The Secret of Deep Throat Is Finally Out
June 4, 2005 — -- It was just too exciting. The closely held secret revealed after 30 years. Well, at least it was exciting to those of us who lived through those times.
The Census Bureau says there are now more than 296 million Americans, half of them born after 1974. Hello?
As an aging baby boomer that is downright scary to me. It means half the American people did not experience "Watergate," the scandal that for the first time in history forced a U.S. president to resign.
On Aug. 8, 1974, Richard M. Nixon tearfully gave up the highest office in the land. Congress was about to impeach him. The Supreme Court had made him turn over incriminating tape recordings of White House conversations. In them, Nixon could be heard scheming with his aides on how to keep his own government investigators from finding out the truth.
The man who famously told the American people, "I am not a crook," turned out indeed to be one of the biggest political crooks ever. He was masterminding a re-election scheme that involved burglaries, bribes, pay-offs, wiretaps, enemy lists and lies.
But democracy stepped in with its checks and balances. Check (stop) the law-breaking and balances (bring back into line) the power of the president and the executive branch.
The constitutionally protected "free press" played an important role, as well. In particular, The Washington Post, which kept digging out the story and described in detail the lengths to which President Nixon was going to cover up his and his aides' wrongdoing.
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were young Post reporters who were initially assigned to cover the local Washington, D.C., police department. What they thought was a simple case of breaking and entering turned out to be the beginning of the end for President Nixon.
It occurred at the Watergate, a Washington showplace. The huge complex on the Potomac River includes a hotel, apartments, and offices. Shockingly, the five men arrested for the break-in at the National Democratic Party Headquarters worked for the Nixon administration. They were trying to read files and bug the Democrats' offices and phones. The date was June 17, 1972, five months before the presidential election, in which Richard Nixon was seeking re-election to a second term. It appears he was determined to win no matter what.
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