Fifty Years Ago this Month
By Albert B. Kelly
I’m always fascinated with historical events that that change the course of history. There are obvious events like assassinations, terrorist attacks, and similar traumatic happenings where it is obvious to all that things will never be the same going forward. Such was the case with Pearl Harbor in 1941, the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 and the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001.
But then there are the events that pass quietly, unnoticed and unrecognized so that it is only in hindsight that we realize that it was the start of something that would change everything. This past June 17th marked 50 years since five guys broke into a complex named the Watergate. But for a security guard noticing a piece of tape on a door leading to the parking garage, we would not know about the break-in and President Richard Nixon would likely not have been forced to resign.
For those who may not recall the whole Watergate affair or who were too young to remember, it was June 17, 1972 when 5 guys broke into the Watergate complex which at the time was the headquarters for the Democratic National Committee.
The 5 burglars were funded by the “Committee to Re-Elect the President” which was set up and operating on behalf of Republican President Richard Nixon to help him win re-election in 1972. The purpose of the break-in was to install phone taps and find damaging information to be used against Democratic candidates running against him in that year’s presidential campaign.
When it was all said and done, what we know as the Watergate scandal unfolded over nearly 26 months and resulted in the resignation of Richard Nixon as President of the United States on August 9, 1974. Everyone might have their own view of history, but for me, the whole Watergate scandal was the beginning of a much harder and more difficult time in the life of this country.
June 1972 had another obscure moment that ultimately changed the course of history. It occurred on June 23rd, five days after the break-in at the Watergate and it occurred in the Oval Office. We know this because the moment was captured on a tape recording. That was the day that the President sat in the Oval Office talking with his top aides about how to stop the investigation of the break-in at the Watergate.
It was ultimately that tape recording from June 23, 1972 that became known as the “smoking gun”, proof-positive that the President lied when he said that he had no knowledge of the break-in prior to March 1973 and certainly no involvement in subsequent efforts to cover up the break-in. What that tape plainly showed was that the President lied to his staff, his lawyers, and the entire country for nearly 2 years.
It is from Watergate that we get the piece of wisdom that dictates that the cover up is worse than the crime and I suppose that’s true. Had Richard Nixon not attempted to impede and stop the investigation, nor entertained the idea of coming up with “hush money” to keep the burglars quiet, things would have ended far differently for him and the country.
A lot has happen in 50 years. As anniversaries go, the break-in at the Watergate and a twenty minute conversation between the President and his top aides 5 days later certainly pale in comparison to such events as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination, and the 9/11 attacks. But the particular thread that began quietly unraveling fifty years ago this month changed everything.
It hastened much of the cynicism and mistrust that is now our resting position toward politics and politicians in general. It may be unfair to lay all of that at the feet of Richard Nixon, but it becomes easy to do when you hear excerpts of those tape recordings where he is talking like a common thief and you come to realize his complete disregard for what the American people entrusted him with- the presidency.
The other thing that began hardening into place from June 1972 onward is the undercurrent of mistrust and hostility that has come to characterize any dealings between the news media and government in general, the idea that government is always hiding something or that the news media always has an agenda so that 50 years later, whatever we dislike is dismissed as “fake news”, truth be damned.