Watergate and "Russiagate"

The break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., occurred 45 years ago (in June 1972). As virtually everyone knows, repercussions of that single event led to President Nixon resigning in August 1974, prior to almost certain impeachment and removal from office.

THE WATERGATE COVER-UP

As is widely recognized, it was not the Watergate break-in itself that led to Nixon’s resignation. Rather, it was his attempt to cover-up that ultimately did him in. Barry Sassman was city news editor at The Washington Post during those years, and he called it “the great coverup”.

Sassman (b. 1934) authored The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate. It was named by the New York Times as one of the best books of 1974.

In that highly-regarded work, the author wrote, “It is sobering to realize just how reluctant Congress, including Democrats as well as Republicans, was to take action against the President. Congress acted only when an outraged public demanded it” (p. 298)

The impeachment process against Nixon wasn’t formally initiated until February 1974. On Feb. 6 the House passed a resolution giving its Judiciary Committee authority to investigate whether sufficient grounds existed to impeach the President primarily because of the Watergate scandal.

That investigation wasn't undertaken until a whole year after the Senate established a select committee to investigate the Watergate break-in and of the Nixon Administration’s attempted cover-up of its involvement.

Impeachment is a long, drawn-out process.

IS THERE A RUSSIA COVER-UP?

Are there parallels between the actions of the Pres. Nixon and the current POTUS? There certainly seem to be some parallels, but at this point we don’t know to what extent.

Ironically, Pres. Trump tried to make a parallel between his predecessor and Nixon. On March 4, DJT tweeted, “How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

There has been no evidence found to support Trump’s charges—but there has been growing suspicion that he may be trying to cover up his connections with Russia and Russia’s influence on the 2016 election.

During his May 10 monologue, late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel remarked, “When we said Trump should act more presidential, we probably should have specified–we didn’t mean Nixon.” This was the day following Trump’s sacking of FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the FBI probe into Russian election meddling. 

IS THERE A CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT?

The second chapter of Allan J. Lichtman’s book The Case for Impeachment (April 2017) is “The Resignation of Richard Nixon: A Warning to Donald Trump.”

Lichtman (b. 1947) is a Distinguished Professor of History at American University in Washington, D.C. He gained considerable notice last year when he predicted that Trump would win the presidential election—in spite of all the polls suggesting otherwise. What made that prediction noteworthy was the fact that he had correctly predicted every winner of the Oval Office since 1984.

In the second chapter of his book, Lichtman points out that “Donald Trump exhibits the same tendencies that led Nixon to violate the most basic standards of morality and threaten the foundations of our democracy” (p. 21).

On May 12 Lichtman talked to Newsweek about Trump’s sudden firing of Comey. “The only parallel is Watergate, and this is much more serious,” Lichtman said. “What Trump is involved in is more serious because it involves a foreign power and the national security of the country.”

Is it now time for an outraged public, Republicans as well as Democrats, to speak up again as they did in 1974?

Remembering the Summer of 1972

Do you remember the summer of 1972? I assume that most of you who read this do have memories that go back forty years. At the same time, I hope some readers are younger than 45 and will enjoy reading about things before they can remember.

One of the main events in June 1972 was the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Thus began the Watergate scandal, which culminated with President Nixon resigning in August 1974, the first and only time a President has resigned.

Of much less national significance, on June 9, 1972, fourteen inches of rain fell in six hours in western South Dakota, bursting a dam near Rapid City and drowning 237 people. (I am glad a similar thing did not happen last week when June and I spent two nights in Rapid City.)

In July 1972 the Democratic National Convention, held in Miami, nominated Senator George McGovern to be the Democratic nominee for president. I was delighted with McGovern’s nomination, for he was one of the first and strongest congressional opponents to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

McGovern, who turns 90 next month, grew up in and still lives in Mitchell, South Dakota, the town where we spent the night of May 26. One wonders how much different (and better off) the nation would be now if McGovern had won the election of ’72. (The election this fall will also make a great difference in what this nation will be like four years, or forty years, from now.)

In August 1972 the last U.S. ground troops were withdrawn from Vietnam. I don’t know how much that was related to the candidacy of the anti-war Sen. McGovern, but in November Nixon was decisively re-elected President. The end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was not until 1975, though.

All of us remember the past not just because of significant national and world events, such as those mentioned above, but perhaps primarily for personal and family reasons. That is certainly true for me, as the summer of ’72 was an eventful one for my family.

The main event of the summer was the birth of our fourth (and last) child on June 3. (You know you are getting up in years when your youngest child celebrates his 40^th birthday!)

The summer of 1972 was also the end of our first missionary “furlough.” We went to Japan as a family of four in 1966 and came back to the States for the first time in August 1971. We went back to Japan as a family of six, for our second daughter had been born in Japan in 1970.

Not long before leaving for Japan the second time, we had a family gathering at my folks’ farm northeast of Grant City, MO. One of the precious pictures taken that day is of my grandfather (J. Ray) Cousins holding our new baby, Ken. That weekend was the last time we saw Grandpa Cousins, for he died in 1974.

It wasn’t in the summer, but not long after arriving back in Japan, partly in protest to the continuing war in Vietnam (in spite of the withdrawal of ground troops), I began to grow a beard. So this year is, for me, the fortieth anniversary of my beard, which I couldn’t shave off now or I wouldn’t look like me anymore!