Well, ok, especially with that melodramatic build-up!
Let's go back to the thrilling days of 1972. Lots of things were happening that year, especially in terms of my mom praying I'd get the hell out of her womb after more than 9 months. I do believe the Exorcist visited Michigan before going to work on Linda Blair. Gilbert O'Sullivan and Johnny Nash were proving that soft pop could be accepted just as well by the dumb public as great rock by Eric Clapton.
And then there were politics. Dirty politics! In fact, up until the summer of 1972, nobody in America really knew what was going on. In fact, the media was quite different in the Year of Bryan. You had newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. Television news was centered upon one man named Walter Cronkite, who was the most trusted newsman in the nation. Well, there were other on-air anchormen for sure, as Cronkite couldn't get to EVERY network and station.
What you didn't have was the Internet, social media, and multiple talking heads on cable news outlets putting forth their opinions. It was a good thing to be sure, for people could hear/read the news and make mental exercises of their own without others doing the work for them.
And that brings me to this classic nonfiction account of 2 reporters, 1 named Carl Woodward, the other named Bob Bernstein...er, Carl Woodstein and Bob Bernward, WHATEVER! The point is,they worked for the Washington Post at the time of a very odd occurence: the burglary by 5 men of the Watergate Hotel, home of Democratic National Headquarters when they were SUPPOSED to infiltrate the cocktail lounge at the Ramada across the way. These were not bright felllas!
Almost from page 1(well actually page 13 once you get past the title page, legal mumbo jumbo and the 'cast of characters'), Woodward and Bernstein start work on the case separately, discovering before long that instead of making calls and knocking on doors with failing results on their own, it was much better to start failing together! And fail they did, many times, for it seems that after the failed burglary, the people in charge, the Committee to Re-elect the Prez (CREEPS), have told their workers to shut up and not talk to anyone.
Slowly but surely, the two men make progress, getting good information from a bookkeeper, the CREEP treasurer Sloan, and parking garage weirdo Deep Throat (not to be confused with the porno of that name from the same year, though we don't know what this guy did after he left the garage). Adding in confirming stories before going to print, the two reporters get a lot of stories out which infuriates not only CREEP, but also the White House and the FBI, the latter feeling the reporters got stolen Bureau files.
Despite their efforts, the rest of the nation isn't paying much attention, and none of their suspects lead directly to the man at the top, THE GODFATHER at all! Oops, I mean Richard Nixon. I told you 1972 was wild! A huge story on Watergate's link to White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman blows up in their faces and therre is general discouragement for a time. However, the editors, especially the managing editor Ben Bradlee, decide to stand with the boys.
In early 1973, after Nixon's re-election and re-inauguration, the Watergate trials of the 5 burglars plus leaders G Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt, end without the public learning much about what really happened. This leads to a congressional inquiry where the reporters are consulted. Before long, it is revealed that the acting FBI director deliberately botched the original investigations and this leads to many other prosecutions, firings, and resignations in the White House itself. It is also revealed that there was a mass wiretapping operation and other dirty tricks aimed at discrediting the Democratic Party long before Watergate. The one thing that seemed improbable at first was any connection to Nixon...until it is revealed there is a recording system in the Oval Office itself.
By the end of the book (published in 1974), pretty much all of Nixon's original fortress of supporters and yes men are gone and he is getting more paranoid. Lots of guilty pleas from the original set of the president's men have been entered and the reporters have been vindicated for all of their previous reporting efforts in 1972.
The book itself is a tough read at times, as there are many names, often mentioned only once or twice. There is a 'cast of characters' of sorts in the beginning, along with a selection of photos of Nixon and his men, the head burglar, the judge, the senator, and the Post staff. What stands out are the selections from the reporters' articles that objectively state the facts. These 2 guys really pounded the pavement in seeking the truth behind the burglaries. Sometimes they crossed into unethical territory, especially when it came to confirming facts before publication, but that was often due to frustration from people not wanting to go on record.
Overall, it is a great example of good old-fashioned journalism in the form of a detective story of sorts. If you were there when it happened, it serves as a marker of that dark time in American politics. If you weren't there or just born and not getting the gist of the world yet, there are many shockers in the second half, particularly when the acting FBI director Gray revealed many truths that no American citizen could have imagined at the time, a stark contrast to now, when there is supposedly nothing Donald Trump and his men wouldn't do to keep power.
Two years after the book was published, a movie was released with Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein and Robert Redford as Bob Woodward (yeah, THOSE were the names!). It followed the first part of the book well, right up to the article about Haldeman, but showed nothing of the trials or Senate hearings, probably because the rough detective journalism story was over at that point. It was well acted, though I think the reporters could have been better cast. Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee was the best of all.
In conclusion, I highly recommend this book for good summer reading...or prison cell reading, whatever situation provides more time.
No comments:
Post a Comment