Nixon was well within his rights to fire EVERY SINGLE ONE,... like Obama did, and like Clinton did.
The only difference is THE MEDIA.
The media ignored it for Obama and Clinton, and screwed Nixon over so bad he eventually resigned. Like they are trying to do with Trump.
You could say there were some actual crimes committed by the committee to re-elect the president (which the media eagerly renamed CREEP) when the Watergate hotel was broken into, but I doubt Nixon called anyone and said “Hey break into the Watergate”
But the break-in was the 1970’s equivalent of spying on the other campaign LIKE OBAMA DID.
PS. It was THE MEDIA who dubbed it “The Saturday Night Massacre”
They complained when Bush’s attorney general fired them all too. (only not as successfully)
John Dean was investigating a call girl ring for personal reasons.
There is a difference between a president firing all the US Attorneys at the change of administrations and firing a special prosecutor who is investigating that president. But it was Nixon’s right to do it, though hard to survive politically. And yes, the term Massacre is over the top with one guy getting fired and two resigning.
A great bumper sticker came out of that fiasco, though: “Impeach the Cox sacker”
” but I doubt Nixon called anyone and said “Hey break into the Watergate”
The authors of “Silent Coup” would certainly agree with you; they came to the conclusion that the guy who ordered the break-in was none other than John Dean.
And the evidence that they uncovered while researching their book convinced G. Gordon Liddy:
G. Gordon Liddy testified about the Watergate break-in for the first time today, saying burglars were not seeking political intelligence but photographs linking the future wife of President Richard M. Nixon’s White House counsel, John W. Dean III, to a call-girl ring.
Mr. Liddy, who arranged the botched burglary that led to Nixon’s resignation, said a floor plan of the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate office building showed him that he had been deceived about the mission of the burglars.
‘’I said to myself, ‘Oh, my God,’ ‘’ Mr. Liddy testified. ‘’My eyes opened.’’
Mr. Liddy’s statements in a defamation case here marks the first time in 28 years that he has testified about details of the break-in.
Mr. Liddy said he had told the burglars to bug the offices of Lawrence F. O’Brien Jr., chairman of the Democratic National Committee. But the F.B.I. later found a tap on the phone of R. Spencer Oliver, a committee official who had an office on the other side of the building.
Mr. Liddy said he came to his conclusion about the mission years later, after being shown the floor plan of the Democratic offices by Len Colodny, an author of a 1991 book, ‘’Silent Coup,’’ that linked Mr. Dean’s fiancée, Maureen Biner, now his wife, to a call-girl ring that Mr. Colodny said was used by the committee. The book’s publisher, St. Martin’s Press, settled a libel suit by the Deans in 1997, and Mr. Dean has called claims that he masterminded the break-in ‘’baloney.’’
The floor plan showed that Mr. Oliver’s office faced a hotel across the street where an eavesdropper was monitoring phone calls. The wiretap could transmit only to a receiver in the line of sight, meaning that Mr. O’Brien’s office could not have been the target, Mr. Liddy said.
The eavesdropper, Alfred Baldwin, has said in videotaped testimony that some conversations were sexually explicit, involving a member of Congress or a senator.
Mr. Oliver has said he had no knowledge of the calls.
After seeing the map, Mr. Liddy said, he stopped believing that the break-in was an effort to gather political intelligence for the 1972 campaign.
Mr. Liddy has said the burglars were seeking to retrieve photographs of Mr. Dean’s fiancée in a package of call-girl photographs that he says were used by the Democratic committee to set up liaisons for visitors in nearby apartments. Mr. Liddy said the photographs had been kept in the desk of Mr. Oliver’s secretary, Ida Wells.
Ms. Wells is suing Mr. Liddy in United States District Court for defamation because he has publicly linked her with his theory about the break-in. She is seeking $5.1 million in damages from Mr. Liddy, a 70-year-old radio talk show host.
Mr. Liddy testified today that he was a White House aide earning $19,000 per year when he was recruited by Mr. Dean to work on Nixon’s re-election committee. Mr. Dean told him that an ‘’all-out offensive and defensive political operation’’ with a $1 million budget was needed for the 1972 election, Mr. Liddy said.
The order to break into the Democratic committee came from Nixon’s deputy campaign director, Jeb Stuart Magruder, and was not part of Mr. Liddy’s original espionage plan against the Democrats.
‘’I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why they wanted to go in there,’’ Mr. Liddy said. ‘’The whole thing was stupid.’’
It was only later, he said, that he realized the true motive.
‘’This was a John Dean op,’’ Mr. Liddy testified today.
Mr. Liddy blamed himself for the bungled burglary on June 17, 1972, saying his ‘’big mistake’’ was telling his men to tape the lock on the entry to the Watergate suite. A guard noticed the lock and called the police.
That night, Mr. Liddy, sitting in a room at the hotel, heard over his walkie-talkie the warnings from a lookout that other people had entered the building with flashlights.
Finally, Mr. Liddy said, he heard someone say, ‘’They got us.’’
After the burglars were caught in the Democratic National Committee’s offices, Mr. Liddy said, he went home, woke his wife and told her, ‘’Some of our people got caught tonight; I’m probably going to jail,’’ and went to sleep.
Mr. Liddy said that the next day he went to his office and started destroying evidence of the burglary.
‘’I was shredding stuff left and right,’’ Mr. Liddy said.
He refused to implicate his bosses at his Watergate trial, saying, ‘’My father didn’t raise a rat and a snitch.’’
He served more than four years in federal prison, longer than any of the other Watergate conspirators.
Mr. Liddy will be cross-examined on Tuesday by Ms. Wells’s lawyers.