Posted on 05/25/2012 4:01:28 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
It was, they said, the crime of the century.
An attempted coup d'etat by Richard Nixon, stopped by two intrepid young reporters from The Washington Post and their dashing and heroic editor.
The 1976 movie, "All the President's Men," retold the story with Robert Redford as Bob Woodward, Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein and Jason Robards in his Oscar-winning role as Ben Bradlee. What did Bradlee really think of Watergate?
In a taped interview in 1990, revealed now in "Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee," Bradlee himself dynamites the myth:
"Watergate ... (has) achieved a place in history ... that it really doesn't deserve. ... The crime itself was really not a great deal. Had it not been for the Nixon resignation, it really would have been a blip in history."
"The Iran-Contra hearing was a much more significant violation of the democratic ethic than anything in Watergate," said Bradlee.
Yet when the Iran-Contra scandal hit the Reagan White House, Bradlee chortled, "We haven't had this much fun since Watergate."
All fun and games at the Post. Yet with Nixon's fall came the fall of South Vietnam, thousands executed, hundreds of thousands of boat people struggling in the South China Sea and a holocaust in Cambodia.
Still, what is most arresting about "Yours in Truth" is the panic that gripped Bob Woodward when Jeff Himmelman, the author and a protege of Woodward, revealed to him the contents of the Bradlee tapes.
Speaking of "All the President's Men," Bradlee had said, "I have a little problem with Deep Throat," Woodward's famous source, played in the movie by Hal Holbrooke, later revealed to be Mark Felt of the FBI.
Bradlee was deeply skeptical of the Woodward-Felt signals code and all those secret meetings. He told interviewer Barbara Feinman:
"Did that potted palm thing ever happen? ... And meeting in some garage. One meeting in the garage. Fifty meetings in the garage ... there's a residual fear in my soul that that isn't quite straight."
Bradlee spoke about that fear gnawing at him: "I just find the flower in the window difficult to believe and the garage scenes. ...
"If they could prove that Deep Throat never existed ... that would be a devastating blow to Woodward and to the Post. ... It would be devastating, devastating."
When Himmelman showed him the transcript, Woodward "was visibly shaken" and repeated Bradlee's line -- "there's a residual fear in my soul that that isn't quite straight" -- 15 times in 20 minutes.
Woodward tried to get Bradlee to retract. He told Himmelman not to include the statements in his book. He pleaded. He threatened. He failed.
That Woodward became so alarmed and agitated that Bradlee's bullhockey detector had gone off over the dramatized version of "All the President's Men" suggests a fear in more than just one soul here.
A second revelation of Himmelman's is more startling.
During Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein sought to breach the secrecy of the grand jury. The Post lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams, had to go to see Judge John Sirica to prevent their being charged with jury tampering.
No breach had occurred, we were assured.
We were deceived.
According to Himmelman, not only did Bernstein try to breach the grand jury, he succeeded. One juror, a woman identified as "Z," had collaborated. Notes of Bernstein's interviews with Z were found in Bradlee's files.
Writes Himmelman: "Carl and Bob, with Ben's explicit permission, lured a grand juror over the line of illegality ..."
This means that either Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee lied to Williams about breaching the grand jury, or the legendary lawyer lied to Sirica, or Sirica was told the truth but let it go, as all were engaged in the same noble cause -- bringing down Nixon.
Who was that grand juror? Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee know, but none is talking and no one is asking. The cover-up continues.
Had one of Nixon's men, with his approval, breached the secrecy of the Watergate grand jury, and lied abut it, that aide would have gone to prison and that would have been an article of impeachment.
Conduct that sent Nixon men to the penitentiary got the Post's men a stern admonition. Welcome to Washington, circa 1972.
With the 40th anniversary of the break-in coming up this June, Himmelman's book, well-written and revelatory of the temper of that time, will receive a wider reading.
As will Max Holland's "Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat," out this spring and the definitive book on why J. Edgar Hoover's deputy betrayed his bureau and sought to destroy the honorable man who ran it, L. Patrick Gray.
With Bernstein's primary source spilling grand jury secrets, and Mark Felt leaking details of the FBI investigation to Woodward, both of the primary sources on which the Washington Post's Pulitzer depended were engaged in criminal misconduct.
At Kay Graham's Post, the end justified the means.
Redford is now backing a new documentary, "All the President's Men Revisited." The Sundance Kid has his work cut out for him.
Nixon was a Patriot who got treated by the Left as they do to all who love this Land.
Afghanistan and Iraq = Viet Nam redux?
Sorry, poobear ... That was Albert Brooks in Broadcast News.
21stCenturion
There is no need to read the entire book to discover the real reason for the Watergate break-in. Just read the center section titled "Golden Boy".
Absolutely correct 21C. Friday brain f@rts are forgivable aren’t they? My point still stands.
That I got.
I assumed, however, that there was more to the story than that. Mssrs. Colodny and Gettlin spend so much time in the early part of the book looking into to the Navy career of Bob Woodward, his job as a briefer for Al Haig, his divorce, his start in the newspaper business, his access to highly-classified information, etc. ... I thought that in the chapters following "Golden Boy," the authors would reveal some even darker secret, some larger plot.
After all, the name of the book, Silent Coup, implies that Nixon's fate resulted from a plot undertaken by shadowy figures who had much to gain by his removal from office.
I too used to listen to G. Gordon Liddy back in the 1990s, and I remember him talking about how he had been sued by Dean and how he had prevailed in that lawsuit. I also remember Mr. Liddy's fulsome disdain for Mr. Dean. Liddy seemed to believe that Dean was the cause of Watergate, that Watergate would never have happened without Dean, and that Dean cynically burned his employer and changed history for the worse in order to save his own skin.
As was I.
I get very concerned when people downplay the importance of a conspiracy to commit burglary and wiretapping using laundered money to buy silence which resulted in over sixty high officials being convicted of felonies, most of them lawyers and most of them convicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.
At the height of the revelations, we have Nixon apparently erasing 18 minutes of tape which must have contained information damaging to him far more so than all the information that had already come to light.
Clinton may well have been worse than Nixon. Obama is perhaps worse than Nixon. The problem is that we only know some of what Nixon did and indications are that there is much that was never revealed.
Therein is the true question. Why was the break-in planned, funded, and executed and more importantly, who? The reason that many believe caused the break-in is misleading.
The 1992 book, “Silent Coup”, written by two democrats, Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin reconciles all the facts, not just the cover-up, but also the reason for the break-in. The middle of the book in a section titled “The Golden Boy” contains the background for the break-in. It was not to wire tap Larry Obrien’s desk.
I had the opportunity to hear G. Gordon Liddy’s 20-year anniversary Watergate radio show. This June 17, 1992 show interviewed several interesting witness and revealed some of the suppressed evidence.
Those with a keen interest in the truth about the Watergate scandal have already read Silent Coup but may not have read “Secret Agenda” by Jim Hogan. Secret Agenda details the events surrounding the actual discovery of the break-in and resulting arrest.
Jim McCord came from the Howard Johnson across the street and entered the Watergate around 10:50 PM. The break-in schedule was for 10:00 PM after the office closed but an employee, Bruce Gibner, had stayed late to use the office WATS line to talk to his girlfriend in the Midwest. Jim McCord signed in with the destination of the Federal Reserve on the 8th floor.
The first break-in occurred on May 28, yes, there were two break-ins, but I am speaking of the second break-in on June 16, 17.
I doubt there will ever be a way to know everything about the break-in but there is enough substantiated information to know it was not for the purpose of obtaining information about Lawrence O’Brien.
Like Jack Nicholson said in “A Few Good Men”, all the MSM did during Watergate was to “weaken a country.”
Occasional ‘brain farts’ serve only to demonstrate our humanity. Forgiveness is semi-automatic ...
This ‘old fart’ has been there, done that and has more than a few t-shirts to show for the experience.
21stCenturion
I don’t think so; and Colodny makes a very good case that a) DEAN (not Nixon) ordered the break-in (Liddy confirms, has never been disproven); and b) they weren’t looking in O’Brien’s area, but rather in an insignificant state guy’s area that specifically ONLY related to Maureen Dean and the madam. I think there is something big behind Colodny’s story, but enough time has passed that it will be tougher to prove.
The burglars were at the desk of this low level official, NOT at the more strategic desks, indicating they were there for Dean, not for larger political information.
Liddy has testified in two trials against the Deans, and they have never convicted him or won a suit. He is careful to avoid saying what he thinks, which is that Dean was behind it all. But he has said that Dean is a "serial perjurer," and has not been convicted of slander.
Thanks L.
We’ll just agree to disagree then. What is impossible to believe is that this 34 year old (Dean) could have ordered the breakins himself, for his own purposes, and people would have done this on his say-so, without the involvement in the decision to go of a lot of other people. I have no doubt that these men did not inform the president in order to protect him.
Well, so far the evidence does not support you. Liddy says that is what happened, and in two trials of the Deans v. Liddy, juries have supported Liddy.
A couple of juries take in a civil suit 20 years after the Watergate involving G. Gordon Liddy and a book takes precedent all the other tons of evidence and common sense for you?
I think you have bought into a most unbelievable disinformation campaign to try to define and simplify Watergate for the people.
I seem to remember the book saying that they were just told to get the book. They were not told why or what was in it. I need to dig the book out and re-read it.
Yes, I think I still have that old book somewhere, and I think I’ll re-read what it says too. I just remember being skeptical and suspicious about it, and being disappointed it had absolutely no clue in it of the identity of “Deep Throat.”
I can remember being over at a friends house and the hearings kept being shown instead of important things like the Three
Stooges. So boys will be boys and we watched it for awhile after turning the RGB knob on the color TV all the way to green, upsetting the perfect color balance that his mother had finally achieved. She was not happy...
I thought that the book made it fairly clear that the only person that had the complete subset of the info that Deep Throat revealed was Al Haig.
I think with another 20 yrs of info and hindsight, DT was more than likely multiple people each telling what they knew or wanted reported.
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