Keith W. Olson - Watergate: The Presidential Scandal That Shook America?with a New Afterword by Max Holland

watergate

The Presidential Scandal
That Shook America

Keith W. Olson

With a New Afterword by Max Holland

2016 by the University Press of Kansas
All rights reserved

Published by the University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas 66045), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and is operated and funded by Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Olson, Keith W., 1931 author. | Holland, Max, author of afterword.

Title: Watergate : the presidential scandal that shook America / Keith W. Olson ; with a new afterword by Max Holland.

Description: [2016 edition]. | Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016023808| ISBN 9780700623563 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780700623570 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780700623587 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Watergate Affair, 19721974.

Classification: LCC E860 .O47 2016 | DDC 973.924dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023808.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication is recycled and contains 30 percent postconsumer waste. It is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials z 39.48-1992.

To the memory of David A. Shannon

My interest in Watergate dates from its beginning. Early in 1968 the three senior professors in my department who specialized in twentieth-century U.S. domestic history decided the department needed a new course that covered the postwar years because in their courses they never got beyond 1945. They assigned the course to me, a nontenured assistant professor. When Richard M. Nixon won the presidential election of 1968 I was teaching this new course, The United States since World War II. The last week of the course I discussed the 1968 election. For the next fifteen or so years, the student response to this upper-level course, which I usually taught with three graduate assistants, was rewarding. Each time I taught the course the ending date advanced a year in time, so Watergate and Nixons resignation gained prominent places in the syllabus. I based each new lecture on a close following of current events. As the years the course covered increased, I needed to eliminate a lecture topic when I added a new one. This meant I constantly rethought the entire Cold War era as I reconfigured lecture topics.

The University of Maryland and my home are in the northern suburbs of Washington, D.C. Each morning the Washington Post arrives in my driveway. For me, Watergate combined a professional interest, a current-events interest, and a local interest. The three times Nixon ran for president I voted for his Democratic Party opponent, although I cast my votes without enthusiasm. My research in newspapers that had supported Nixon, therefore, provided a perspective different from my own. Moreover, I had friends and colleagues who supported Nixon and his policies until early 1973.

At the various stages of my research and writing, professional friends have helped me with their critical analyses, their encouragement, and their readings of parts of the manuscript: Herman Belz, Michael Berry, Harry Blatt, Bob Buzzanco, Matthew Carnicelli, Lloyd Gardner, Jussi Hanhimaki, Bill Hoing, Mitch Horowitz, Harry Jeffrey, Joe Marcey, Steve Ochs, Don Ritchie, Whit Ridgway, Tim Sullivan, Sam Walker, and Matt Wasniewski. Wayne Cole read and commented on the entire manuscript near its final stage.

The two readers for the University Press of Kansas provided invaluable critiques that improved the manuscript substantively and stylistically. I am deeply grateful to them. For years Michael Briggs, editor in chief of the press, patiently and helpfully encouraged me. To him I also owe a lasting debt of appreciation.

As always, my greatest acknowledgment is to my wife, Marilyn, who read each of the various stages of the manuscript and has supported me in every other way.

The Watergate scandal created a constitutional crisis second only to the Civil War of more than a century earlier and resulted in the first presidential resignation in U.S. history. Beginning in June 1972 and continuing to August 1974, the affair aroused increasing public interest and eventually dominated the national news. The event that served as Watergates catalyst took place early on the morning of June 17, 1972, when metropolitan Washington, D.C., police arrested five burglars in the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. That office was located in one of the three buildings of the Watergate complex, on the banks of the Potomac River in Washington. Watergate quickly became the term that stood for the events surrounding the break-in. Over time, Watergate took on a wider meaning, as media, judicial, and congressional investigations explored the background of the break-in and later the presidential cover-up and other related activities.

On April 30, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon presented a nationwide address, About the Watergate Investigations, one in a series of climactic moments in the Watergate story. At the beginning of his address the president defined issues in what has come to be known as the Watergate affair. These include charges of illegal activity during and preceding the 1972 presidential election and charges that responsible officials participated in efforts to cover up that illegal activity. The Watergate episode, as such, encompasses both of these phases.

An event as monumental as Watergate in the nations history has stimulated a steady stream of books. Because of the authors insights and the books rich detail, the most authoritative study remains Stanley I. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (1990). A number of Watergate participants have also written books, including lawyers, journalists, politicians, and members of the White House staff and the Committee to Re-elect the President. Nixons biographers and other scholars concerned with a wide range of subjects have also contributed to the large corpus of Watergate studies.

Rather than revisit the subjects of existing books, albeit with research in the new sources slowly becoming available, my purpose in this book is to write a brief analytical history to place Watergate into a broad context for persons too young to have lived through or to remember the years 1972 through 1974. In the first two chapters I summarize the events and attitudes that precipitated the June 1972 break-in. In the final, interpretative chapter I examine the extent to which Watergate, both the June 1972 break-in and its subsequent cover-up phases, fits into the broad Cold War mainstream framework of political values and rationalizations.

My second purpose is to analyze the unmasking of the cover-up, essentially from the publics perspective. The information the public received about Watergate and public reaction to this information provide the keys to understanding Nixons resignation. Newspaper editorials from all corners of the country, news magazines, and politicians statements document the changing national mood that steadily grew more negative toward the presidents explanation and actions. To an important degree the politicians positions and statements were both influenced by and a reaction to the media coverage of events. Unmasking the cover-up answers two fundamental questions: what role did Republicans and conservatives play in creating the atmosphere that led to resignation, and how strong and how widespread were the demands for Nixon to leave office? The ultimate failure of the cover-up, the role Republicans and conservatives played, and the strength of the movement to force Nixon from office form the narrative themes of chapters three through eight.