Imagine, if you will, a contemporary “Man on the street” interview:*
Guy with a mike and recorder:
“You, Sir, have you ever heard of Richard Nixon?”
Random young pedestrian:
“Uh—um, uh, like, yeah, I think I heard about him in school… I think it was in Science Class …. wait, no, wait, um, like, it was in a History Class, I think… but, uh, I have trouble remembering.”
“Okay, but what do you recall about him?”
“Hmmmmm … oh, like, he was, um, like, you know, like one of the founding fathers, I think, and he was a great inventor … yeah, that was it! He, like, invented some gadget called the “water gate”… it’s used for flood control. Or something. Yeah, it’s in Washington, next to that river that flows through the Capital.”
“Okay, thank you!”
No, that’s not an actual, literal, conversation (of which I am aware), but it might not be too far afield. Let’s imagine another:
“Hi, there! Do remember anything about Richard Nixon?”
“Nixon? Oh, you mean ‘Tricky Dicky’? Oh, yeah, I remember that so-and-so… as dishonest as they come! He was that crafty guy who ordered that invasion of the peaceful Democrat headquarters to steal blackmail material for his kooky reelection campaign, then hid all the evidence on his office recorder. Yeah, that guy. But those noble knights at the Washington Post, Wordswood and Berkstein—oh, whatever—those reporters got with the House and Senate and the prosecutors, and they all went scorched earth on that rotten presidency … Drove him and his evil minions from office—Good riddance!”
“(Whew!) … Thank you… (I think).”
Now, one more:
“Hi, there, Ma’am! Might I ask what you remember about Richard Nixon and his presidency?”
“Ohhhhh! I remember those days. He was a great president! He beat those Democrat leftists in ‘68 … even harder, again, in ‘72. That second one was a huge landslide! He did so much for this country. It had been a time of turbulence. Unrest. Anti-war protests, but he did a lot to calm the waters. He ended the military draft. And brought our boys home from Vietnam and switched to an all-volunteer army. He helped lower the voting age to 18. Worked with the Soviets on a nuclear arms treaty…
“Then those goofball staffers who burgled the Watergate, the DNC office, darn them! And Nixon found out about it afterward. He tried to fix that mess they created… he wanted to do it in a noble and honest way, but the Democrats controlling House and Senate … and that dishonest federal judge, and those conniving prosecutors found this episode to be just the handle they needed … and they grabbed and they pulled until they tore it all apart.” Those media sorts just kept on spewing the lies that came out. That’s all anybody ever heard, and it’s, like, all anybody ever believes anymore!” And now every scandal is some kind of a ‘–GATE!’”
“Do you think there’s a more truthful, a kinder narrative to be told about Nixon?”
“Oh, yes, I do! But people are careful about what they say; it’s too easy to get ‘canceled for something said. Say that to the wrong people and get your car ‘keyed’—not wise here in this city full of Trump haters!”
“Oh, I think I understand—even more than you know! Thank you so much!”
Oh, yes, attitudes fifty years ago were varied. It would not be surprising to find this true today.
Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th president of the United States, one of the most popular presidents in the past century—evidenced by his spectacular 1972 reelection win—is a historic figure whose name is intimately entwined with the word “Watergate,” and the disastrous conclusion to his presidency just fifty years ago.
A California native, Nixon attended Whittier College there, then Duke University School of Law. After doing legal practice, he served in World War II as a Naval officer. He then entered politics, winning a U.S. House seat in 1948 and then a Senate seat in 1950. In both positions, he took prominent roles in opposing communism and, at one point, was instrumental in breaking the Alger Hiss spy case.
In 1952, Nixon was Dwight Eisenhower’s VP running mate. They handily won, then won again in 1956. Nixon ran for president in 1960 and lost, but made his dramatic comeback, winning handily in 1968.
Concluding a first term marked by numerous beneficial governing successes, Nixon ran for reelection in 1972, winning every electoral district except Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. It seemed a sure bet that his second term would be even more illustrious than his first. But the campaign ran over a “nail in the road,” which eventually wrecked that presidency.
That “nail” was the June 17, 1972, illegal break-in of the DNC offices in the Watergate complex, which campaign staffers ordered without Nixon’s knowledge or permission. Despite Nixon’s and his staffers’ efforts to exert damage control, the situation resolutely grew into a mounting imbroglio of scandal, distrust, prosecutorial, judicial, and congressional actions, and an eventual inevitability of impeachment, conviction, and removal. This was the Watergate scandal.
President Richard M. Nixon, therefore declared that an honorable resignation was wiser and more curative for the Presidency and for the nation than an agonizing Senate trial for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” He tendered his resignation effective August 9, 1974.
And so it was, half a century ago, that Richard Nixon, Washington’s political “bad boy” communism fighter, a West Coast outsider, not of the genteel Ivy League aristocracy, not welcomed by the establishment elite, and a man who trounced Democrats in every state but one in his reelection, was finally branded the evil conspirator by that establishment. He would wear the Watergate albatross as his enduring legacy. So thrived the narrative; Watergate would be the enduring code word for government corruption.
But cracks are now forming in that escutcheon. Consider this opening from PJ Media’s Victoria Taft:
Imagine a scenario in which the intelligence community, political actors, the FBI, and the media all worked together to bring down a president. You don’t have to wonder, as it happened 50 years ago in the United States of America when Richard Nixon was forced to resign his office after winning the election as the most popular president since FDR.
The same article introduces Watergate expert and author Geoff Shepard, who was a young attorney on the Nixon Defense team and who, since then, has spent decades deeply researching administrative, political, and prosecutorial Watergate archives obtained through FOIA requests. The results of his investigations are damning to those who conducted their immoral, unethical, and illegal abuse of power to purge Nixon from the presidency.
Shepard has written three books on this subject. His most recent is The Nixon Conspiracy: Watergate and the Plot to Remove the President, a detailed and easily read analysis of the whole Watergate debacle. Here’s John Dale Dunn’s handy review. Tucker Carlson interviewed Shephard for over two hours.
The book has now been made into a documentary motion picture, Watergate Secrets, with live discussions with Shepard and other notables, and with dramatic reenactments of Watergate events of the time. My advice: watch the movie, then read the book, then watch the movie again.
Richard Nixon 1972 campaign button by Gary Denham. CC BY 2.0.
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*Inspiration for these “interviews” comes from a similar scenario near the opening of the documentary itself.
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