Lies oozed like toxic wastes from Watergate–a byzantine exercise in the politics of denial. The scandal began as a crackpot burglary and cover-up, then spread until its stain disfigured an imperial presidency. Before the disaster ran its course, the House of Representatives had voted three articles of impeachment against Nixon for high crimes and misdemeanors, and a man who won 61 percent of the vote in 1972 became the first president to flee office rather than face certain conviction by the United States Senate. Watergate was a tragedy with scattered moments of low comic relief. Its causes tracked back to the furies of Vietnam and the obsessions of a man whose paranoia sorted badly with his patriotism. Its effects reverberate today: in a cynical electorate’s disgust with the words, deeds and egos of all too many pols; in its reckless search for the Pure Outsider; in its washboard jolts down a road that has led from Jimmy Carter through Ronald Reagan and now toward Ross Perot.
Yet the evidence suggests that in the nation’s mind, the facts of Watergate have grown as blurred as notes written on foolscap. Over the years, facts and fibs, realities and myths, have converged in such a farrago that it is sometimes impossible to tell Watergate the History from Watergate the Movie. Sam Dash, majority counsel to the Senate Watergate committee back then, adds that today when law students come into his class and say, “I heard you had something to do with Watergate,” he has to tell them, “I did not go to jail. I was asking questions-not answering them.”
In refreshing the country’s memory, the anniversary this week will offer history’s answer to journalism’s feeding frenzy. Each morning NBC’s “Today” show will present a half school for scandal. On June 17, CNN’s evening lineup will devote regular programs and a special to sorting through Watergate. CBS will air " Watergate: The Secret Story," a documentary on prime time assembled in collaboration with The Washington Post. And G. Gordon Liddy, that unrepentant sinner–his vanity plates now read H20 GATE–will broadcast his Washington radio talk show live from the Watergate complex itself.
Contrary to Lord Acton’s famous axiom, Watergate demonstrated that power does not have to be absolute to corrupt absolutely; just a little will do. Watergate had its own peculiar cast (" Deep Throat" and “the Plumbers”); its purple dialogue (" I am not a crook" “I want you all to stonewall it”); and its tacky props: all those $100 bills for the goons, that bus conductor’s change maker for the pay phone and the “smoking gun” that finished a president. No wonder it’s hard to keep them all straight. But let’s try. When memories turn into burn bags, history provides nothing but cover-ups.
After all that has been reported on Watergate, turning up something new is a trick in itself; but the CBS documentary will offer a few fascinating tidbits. For 20 years people have wondered what the Plumbers were really doing at the Watergate. Hunt now says they went to take photos of the DNC’s account books, hoping to uncover embarrassments that the White House could exploit later. The Plumbers were always gung-ho. At one point, they got so eager they bugged Nixon’s own phone.
When did Nixon learn the truth about the break-in-and when did the cover-up begin? From the summer of 1972 on, the president maintained that he knew nothing until March 1973, and then cleaned house. He was lying. The smoking gun, a conversation recorded on his secret Oval Office taping system, proved that he knew about attempts to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI investigation of the break-in as early as June 23, 1972. In the CBS documentary, Colson now says that on the first day after the break-in, Nixon phoned him from Florida. Told that “our people had something to do with it,” the president exploded, “Nobody … could be that stupid” and smashed an ashtray in his rage. After Nixon resigned two years later, Garment remembers, the disgraced leader phoned and said, " Len, what’s going to happen to me?" When Garment replied that he thought a trial unlikely because it would be “too wounding,” Nixon said, “Well, it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I went to jail. Some of the best writing has been done from jail.” He saw himself as Gandhi.
Who, then, was Deep Throat, the source who told Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein that the way to get to the bottom of Watergate was to “follow the money”? Some have guessed that Deep Throat might be a composite of several sources, but Woodward told CBS that the whistle-blower was one person, a man, still alive, a figure in the executive branch during the Nixon years. The network checked travel schedules to see who could have been spilling the beans on the right days. This ruled out Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, Melvin Laird and Brent Scowcroft. CBS will hazard another name this week. If you got who killed J.R., your guess is probably as good as theirs. “It’s the most well kept secret of the century,” Bernstein says. He and Woodward won’t disclose Deep Throat’s identity until he dies. In case they die first, they have also made arrangements for a posthumous leak.
Watergate demonstrated that Nixon could be a liar and a hypocrite of Wagnerian resonance. Liar and hypocrite. How naked the words look, how cruel they now sound. Yet for the first count the evidence is the smoking gun; for the second, his farewell in the East Room. “Never be petty,” he said. “Always remember others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.” He was exhausted, defeated, a figure whose misery commanded sympathy, not contempt. Yet he was also the man who contributed “enemies list” to the annals and vocabulary of abusive power. His own pettiness and hates destroyed his presidency, but to argue that those two qualities alone defined him was to miss the full complexity of the man. Nixon embodied the Republic’s positive and negative impulses in such bewildering profusion that even Tom Wicker, The New York Times liberal, chose to title a recent biography “One of Us.” And as the anniversary of his downfall drew near, there was Ross Perot begging two hours of his time to talk foreign policy; and there was Nixon himself in Moscow recently, offering tips on the finer points of running a representative democracy to Boris Yeltsin.
The passing of time, the slipping of memory, a generous impulse to stop kicking a president when he was down, accounted for part of Nixon’s rehabilitation. International respect for his foreign-policy achievements also made a difference, but there were other, more ambiguous factors at work. Subsequent history has shown that FDR, JFK, Ike and LBJ all had a weakness for surreptitious recordings. Kennedy’s CIA sanctioned assassinations; Nixon merely shot himself in the foot. Reporters who once looked intrepid can become relentless bullies with egos bigger than those they seek to puncture. Nixon revisionists have done a spirited job of pointing this out. Their intent has been to restore balance and fair play, but in one sense the campaign has backfired. When everyone in the political game winds up looking lousy, should it come as any surprise if voters begin to think, “The hell with all of you”?
This attitude is the result of a long, slow burn. At its core is a level of distrust between voters and leaders so hot that it creates its own kind of reality gap. Watergate didn’t cause this corrosive cynicism; it began far earlier, during Vietnam. But Watergate drove it home. When people feel bloodied they want the pain to stop, and this can affect their political vision. In the search for a better way after Watergate, they picked Jimmy Carter,only to stumble into the Iran hostage crisis. Desperate for healing, they turned to Ronald Reagan’s New Beginning only to find themselves sorting through the Iran-contra affair. Such accumulating moments pit followers and leaders against one another where they should be pulling in tandem.
This offers some rich possibilities for Ross Perot-along with some unsettling dangers. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Perot regularly spied on his employees and has hired at least one gumshoe to snoop on an opponent (he denied having initiated the contact). Sound familiar? What might Perot do with the FBI, CIA and Secret Service at his command? Maybe nothing out of line. But that the question even comes up is evidence of Watergate’s staying power. “Our long national nightmare is over,” Gerald Ford said on taking office. It wasn’t that simple.
The “long national nightmare” of Watergate, as Gerald Ford put it, unfolded over 25 months and 20 days. The investigation of a botched break-in on June 17, 1972, led the nation down a byzantine path blazed by a defiant Richard Nixon littered with lies, payoffs and contempt for the Constitution–ending in his resignation. Key moments as the scandal evolved:
June 17,1972
March 23, 1973
July 16, 1973
Oct. 20, 1973
Nov. 17,1973
Nov. 26, 1973
May 9, 1974
June 5,1974
July 9, 1974
July 24, 1974
July 30, 1974
Aug. 5, 1974
Aug. 8, 1974
Nixon announces his resignation. The next day, Gerald Ford is sworn in as president. A month later, Ford pardons Nixon for any crimes he “may or may not have committed” in office.
