About book The Wars Of Watergate: The Last Crisis Of Richard Nixon (1992)
One thing I was trying to find out is why the world's superpower has habitually picked such dubiously endowed politicians as its presidents, with a couple of clear exceptions such as the present one. Why was Richard Nixon able to get within ten yards of the White House? How did he get himself taken seriously?Answer Number One : In GeneralFrom p417: Lord Bryce, the shrewd observer of American institutions in the nineteenth century, was fascinated by why the "best men" did not become presidents. Given a choice between a "brilliant man and a safe man" the latter, he noted, was preferred. The eminent men naturally made enemies and gave their enemies "more assailable points" than obscure men. They were, Bryce remarked, therefore far less desirable candidates. Considering the undistinguished models of nineteenth-century presidents whom Bryce viewed, he concluded that "the only thing remarkable about them is that being so commonplace they should have climbed so high."Answer Number Two : In ParticularReading about RMN's career in the excellent first part of this book has reminded me that homely RMN was imbued with an unyielding desire for various horrible jobs in politics which few sensible people would want. He was willing to drag his ass all over the country relentlessly campaigning for years and years and years. Eight years as Veep didn't put him off. Eight years out of politics in 1960-7 didn't put him off. Clearly, Richard Nixon was The Mummy - you run and run and run and you look behind and the damn Mummy is still stomping up, he's gonna get you, you can't get away from him. Run run run - stomp stomp stomp. Richard Nixon was The Mummy.1972: Nixon confers with HaldemanA short comparison between two bad presidents - Bush vs NixonThe 1960s were very interesting times. For all his faults, and they were legion, George W Bush did not preside over a situation where the National Guard shoots dead four students because they were in a demonstration. He did invade Iraq but he didn't authorise Agent Orange and napalm to be used against thousands of civilians. He didn't bomb a neighbouring neutral country for months. Vietnam was immeasurably more corrosive in America than Iraq because of its scale and because of the draft. We knew Bush's crimes because we saw them every day on the tv, whereas the faroff days of Nixon are now blurry, so Bush seems much worse and Nixon nearly got rehabilitated. Nixon's problem was that he got caught. So either all the other presidents have done similar illegal stuff and not got caught making Nixon uniquely stupid or they've been reasonably honest. We assume lazily that all politicians are crooked, but Watergate brought the shock of proof. Nixon did it, he okayed a burglary and he paid hush money to the burglars, then he tried to cover it all up and fired anyone who attempted to uncover it. Fantastique!Why I loved Watergate The enormous thrill of Watergate was in seeing a president who won the biggest ever landslide in 1972 get torn down step by step and ejected from his seemingly impregnable White House fortress by the American constitution and by the judges and senators who believed in it all within the space of 2 years. Sounds like a Frank Capra movie and in some senses it was. Watergate was Shakespearean without the poetry. Nixon was Cassius, Brutus and Caesar at one point or another, and finally he was Lear, raving away, suffering terribly and understanding nothing. As regards this particular bookI have to remove one star from the rating here because once again he runs into the trap of confusing detail with information, as here:Dean's recitation began with Haldeman's instruction that he establish "a perfectly legitimate campaign intelligence operation" at CREEP. John Caulfield first developed a plan, but Mitchell and Ehrlichman agreed with Dean that it was not suitable. Dean then suggested that they commission Gordon Liddy for the task. Liddy proposed several hare-brained and expensive schemes which were again were rejected, but he then enlisted Hunt as an ally. The two visited Colson who, in turn, pressed Magruder for action. Meanwhile Haldeman, through his aide, Gordon Strachan, similarly pressured magruder for campaign intelligence. Magruder responded by turning to Mitchell and urging the campaign to authorize Liddy's plan to wiretap the Democratic National Committee. Mitchell agreed, and the fruits of the taps went to Strachan, who gave them to Haldeman.ZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzSo sometimes the stark drama of the events passes through these dense thickets as might a lumbering, dimly perceived but dangerous large beast half a mile away, trumpeting and destroying the next village's huts but leaving your crop of facts and names untouched. Still, a favourite tale well told.
There is no scholar better versed in the matters of Watergate than Stanley Kutler, and this is his definitive account of the subject. In it he lays out in painstaking detail the course the crisis took, from its origins in the Nixon presidency to its legacy today. I expected such an account to be dull; instead, I found it impossible to put down. No reader can walk away from this book -- with its extensive evidence and clearly-reasoned arguments -- and not have a deeper understanding of what Watergate was and how it effected the nation, both then and now.
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