35 Years After Nixon

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



35 Years After Nixon
Posted on Aug 9, 2009

By Stanley Kutler


President Richard Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, in the wake of the Watergate scandal and the revelations of his “abuses of power” and obstruction of justice. For his involvement in criminal activities, Nixon earned his unique epitaph: an unindicted co-conspirator.

As the nation watched events unfold from 1972 to 1974, a host of then-famous names passed before us: Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Dean, Mitchell, Colson, Haig, Ziegler, Liddy, Hunt, Kleindienst, Magruder, Agnew, and so on. But the burglars, assorted presidential aides, congressional investigators and prosecutors now have faded into the mists of history—spear carriers at best. Only the principal remains in our consciousness for his achievements and his misdeeds.

In 1974, more than 30 hours of White House tapes proved sufficient to force Nixon’s resignation in the face of certain impeachment. In succeeding years, Nixon maintained that his tapes would exonerate him, yet he fought doggedly (and expensively) to prevent access to the remaining several thousand hours.

Eventually, a successful 1996 lawsuit forced the liberation of his remaining tapes, and secured wide public access to them. The new tapes have magnified and pinpointed Nixon’s criminal liabilities. He openly discussed “hush money” payments to the arrested Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt, one of his “plumbers,” a secret group engaged in break-ins and other illegal activities. H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, reported on Aug. 1, 1972, that “Hunt’s happy.” “At considerable cost,” the president replied. And then hastily added: “It’s worth it, hey have to be paid. That’s all there is to that.” He knew that Hunt “had done a lot of things.” He worried that Hunt’s “plumbers’ ” work—his “earlier venture,” according to Nixon—might be exposed. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090809_35_years_after_nixon/

[Serial Mom]

1. And IMHO, because Ford pardoned this man, we got

at least two evil people, who were mad/upset that the "executive" was forced to resign, that began crafting their plan to get back into office and give the "executive" more power to do whatever they wanted - namely, rummy and cheney!

The failure of nixon began the failure of our society as it was!