September 3rd, 2008: Part 1, Watergate

Yesterday's search began with a headfirst dive into the 'great' (terrible?) Watergate Scandal of the 1970's. It all began when I was listening to NPR, and an offhanded comment was made in reference to Watergate. Offhanded though it may have been, but I realized that my knowledge of the political scandal was extremely limited.

Hence the Watergate scandal. Most interesting to me:

1. It all begin with a break in of the Democratic National Convention Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel Complex; thus the name. The break in was performed by five men from lower-to-middle classes, yet the deeper the scandal was revealed, the higher the scandal ran up the political totem poll, ending (as most of us know) with the man himself: Nixon.

2. There are a few different terms that reference the events of Watergate.

• The first, Deep Throat, was the pseudonym given to the informant who relayed information to the Washington Post about Nixon's involvement with it all. It was later revealed that the informant was W. Mark Felt, who was the FBI's associate director at the time.
• The tapes included conversations recorded in the Oval office and a couple of other rooms in the White House. They were subpoenaed in 1973 by independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Nixon refused to hand them over and ordered Cox to drop the subpoena.
• The Saturday Night Massacre happened because of the result of Cox's refusal to drop the subpoena. Nixon started firing random people, including Attorney General Elliot Richardson and deputy William Ruckelshaus in order to find someone in the Justice department who was willing to fire Cox. He found Solicitor General Robert Bork.
• The 'smoking gun' was a previously unknown tape that was released and destroyed Nixon politically. Basically the tape, which was recorded only a few days after the break in, had Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman plotting to have the CIA falsely tell the FBI that national security was involved with the break in. Crazy.

3. But what really got me was the "Alternative Theories" section (which is why my next leg was the Kennedy Assassination Theories page). It really gets into the nitty-gritty weird stuff of the whole affair, including a theory that connects to the Bay of Pigs. Apparently, the 'smoking guns' tape had a segment where Nixon mentions that the reason the CIA should put a stop to the Watergate investigations is because of E. Howard Hunt's ties with the "whole Bay of Pigs thing."

Check out the next post for where this safari went next...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal