of it, just wonderful oral history. The fact that the alternative papers were all over it way before WaPo--I never knew that!

I've wondered frequently in the last couple of months how the Web would have changed things if it had been in existence during significant events such as Hitler's rise to power, US internment of Japanese and Japanese-American people in prison camps, the Civil RIghts Movement, the 1960s assassinations, and, now, Watergate.

Can you imagine W&B as bloggers?

Hey, who will play Arnebeck, Curtis, Conyers, Truitt, etc. in the movie? Fitrakis? (He's my hero! but his curly mullet has got to go!) Wasserman? (I guess F&T are most like W&B, as they are the journalists who covered it from the beginning). Olbermann? Bev?

What a movie this would make! Oliver Stone would have a field day!

[lizzieforkerry]

69. LOL! I have enjoyed reading every response also.

I learned all about the scandal in class but when we learned it we just got the facts. It has been facinating to read people's reactions and how it was covered. Thank you everyone!!

Who will play "The DU bloggers" in the movie?

[Oak2004]

70. I thought something was wrong the moment I heard of it

but then I already believed Nixon was capable of anything, and as a liberal Republican in Daley's Cook County, was intimately acquainted with elections-related funny business.

My best friend still tells stories about how I was talking about Watergate when no one else was, though I think her memory of exactly how early is exaggerated.

[DemonFighterLives]

74. One more go round

:kick:

[DemonFighterLives]

75. The other day on Unsolved Mysteries

The plane crash of Hale Boggs and Begich in 1972. The plane was never found.

Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr. (1914-1972) -- also known as Hale Boggs -- of New Orleans, Orleans Parish, La. Married to Corinne Claiborne Boggs; father of Barbara Boggs Sigmund and Cokie Roberts (National Public Radio reporter and commentator). Born in Long Beach, Harrison County, Miss., February 15, 1914. Democrat. Lawyer; U.S. Representative from Louisiana 2nd District, 1941-43, 1947-72; died in office 1972; delegate to Democratic National Convention from Louisiana, 1948; candidate for Governor of Louisiana, 1952. Catholic. Member, American Bar Association; American Judicature Society; American Legion; Amvets; Catholic War Veterans; Knights of Columbus. Disappeared while on a campaign flight from Anchorage to Juneau, Alaska, October 16, 1972, and presumed dead in a plane crash, but apparently the wreckage was never found. Cenotaph at Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C. See also: congressional biography.
Nicholas Joseph Begich (1932-1972) -- also known as Nicholas J. Begich -- of Anchorage, Alaska. Born in Eveleth, St. Louis County, Minn., April 6, 1932. Democrat. Member of Alaska state senate, 1963-71; U.S. Representative from Alaska at-large, 1971-72; died in office 1972. Alaska Native and Croatian ancestry. Disappeared while on a campaign flight from Anchorage to Juneau, Alaska, October 16, 1972, and presumed dead in a plane crash, but apparently the wreckage was never found. Cenotaph at Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C. See also: congressional biography.

[Imagevision]

77. Deep Throat? Very surprisingly...

Simple...just Google George H. W. Bush Deep Throat....Bingo!