The best way to make history, Winston Churchill wrote, is to write it. And the best way to revise history is to get a bunch of people to lie their heads off. That’s what’s happening right now with regard to Richard Nixon’s reputation, which has lain rightfully in tatters for half a century, due to his cover-up of the Watergate investigation.
It’s easy to understand why Nixon’s apologists are working overtime to clean up his image. President Donald Trump tosses pardons around like Ronald Reagan’s jellybeans. A younger generation of conservatives rightfully lionizes Nixon as a foreign policy genius and doesn’t have first-hand memories of the damage Nixon did by lying repeatedly to the American people. But I do.
So gather around, children, and let me tell you the true story of Watergate. Spoiler alert: Nixon got exactly what he deserved.
Just after midnight on June 17, 1972, a security guard named Frank Wills noticed that a door in the Watergate office/residential complex in Washington, D.C. had been taped open. Wills removed the tape, only to discover, when he circled back an hour later, that the tape had been replaced. He called the police, who found the Watergate’s Democratic National Committee offices chock full of Republican agents snooping around.
To his credit, Nixon had no advance knowledge of the plan hatched by feverish White House operatives. To Nixon’s shame, however, he didn’t put out a statement accepting responsibility. Nixon could have made the whole Watergate thing vanish simply by saying, “My fellow Americans, some overzealous people on my team authorized that break-in. It was a huge mistake. I sincerely apologize to the Democratic Party, and I assure the American people that something like this will never happen again. Everyone involved has been fired and will face legal consequences. Have a nice day.”
Instead, the President took what he called “the hangout route” and entered into a two-year-long campaign of denial. Along the way, reporters, primarily from the Washington Post, uncovered the trail of lies that led from Watergate to the Oval Office. The nation was convulsed by Nixon’s dishonesty, uncovered during months of Senate hearings, judicial proceedings, endless shocking headlines, and ultimately, the spectacle of a president forced from office by his own arrogance. It wasn’t the Watergate break in that broke Nixon. It was the cover-up he demanded.
More than two dozen White House operatives, and even the attorney general, went to prison over their roles in the Watergate cover-up. Nixon’s resignation speech took place on Aug. 8, 1974, my 16th birthday. My politically obsessed family sped through dinner so we could all pile into a bar and watch the speech on a small color TV. The next day, after a tearful farewell to the White House staff, Nixon helicoptered off to oblivion.
The people seeking to rewrite history are respectable politicians, relatives, and admirers of the late president. But they are doing America a terrible disservice. Watergate and Vietnam combined to destroy the trust Americans had always placed in their leaders. The country has never been the same. Nixon’s dishonesty, illegal activity, and forcing of his followers to lie on his behalf forever tarnished the presidency. His behavior also empowered the press to think of itself as a coequal branch of government, free to attack any politician for any reason at any time.
Ironically, George McGovern, the Democratic nominee the Watergate crew sought to discredit, had no chance of winning, carrying only Washington, D.C., and the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. Nixon won all 49 other states. Watergate was totally unnecessary.
STEVE JOBS SPENT HIS ENTIRE LIFE SEEING THE FUTURE. THEN CAME HIS LAST WORDS
Should Nixon be valued by history for his opening to China, his detente with the Soviet Union, his saving of Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war, his environmentalism, and his economic decisions? Undoubtedly. Should he get a pass for having destroyed, then and forever, our faith in the Oval Office? No way.
Nixon paid an appropriate price for his actions. Let’s not undo the judgment of history just because enough people have forgotten the price we paid for Watergate, and still pay to this day.
Michael Levin is a two-time New York Times bestselling author. His next novel, 2028, A Political Thriller, will be published by Morgan James in April 2027.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
