Reddit reviews All the President's Men

As someone who lived through Watergate (though I was young at the time) my personal stance is that while the nation's shock was greater during Watergate, the stakes for our nation -- presidential corruption vs foreign interference in our govt -- are much, much higher now.

To be honest, sitting in front of C-SPAN on Thursday I felt exactly as though I were sitting in front of the Watergate hearings in 1974. There's actually not a whole lot of difference between the two for me: same shit, different administration, though again I do believe the stakes are much higher now. The machinery, however, seems to remain unchanged.

If you're really interested, you should read Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book about Watergate, All the President's Men.

These two WaPo reporters are the reason we even know about the significance of the break in at the Watergate complex, and they are the direct catalyst of the hearings that eventually ousted Nixon and got most of his staff prison sentences.

If you don't feel like spending the $$, I guarantee that in the US your local library has it or can order it, and I'm sure there are freebies floating around on the net, but IMO you need to read it if you really want a good grip on how all this works.

If you don't have time for the book the movie's really good too, but to understand the facts I strongly recommend the book. After you get done reading it, and following their trail of investigative reporting, it is my personal opinion that you won't have nearly as much trouble assessing the scale of a given scandal: it's all about separating out the opinion and spin from factual reports.

I'm thrilled you're interested, Watergate is directly relevant to what is happening today, and I hope this little bit helps.

I think you should read a book on this. You’re interested in the topic and could use more data points.

There are two steps in the impeachment process. First, the House votes to impeach by a 50% vote. If impeached, there is a trial in the senate. The senate convicts by a 67% vote. If impeached and convicted, the pres is evicted.

Two presidents have been impeached in the House, Andrew Johnson and bill Clinton. Nobody has been convicted. Nixon resigned because he knew the House was going to impeach him.

There are no criteria for being impeached. It’s a political process. You could be guilty of a crime, or they just want you gone. Clinton was impeached because he lied under oath about banging an intern. Technically a crime, but I would say it’s insubstantial.

Nixon’s administration was trying to subvert democracy by breaking into their opponents office and stealing secrets they could use to influence the election. Trumps administration tried to subvert democracy by conspiring with Russian agents to steal emails from Hillary in order to influence the election.

In both cases the act is so heinous, and the person so awful, that impeachment is called for.

E: this book is an easy read on the subject, and one of the most important pieces of journalism ever. https://www.amazon.com/All-Presidents-Men-Bob-Woodward/dp/1476770514/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1523729495&sr=8-4&keywords=all+the+presidents+men

> Does anyone have newspapers/microfilm from any news sources covering the scandal?

The Washington Post owned the story for months and months. Start here.

> Was there any speculative gossip in the news, or did they simply not cover it until facts were officially released?

I encourage you to read All the President's Men, Woodward and Berstein's seminal account of breaking the story. Their early stories did in fact speculate. Some of their stories were wrong. For example, they made a famous mistake in a story claiming a witness had named H.R. Haldeman to a grand jury when in fact the witness had not. They only had some of the details.They had to guess at others.

> How long did the scandal last, from speculative gossip, if there was any, to resignation?

The story began June 18th, 1972. Nixon resigned more than two years later, August 8th, 1974.

> Was the public aware, or was there speculation, gossip, hearsay, etc, during the election; or did it all begin to surface afterward? Did the public actively elect someone whom they suspected to be a criminal?

The story was out before the election, but Nixon's direct involvement wasn't proven. Officials who worked for the White House, Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt, had been indicted for their role in the burglary, however no evidence had been made public that the Oval Office had any knowledge of their actions. The Washington Post had uncovered that one of the burglars had been paid from a Nixon campaign fund controlled by John Mitchell, Nixon's attorney general, however they didn't have evidence that Mitchell knew of the payment or had directly authorized it.

Ooh! How about a book about Presidents!?

All The President's Men

(grins)

Yeah Watergate was a lot bigger than just the break in. Start with this vid here. It's the first thing the guy talks about. Hell it's basically the basis for the entire segment. And I personally recommend All the Presidents Men AND The Final Days by Woodward and Bernstein as great starting points (and imo they really should be read together). Also recommend Elizabeth Drew's Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall. She was a reporter for the Washington Journal during the whole thing and that's her day by day diary from then. Interesting to go through it all as she did firsthand.

No. Richard Nixon is the only president who voluntarily left office before the end of his term. Every other president left office after choosing not to seek another term, being defeated in an election, or dying in office. There are several presidents who were elected and served one term then were defeated in the next election (Adams, Q. Adams, Pierce, Hoover, Carter, etc.), but none of them can be fairly characterized as having been ‘protested out of office.’

The closest that the US ever came to protesting a president out of office would have to be Nixon’s immediate predecessor, Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson became president in 1963 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. During his first term (from 63-64, finishing JFK’s term), he had remarkably high approval ratings (an average of 74% according to gallup)). He succeeded in passing the Civil Rights act, then was re-elected in 1964 one of the most lopsided elections in American history. His second term included passage of the voting rights act along with the war on poverty embodied by the great society programs. However, he also began American involvement in Vietnam. By 1968, mostly as a result of the war, Johnson was deeply unpopular with the Democratic party, which was in the process of tearing itself apart. As he had taken over from Kennedy more than halfway through his term, Johnson was still eligible to run for re-election. Due largely to the unpopularity of Vietnam, he was challenged in the Democratic primary by the anti-war Eugene McCarthy. Although he won the first primary (in New Hampshire) McCarthy had a relatively strong showing, which demonstrated Johnson’s electoral weakness to the rest of the party. Seeing this, Robert Kennedy entered the race 4 days later. Realizing that he had no realistic path to victory, Johnson withdrew from the race on March 31, 1968.

As for Nixon, he left office ‘voluntarily,’ choosing to resign rather than be forced out by impeachment. Although there were frequent protests against Nixon during his administration (again largely due to Vietnam), he maintained high popularity for most of his time in office and was re-elected in 1972, winning with 60% of the popular vote and an electoral college margin of 520 to 17. Nixon’s popularity did not collapse until the full scope of Watergate came to light. After the congressional hearings in May 1973, his approval ratings collapsed into the 20s and never recovered. It is important to note that while the late 60s and early 70s are often remembered for being times of significant protests and counter-culture movements, it was still counter-culture. I.e. it often represented the views of a disproportionally loud minority. Nixon understood this and was able to use protests against him as a wedge issue to motivate his base. He coined the (frequently misused) term ‘silent majority’ to represent this division. The silent majority was the large group of Americans who supported the war and did not protest.



Sources / recommended Reading for Nixon and Johnson:

Nixonland by Rick Perlstein

All the Robert Caro LJB Books

All the President’s Men Woodward and Bernstein’s account of the Watergate investigation