P. OConnell Pearson - Nixon, Watergate, and Democracys Defenders

Electoral College totals by state, 1972 presidential election

Nixon wrote later that he didnt really know why he was in such a gloomy mood that night. But he thought perhaps he was worried about Vietnam, or perhaps about the upcoming trial in the scandal everyone was calling Watergate.

Worry about the war in Vietnam made sense. Nixon had campaigned for his first term in 1968 on a secret plan to end the long, long war. Hed reduced the number of Americans fighting there, but the war still wasnt over and it grew more unpopular by the minute. Nixon believed that the presidents who led the country into the war had made a real mess of things, a mess he was stuck trying to clean up. And it got in the way of everything else he wanted to do as president. In 1972, he campaigned again on ending the war. The situation was complicated, but Nixon was determined to finally achieve peace.

Watergate was another matter. In June, five months before the election, police had interrupted a middle-of-the-night break-in at the Watergate office and apartment complex a mile west of the White House. They arrested the burglars on the spot and soon discovered that the men were somehow connected to Nixons reelection committee. The story hit the newspapers the next morning, and it could have been very awkward for the president if people believed his campaign staff had done something illegal to try to win votes. But Nixons press secretarythe White House aide who talks to reporterswent on television and described the crime as a third-rate burglary that had nothing to do with the president or any of his aides. Most news outlets soon moved on to other stories, and the burglary faded into the background.

The burglars faced charges related to the break-in and would probably be in the headlines again when they went to trial. But the judge on the case scheduled the trial for after the election, and that was good for Nixon. It meant that the story wasnt in the news on Election Day. And by the time it was, most people wouldnt even remember something that had happened in June. Even so, the night before the election, with all the polls predicting a landslide, Nixon wrote in his diary, The only sour note of the whole thing is Watergate. Why would that be?

Richard Nixon had worked toward winning the 1972 election by a big margin since the day of the 1968 election. But halfway through his first term as president, he had feared he might not win a second term at all. In 1970, prices for food and housing and gasoline were high and getting higher, and that hurt the presidents popularity. People wanted him to fix the economy, and he wanted that too. But he hadnt had much success. At the same time, tens of thousands of college students were shutting down campuses and highways across the country to protest the war in Vietnam and Nixons war policies. That made many voters angry and afraid and made the president look weak. When the Democrats started their campaign for the 1972 election, they would go after the president on all of it.

At that point, even though the election was two years away, Nixon told his aides to do whatever it took to win big in 1972. They followed his order, even using tactics the public could not know about. Tactics that a lot of people would call unfair or underhanded, even criminal. In fact, Nixons men knew that if Americans found out about everything the presidents campaign did, they might say President Nixon stole the 1972 election. But Richard Nixon and his aides went ahead with the underhanded tactics because they believed victory was important enough to use any means necessary to achieve it.

President Nixon greets students in Utica, Michigan, 1972

For two years, the presidents men, as people called his aides (yes, they were all men), got away with dirty tricks, bribes, lies, and more in their effort to guarantee Nixons win. The botched break-in at the Watergate complex was their only slip, and it really wasnt that terrible a crime. Nixons press secretary was rightit was a third-rate burglary. But he was wrong that it had nothing to do with the president or his aides. The problem with Watergate was that if anyone dug too deeply into it, they could uncover enough dirt to destroy