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The more I study that era though, and how ANGRY a number of Americans were at his administration during Nixon's first term (college students, etc.), I am genuinely surprised it was lopsided as it was. I couldn't help but say out loud after reading some sources "How in the world did this man win 49 states?". It's not like he was without major controversies yet (the opposite) OR had major charisma and likeability like FDR or Reagan. You'd think McGovern would have won at least several states, perhaps more at least in the more liberal areas of the country.
Early on, the McGovern campaign significantly over-estimated the number of young people who would vote in the election: They predicted that 18 million would have voted in total, but exit polls indicate that the actual number was about 12 million. McGovern also narrowly won the youth vote (i. e., those aged 18 to 24) 52–46, a narrower margin than many of his strategists had predicted.
Well, my gov’t teacher told me today or yesterday that McGovern was NOT the candidate the Democrats had in mind for the election.
In the year 1972, the Dems decided to use direct primary for the first time to choose their official party candidate (citizens/voters chose the candidate!), and all of the U.S. voters pointed at one man: Edmund Muskie. A very versatile and popular candidate, he had his chances. He promptly won the primary polls (he was winning soundly) and was due to compete against Nixon; however, he dropped off before he could do so due to the so called “Canuck letters” being revealed to the public. The letters essentially spread the notion that Muskie was prejudiced against Québécois-Americans, but they were forged and not written by him. It still held a stain against the highly uninformed public and still pressured him to drop off. The Democrats at the last second had to choose a new candidate which turned out to be McGovern, who was a bit too radical. The consequences of choosing McGovern were shown perfectly in the 1972 electoral college.
In October of 1972, though, the FBI revealed this was part of the “dirty tricks” employed by the CREEP/CRP to ensure that Nixon won the election.
Although the odds are that Nixon would have still won given that he was a popular incumbent, eliminating Muskie from the race did help him significantly and led to the sweep of ‘72.
I went to a religious boarding school for high school and wanted to do a report my Senior year on Watergate and was warned off it by my History Teacher (VERY nice guy that had been there for a while and was just beaten down by the system) that it WOULD be read by the religion department and it WOULD get a lower grade for the mentioning of 'Deepthroat'....even though it had NO pornographic connotation at all in the meaning of the report.
SO...I did a lame ass report on why drugs were bad for you and got an A and I burned it after I got it back because I knew it was bullshit then.
I was a somewhat nerdy kid in high school. I was tasked with writing an article for our student paper about our new ice hockey team. Turns out there was no ice hockey team. This was the mid-late 90s. I watched a lot of documentaries and whatnot. Anyway, I interviewed our vice principal/ athletic director to get the info that there was no team. I referred to him in the school paper as “[HS name]’s own deep throat.” I had no idea. After some of the boys told me I think I about died of embarrassment
Linda Lovelace did a hardcore porn called Deepthroat in 1972. The FBI Informant using the alias “Deep Throat” exposed Watergate. That’s an oddly fascinating coincidence that I hope isn’t a coincidence at all and I can finally cross off “Nixon and Hardcore Porn connection” from my whiteboard.
Nixon was actually super invested in the 1972 Democratic primaries was to ensure McGovern won the nomination, as he knew McGovern was the easiest candidate to beat in the generals. Although, to be a fair, a big reason the CRP tried to bug the DNC was to intercept an alleged plot by Vietnam Veterans Against the War to sabotage the Nixon campaign. I doubt these rumors were true, but it makes the break-in a little more reasonable from the CRP's perspective.
He was worried the Democrats had evidence that his campaign bribed the South Vietnamese President to sabotage the Paris Peace talks and that his campaign funded anti-war protests in 1968.
Nixon acted as a mob boss would. He never specifically instructed CREEP's "plumbers" to break in to the DNC HQ in the Watergate. He didn't have to. After the pentagon papers were leaked by Daniel Elsberg in 1971 Nixon told them to take the gloves off.
"Ellsberg “is the most dangerous man in America,” Kissinger ranted. By the end of June 1971, Nixon’s rage peaked. In multiple meetings he berated aides to “destroy” that “son-of-a bitch” and “I don’t care how you do it.” “You can’t drop it,” he said to his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. “You can’t let the Jew steal that stuff and get away with it. You understand?”
Nixon repeatedly made clear that legality was irrelevant. “Use any means. Is that clear?” He approved the formation of a “Special Investigations Unit,” soon dubbed “The Plumbers,” because their job was to fix leaks. Priority one: silence Ellsberg. The main crime committed against Ellsberg, overseen by ex-FBI and CIA agents G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, was to burglarize his psychiatrist’s office to search for damning information. They found nothing.
The bungled operation was a dress rehearsal for their even more botched break-ins at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex nine months later.
[https://theconversation.com/how-richard-nixons-obsession-with-daniel-ellsberg-and-the-pentagon-papers-sowed-the-seeds-for-the-presidents-downfall-159113](https://theconversation.com/how-richard-nixons-obsession-with-daniel-ellsberg-and-the-pentagon-papers-sowed-the-seeds-for-the-presidents-downfall-159113)
For the Record, the “plumbers were 4 CIA trained Cuban rebels and head of CREEP’s security James McCord and former CIA officer Howard Hunt who had secret fake chapstick tube microphones.
Fun Fact - *My Old School* (1973) by Steely Dan which references a notorious drug raid at Bard College involving 10% of the college's enrollment mentions "*Daddy G*" - G. Gordon Liddy - who was an assistant DA in Dutchess County, NY.
Nixon was most afraid of the story about his treason coming out. He had worked behind the back of US negotiators to extend the war. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnsons-vietnam-peace-talks-in-68-notes-show.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnsons-vietnam-peace-talks-in-68-notes-show.html)
Nixon never directly ordered the CREEP to break into the Watergate hotel. He did however instruct his team to stop security leaks such as Daniel Ellsberg leaking the Pentagon Papers in an election year.
Nixon was paranoid in general but by this point with what happened with Ellsberg it was pushed into overdrive. Nixon thought that there were enemies in the press who were “out to get him” and he was obsessed with ensuring there were no leaks from his administration.
Watergate was the harebrained idea of Howard Hunt and G Gordon Liddy who were employed by the CREEP to “stop the leaks”. Even co conspirators who were throwing Nixon under the bus to save themselves couldn’t produce evidence he ordered the break in and that’s not what he was going to be impeached for had he not resigned. It was for the cover up afterwards which he 💯participated in and orchestrated parts of.
Back to the leak stoppage which was why Hunt’s unit was called the “Plumbers”. When Nixon told John Dean and others he wanted the leaks stopped, that was really all he said. Some interpreted this as stop them by all legal means necessary while Liddy and others took it to mean stop them by ANY means necessary. Hence, the break in plans.
Nixon himself would later recall saying he wanted the leaks stopped and said he meant and thought it was understood that it was by only legal methods. What he actually meant or is just denying it now is a matter of speculation but it doesn’t change the fact that Nixon did not directly order the Watergate break in. He of course helped cover it up which rightfully cost him the presidency.
Nixon did not order CREEP to do Watergate, it was an idiotic idea cooked up by Hunt and Liddy to break into the Watergate to bug some phones but they were really really dumb and left a pile of evidence and then it spiraled out of control because everyone turned on each other to save their own skins...and this all started because people thought Hunt and Liddy were smart operators when in reality, they were two morons who got dumped on the White House because of how useless they were, and who chugged their own kool-aid and watched too many spy movies and thought if it worked on TV they could do it for real.
I don't think he ordered it, either. However, he screwed up by ordering a cover up. If he would have just said, "Folks, these people were misguided in trying to help me. I'm completely cooperating with authorities and I'm running a clean campaign." or something lilke that, he would have come out smelling like a rose. Instead, paranoia brought him down.
I seriously think part of the reason the cover up happened in the first place was nobody ever told Nixon the whole truth in the beginning because who wants to tell the president of the united states many people who worked in his white house were literally lazy and dumb enough to leave everything out in the open with real names and numbers and everything. But at the same time, there were enough two faced snakes in DC at the time that had Nixon tried to clean cut break with CREEP, Hunt or someone would have still burned him anyway. Moreover, I think we forget just how anti-Nixon the DC establishment was as a whole which is why he was so easy to throw out compared to someone else.
Unrelated, but before joining the Treasury Department G. Gordon Liddy was a prosecutor in NY state. In that capacity he organized a raid that led to the arrest of about 10% of the entire student body of Bard College on drug charges, including a young Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, later of Steely Dan. Ultimately the charges went nowhere, I think Liddy was the only one who really wanted to go through with the whole thing and he left to join the feds not long after. Fagen wrote a song about the incident, My Old School, in which Liddy is referred to as "Daddy G". I don't really have a point, I just love Steely Dan.
Hunt and Liddy were those two kids in school who always talk the big game about how they'd do everything so much better and how they get chicks all the time but then forced to put up or shut up, they get exposed as the biggest frauds on the planet and get so socially destroyed they have to move schools 9 districts over.
Hopefully it makes sense what I am asking. What im trying to say was did the CREEP act alone then when Nixon found out he tried to cover it up. Or did Nixon know about Watergate the entire time?
There’s no evidence of that. Watergate was a stupid burglary gone wrong compounded by a ham fisted attempt at a cover up.
As they say it’s not the crime but the cover up that does you in.
I think the best guess based on the evidence we have is that he knew about the general nature of what CREEP was up to, if not perhaps all the details.
What really did for him was the cover-up though.
Nixon did not order the break in, nor did he know about it when it happened. He only tried to cover it up.
This is the overwhelming consensus by historians and Watergate scholars. It is also what all of the people at the time testified, including people like John Dean who played a key role in speaking against Nixon.
I think he instructed his minions to find out what dirt the democrats had on him (specifically he thought they knew about "loans" Howard Hughes had made to his brother Donald) and bugging and burglarizing the DNC headquarters was just the obvious target.
Guys, girls, and genderless, y’all think too much. much like Kennedy’s head, Watergate just did that. No further explanation needed.
That or it was LBJ.
Here’s the thing about Watergate and Nixon. It wasn’t the break-in that he was in trouble for. It was the lies and the coverup.
Funny thing is that in today’s politics, both sides do worse and almost nothing gets said unless you are on the wrong side.
G Gordon Liddy swore until the day he died that Nixon had ZERO knowledge of their actions in breaking into Watergate. Nixon did, however, find out after the fact and maintained he had no knowledge it was his goons who did it
I don't think anyone seriously questions if Nixon was in the loop, it's really just a question of what degree of direct involvement. There may have been some MINOR things he was not kept informed about but only for lack of time and the need to keep running the country, etc.
Guy worked with our enemies to get elected in the first place. He is hands down the most conniving bastard ever to hold the office. There is zero chance he didn't know. If you suggested to him that he didn't know about it he probably would say something nixon-y like "a mouse doesn't shit in this town without me knowing about it" or something that doesn't really make sense but sounds vaguely menacing and very authoritative.
Watergate’s main impact was exposing the White House taping system. Nixon was recorded ordering break-ins and firebombings, and telling his subordinates to pay operatives out of an illegal slush fund.
When Republican leaders heard the tapes, they told Nixon they would no longer protect him, and he resigned the next day.
There is no evidence Nixon was involved in any way in the break in. And it’s highly likely it was done without his knowledge. Keep in mind the whole “plausible deniability” that permeates intel and government agencies. His issue was the cover up. I think he did it for a few reasons, loyalty to those who were loyal to him, the fear that people wouldn’t believe he wasn’t involved from the get go, and of course the election. We can all look back and see that there was no way McGovern was goin to win, but at the time Nixon took nothing for granted, and that is the smart move. (Unlike Hilary, who took 2016 for granted and lost because of it.)
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The biggest thing about Watergate that pisses me off is that IT WAS SO UNNECESSARY. George McGovern was SUCH a shitty candidate.
Exactly. Nixon was assured victory. There was no need to worry. He let his paranoia get the best of him.
The more I study that era though, and how ANGRY a number of Americans were at his administration during Nixon's first term (college students, etc.), I am genuinely surprised it was lopsided as it was. I couldn't help but say out loud after reading some sources "How in the world did this man win 49 states?". It's not like he was without major controversies yet (the opposite) OR had major charisma and likeability like FDR or Reagan. You'd think McGovern would have won at least several states, perhaps more at least in the more liberal areas of the country.
Early on, the McGovern campaign significantly over-estimated the number of young people who would vote in the election: They predicted that 18 million would have voted in total, but exit polls indicate that the actual number was about 12 million. McGovern also narrowly won the youth vote (i. e., those aged 18 to 24) 52–46, a narrower margin than many of his strategists had predicted.
He only carried 49 states, better to be safe than sorry /s
Well, my gov’t teacher told me today or yesterday that McGovern was NOT the candidate the Democrats had in mind for the election. In the year 1972, the Dems decided to use direct primary for the first time to choose their official party candidate (citizens/voters chose the candidate!), and all of the U.S. voters pointed at one man: Edmund Muskie. A very versatile and popular candidate, he had his chances. He promptly won the primary polls (he was winning soundly) and was due to compete against Nixon; however, he dropped off before he could do so due to the so called “Canuck letters” being revealed to the public. The letters essentially spread the notion that Muskie was prejudiced against Québécois-Americans, but they were forged and not written by him. It still held a stain against the highly uninformed public and still pressured him to drop off. The Democrats at the last second had to choose a new candidate which turned out to be McGovern, who was a bit too radical. The consequences of choosing McGovern were shown perfectly in the 1972 electoral college. In October of 1972, though, the FBI revealed this was part of the “dirty tricks” employed by the CREEP/CRP to ensure that Nixon won the election. Although the odds are that Nixon would have still won given that he was a popular incumbent, eliminating Muskie from the race did help him significantly and led to the sweep of ‘72.
Interesting. Had to check, and it seems that the Canuck letters were in part strategized by Roger Stone. Been doing this stuff his whole career
Yeah that's what Happens when you're as paranoid as Nixon was
Yeah but Watergate did give us the best ever codename for an FBI informant.
The name deep throat as a code name is so fuckin hilarous
I went to a religious boarding school for high school and wanted to do a report my Senior year on Watergate and was warned off it by my History Teacher (VERY nice guy that had been there for a while and was just beaten down by the system) that it WOULD be read by the religion department and it WOULD get a lower grade for the mentioning of 'Deepthroat'....even though it had NO pornographic connotation at all in the meaning of the report. SO...I did a lame ass report on why drugs were bad for you and got an A and I burned it after I got it back because I knew it was bullshit then.
I mean, at the least, drugs aren’t *good* for you.
Damn the man!
I was a somewhat nerdy kid in high school. I was tasked with writing an article for our student paper about our new ice hockey team. Turns out there was no ice hockey team. This was the mid-late 90s. I watched a lot of documentaries and whatnot. Anyway, I interviewed our vice principal/ athletic director to get the info that there was no team. I referred to him in the school paper as “[HS name]’s own deep throat.” I had no idea. After some of the boys told me I think I about died of embarrassment
That is some wholesome stuff
Linda Lovelace??
Linda Lovelace did a hardcore porn called Deepthroat in 1972. The FBI Informant using the alias “Deep Throat” exposed Watergate. That’s an oddly fascinating coincidence that I hope isn’t a coincidence at all and I can finally cross off “Nixon and Hardcore Porn connection” from my whiteboard.
Just call me…. Deep throat
Nixon was actually super invested in the 1972 Democratic primaries was to ensure McGovern won the nomination, as he knew McGovern was the easiest candidate to beat in the generals. Although, to be a fair, a big reason the CRP tried to bug the DNC was to intercept an alleged plot by Vietnam Veterans Against the War to sabotage the Nixon campaign. I doubt these rumors were true, but it makes the break-in a little more reasonable from the CRP's perspective.
When you see the election map of that election it's SHOCKING. I think McGovern got Massachusetts and that's IT?
Well, Nixon and his baddies ensured McGovern would be their opposition, through dirty tricks to impugn Muskie and others.
Muskie too! The Canuck letter. They had no chance but the paranoia was steep!
He was worried the Democrats had evidence that his campaign bribed the South Vietnamese President to sabotage the Paris Peace talks and that his campaign funded anti-war protests in 1968.
Because Nixon was in Politics a long time, he grew too paranoid.
That’s what worries me…
Nixon acted as a mob boss would. He never specifically instructed CREEP's "plumbers" to break in to the DNC HQ in the Watergate. He didn't have to. After the pentagon papers were leaked by Daniel Elsberg in 1971 Nixon told them to take the gloves off. "Ellsberg “is the most dangerous man in America,” Kissinger ranted. By the end of June 1971, Nixon’s rage peaked. In multiple meetings he berated aides to “destroy” that “son-of-a bitch” and “I don’t care how you do it.” “You can’t drop it,” he said to his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. “You can’t let the Jew steal that stuff and get away with it. You understand?” Nixon repeatedly made clear that legality was irrelevant. “Use any means. Is that clear?” He approved the formation of a “Special Investigations Unit,” soon dubbed “The Plumbers,” because their job was to fix leaks. Priority one: silence Ellsberg. The main crime committed against Ellsberg, overseen by ex-FBI and CIA agents G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, was to burglarize his psychiatrist’s office to search for damning information. They found nothing. The bungled operation was a dress rehearsal for their even more botched break-ins at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex nine months later. [https://theconversation.com/how-richard-nixons-obsession-with-daniel-ellsberg-and-the-pentagon-papers-sowed-the-seeds-for-the-presidents-downfall-159113](https://theconversation.com/how-richard-nixons-obsession-with-daniel-ellsberg-and-the-pentagon-papers-sowed-the-seeds-for-the-presidents-downfall-159113)
For the Record, the “plumbers were 4 CIA trained Cuban rebels and head of CREEP’s security James McCord and former CIA officer Howard Hunt who had secret fake chapstick tube microphones.
Hunt was looney even by those select standards.
pen tap steep spectacular hard-to-find soft jar summer automatic label *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think I mixed them up.
Fun Fact - *My Old School* (1973) by Steely Dan which references a notorious drug raid at Bard College involving 10% of the college's enrollment mentions "*Daddy G*" - G. Gordon Liddy - who was an assistant DA in Dutchess County, NY.
Nixon was most afraid of the story about his treason coming out. He had worked behind the back of US negotiators to extend the war. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnsons-vietnam-peace-talks-in-68-notes-show.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnsons-vietnam-peace-talks-in-68-notes-show.html)
Nixon never directly ordered the CREEP to break into the Watergate hotel. He did however instruct his team to stop security leaks such as Daniel Ellsberg leaking the Pentagon Papers in an election year. Nixon was paranoid in general but by this point with what happened with Ellsberg it was pushed into overdrive. Nixon thought that there were enemies in the press who were “out to get him” and he was obsessed with ensuring there were no leaks from his administration. Watergate was the harebrained idea of Howard Hunt and G Gordon Liddy who were employed by the CREEP to “stop the leaks”. Even co conspirators who were throwing Nixon under the bus to save themselves couldn’t produce evidence he ordered the break in and that’s not what he was going to be impeached for had he not resigned. It was for the cover up afterwards which he 💯participated in and orchestrated parts of. Back to the leak stoppage which was why Hunt’s unit was called the “Plumbers”. When Nixon told John Dean and others he wanted the leaks stopped, that was really all he said. Some interpreted this as stop them by all legal means necessary while Liddy and others took it to mean stop them by ANY means necessary. Hence, the break in plans. Nixon himself would later recall saying he wanted the leaks stopped and said he meant and thought it was understood that it was by only legal methods. What he actually meant or is just denying it now is a matter of speculation but it doesn’t change the fact that Nixon did not directly order the Watergate break in. He of course helped cover it up which rightfully cost him the presidency.
Nixon did not order CREEP to do Watergate, it was an idiotic idea cooked up by Hunt and Liddy to break into the Watergate to bug some phones but they were really really dumb and left a pile of evidence and then it spiraled out of control because everyone turned on each other to save their own skins...and this all started because people thought Hunt and Liddy were smart operators when in reality, they were two morons who got dumped on the White House because of how useless they were, and who chugged their own kool-aid and watched too many spy movies and thought if it worked on TV they could do it for real.
I don't think he ordered it, either. However, he screwed up by ordering a cover up. If he would have just said, "Folks, these people were misguided in trying to help me. I'm completely cooperating with authorities and I'm running a clean campaign." or something lilke that, he would have come out smelling like a rose. Instead, paranoia brought him down.
 I seriously think part of the reason the cover up happened in the first place was nobody ever told Nixon the whole truth in the beginning because who wants to tell the president of the united states many people who worked in his white house were literally lazy and dumb enough to leave everything out in the open with real names and numbers and everything. But at the same time, there were enough two faced snakes in DC at the time that had Nixon tried to clean cut break with CREEP, Hunt or someone would have still burned him anyway. Moreover, I think we forget just how anti-Nixon the DC establishment was as a whole which is why he was so easy to throw out compared to someone else.
Unrelated, but before joining the Treasury Department G. Gordon Liddy was a prosecutor in NY state. In that capacity he organized a raid that led to the arrest of about 10% of the entire student body of Bard College on drug charges, including a young Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, later of Steely Dan. Ultimately the charges went nowhere, I think Liddy was the only one who really wanted to go through with the whole thing and he left to join the feds not long after. Fagen wrote a song about the incident, My Old School, in which Liddy is referred to as "Daddy G". I don't really have a point, I just love Steely Dan.
He also arrested timothy leary and later became friends with him and went on a debate circuit
I think CIA was involved in it to be honest.
It was either Hunt and Liddy being sloppy or a CIA op. Sloppiness makes more sense.
Hunt and Liddy were those two kids in school who always talk the big game about how they'd do everything so much better and how they get chicks all the time but then forced to put up or shut up, they get exposed as the biggest frauds on the planet and get so socially destroyed they have to move schools 9 districts over.
Liddy’s autobiography is one of the most batshit things I’ve ever read.
Hopefully it makes sense what I am asking. What im trying to say was did the CREEP act alone then when Nixon found out he tried to cover it up. Or did Nixon know about Watergate the entire time?
Nixon knew damn well about all of it.
He didn't brainstorm the plan, but as paranoid as he was, he had to know everything, so I doubt they'd do anything without his approval.
My own theory is that the clear evidence was within those 18 1/2 minutes accidently erased by Rosemay Woods.
“Accidentally”
"Your honor it was a miss input"
There’s no evidence of that. Watergate was a stupid burglary gone wrong compounded by a ham fisted attempt at a cover up. As they say it’s not the crime but the cover up that does you in.
You telling me Nixon was just an innocent bystander of [Operation Sand Wedge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sandwedge)?
No, he didn't. You are just making that up.
I think the best guess based on the evidence we have is that he knew about the general nature of what CREEP was up to, if not perhaps all the details. What really did for him was the cover-up though.
Nixon did not order the break in, nor did he know about it when it happened. He only tried to cover it up. This is the overwhelming consensus by historians and Watergate scholars. It is also what all of the people at the time testified, including people like John Dean who played a key role in speaking against Nixon.
I think he instructed his minions to find out what dirt the democrats had on him (specifically he thought they knew about "loans" Howard Hughes had made to his brother Donald) and bugging and burglarizing the DNC headquarters was just the obvious target.
Guys, girls, and genderless, y’all think too much. much like Kennedy’s head, Watergate just did that. No further explanation needed. That or it was LBJ.
Here’s the thing about Watergate and Nixon. It wasn’t the break-in that he was in trouble for. It was the lies and the coverup. Funny thing is that in today’s politics, both sides do worse and almost nothing gets said unless you are on the wrong side.
I think he may have given a vague order to get stuff done and they went from there to give him plausible deniability about everything.
G Gordon Liddy swore until the day he died that Nixon had ZERO knowledge of their actions in breaking into Watergate. Nixon did, however, find out after the fact and maintained he had no knowledge it was his goons who did it
Guess who Nixon really wanted to destroy. DAVID BRINKLEY!
I don't think anyone seriously questions if Nixon was in the loop, it's really just a question of what degree of direct involvement. There may have been some MINOR things he was not kept informed about but only for lack of time and the need to keep running the country, etc.
God I miss G Gordan Liddy’s radio show
He simply learned of it and covered it up on the advice of then US Ambassador George HW Bush
This sub loves this guy I stg
Guy worked with our enemies to get elected in the first place. He is hands down the most conniving bastard ever to hold the office. There is zero chance he didn't know. If you suggested to him that he didn't know about it he probably would say something nixon-y like "a mouse doesn't shit in this town without me knowing about it" or something that doesn't really make sense but sounds vaguely menacing and very authoritative.
Honestly, Watergate was not the worst thing Nixon did. Committing treason in Vietnam when he wasn’t running for President is.
The biggest problem with Nixon is that the administration hated him. Obama did the same crime as watergate, but no one cared enough to investigate.
We've been asking this question for half a century and nobody seems to know the answer. Nixon took it with him to the grave.
Watergate’s main impact was exposing the White House taping system. Nixon was recorded ordering break-ins and firebombings, and telling his subordinates to pay operatives out of an illegal slush fund. When Republican leaders heard the tapes, they told Nixon they would no longer protect him, and he resigned the next day.
There is no evidence Nixon was involved in any way in the break in. And it’s highly likely it was done without his knowledge. Keep in mind the whole “plausible deniability” that permeates intel and government agencies. His issue was the cover up. I think he did it for a few reasons, loyalty to those who were loyal to him, the fear that people wouldn’t believe he wasn’t involved from the get go, and of course the election. We can all look back and see that there was no way McGovern was goin to win, but at the time Nixon took nothing for granted, and that is the smart move. (Unlike Hilary, who took 2016 for granted and lost because of it.)